What's 30 minutes long, requires two dumbbells and builds full-body muscle? This short high-intensity workout. You don't need a gym's worth of equipment to get started, and it'll strengthen your core and raise your heart rate too.
All you need is a set of the best adjustable dumbbells (so you can quickly switch loads between moves) and a yoga mat to improve your underfoot grip. Then you're ready to take on this routine from YouTube duo Juice & Toya.
The workout is split into three groups of six exercises. The first round is bodyweight exercises, then you graduate to one dumbbell, before ending the third group with two weights, working for 25 seconds with a 15-second break between moves.
If you're not sure which load to lift initially, Toya uses 5 and 10lbs dumbbells for the routine, while Juice works out with 10 and 15lbs. Although you can do the session with fixed weights, adjustable dumbbells are especially useful here.
As there's not a long break between exercises (15 seconds), adjustable 'bells mean you can quickly switch loads before the next move, and you can gradually increase the weight as you get stronger over time, in line with the progressive overload technique.
Watch Juice & Toya's 30-minute dumbbell workout
I always love Juice & Toya's workouts because they're effective, easy to follow and the pair demonstration different versions of the same move (standard and with modifications). However, for this one, there are no modifications.
Instead, as Toya explains at the start, if you need to adjust the intensity of the exercise, either lower the load you're lifting or switch to using your body weight alone. There's a common myth that dropping weights is a 'failure', but it definitely isn't.
As someone that's trained with weights for years, the worst mistake I made when first starting out was to lift too heavy. This meant I arched my lower back (hello, back pain) and I didn't focus on my form enough, so I wasn't getting much from the moves either.
So, don't do what I did; if you need to drop the weight that's absolutely okay. You want to stick to the correct form to get the muscle-building effects of the routine. Plus, as it's arranged as a high-intensity resistance training workout, there are other benefits too.
Working your muscles hard in quick bursts and keep breaks to a minimum increases your heart rate, so you burn more energy than during an equivalent steady-paced routine. And, over time, this can increase your metabolism as well.
So, you end up with a muscle-building, core-strengthening, fat-burning, metabolism-boosting workout you can do in less time than it takes to watch an episode of your favorite TV show — and you only need two dumbbells to get started.
