12 Most Underrated Dumbbell Exercises to Improve Your Workout Routine Now

Why It’s Great: Renegade rows are both convenient and challenging, allowing you to get a full-body exercise in one succinct movement.

Muscles Worked: Performing the row portion of movement targets your triceps and the rhomboids of your upper back, while holding the high plank position provides activation in your core muscles like the obliques, the legs, and the glutes.

How to Do It:

1. Select your dumbbells and place them on the floor. Assume a high plank/push-up position, holding the dumbbells instead of placing your palms on the floor.
2. Make sure your wrists are stacked directly under your shoulders. 
3. Row one dumbbell upward to your chest, tightening your core to maintain stability.
4. Slowly return to the starting position and repeat for the other side.
5. Repeat as needed.

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Why It’s Great: The devil’s press is great for the same reason it’s awful; it’s essentially the combination of a burpee and a dumbbell to overhead swing.

Muscles Worked: This compound movement recruits multiple muscle groups including the quads, hamstrings, glutes, and the muscles of your posterior chain.

How to Do It:

1. Start in a standing position with your feet approximately shoulder-width apart and two dumbbells on the floor at your feet.
2. Lower your upper body to the floor and grab your dumbbells. Jump or step your feet back as you bring your chest to the floor in between the dumbbells. This part will look nearly identical to performing a burpee.
3. Push up from the floor and step or jump your feet back up to your hands, as you would during a burpee. If possible, jump your feet outside your dumbbells to make the next part easier.
4. Stand, but remain hinged at the hip with your chest parallel to the floor. Swing the dumbbells behind you between your legs, as you would during a kettlebell swing, and bring them overhead in one fluid motion by driving from the hips and standing tall.
5. Slowly return the dumbbells to the floor. Keep the weights and your elbows close to the body and maintain a flat back as you return to the floor to cycle into the next rep.
6. Repeat as needed.

Why It’s Great: The Bulgarian split squat is a tough one, but it’s one of the best exercises for your legs, improves mobility, and requires little to no equipment to get in a set.

Muscles Worked: The movement itself will tax your quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves, while the farmer’s hold component requires strong forearms, grip, and core strength to keep your balance.

How to Do It:

1. Stand in front of the bench, facing away from it with a dumbbell in each hand. If you don’t have a bench, a box, step, or other elevated object will work as a substitute. 
2. Place one foot on the bench behind you. You want to be far enough away from the bench that your front knee makes a 90-degree angle at the bottom of the movement. 
3. While keeping a vertical chest, bend the knee of your planted foot and lower yourself into a squat. You will feel a stretch in the quad of your benched leg.
4. Lightly tap the back knee on the ground, if possible, then come up by pressing through the front heel and extending the hip on that side. 
5. Repeat for desired reps and then switch sides.

Why It’s Great: The dumbbell farmer’s carry, also called the “farmer’s walk,” is a classic strongman exercise that hits most major muscle groups while simultaneously providing cardio stimulus for improved conditioning.

Muscles Worked: The farmer’s carry hits nearly every muscle group in your body, providing activation to the biceps, triceps, forearms, shoulders, upper back, trapezius, quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, lower back, obliques, transverse abdominis, and rectus abdominis.

How to Do It:  

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart and a dumbbell outside of each foot. 
2. Pick up each dumbbell with a neutral grip and stand tall with your shoulders down and back, your core tight, and your back flat. 
3. Maintaining a strong posture, start walking. Take small, slow steps and focus on holding your form instead of rushing through sloppily. 
4. Walk for the desired distance or duration.
5. Carefully set down the dumbbells. Rest and repeat as needed.

Why It’s Great: The dumbbell pullover is a great movement that hits various areas of your back and chest, helping you build muscle and sculpt a great upper body.

Muscles Worked: Dumbbell pullovers mainly work the pec muscles in your chest, but they also hit the lats, teres major, triceps, serratus anterior, and anterior deltoids.

How to Do It:  

1. Grab a bench or something sturdy to lay on. Position yourself perpendicular to it.
2. Place your upper back on the bench with your feet planted on the floor. Your thighs should be parallel to the ground and your shins should be vertical.
3. Hold the end of a heavy dumbbell with both hands and hold it over your chest with your elbows bent slightly. This is your starting position.
4. Take a deep breath as you lower the dumbbell by moving your arms back behind your head.
5. Exhale as you slowly return to the starting position.
6. Repeat as needed.

Why It’s Great: The Turkish get-up is an advanced technical exercise that provides a total body workout that requires slow and controlled execution, making it one of the most underrated exercises out there.

Muscles Worked: As you stand during the Turkish get-up, you’ll feel the burn in your lower body including the hip flexors, glutes, hamstrings, calves, and lower back muscles, while holding the free weight overhead will target areas like the lats and traps.

How to Do It: 

1. Start out lying on your back with the dumbbell in one hand. For the purposes of our instruction, we’ll use your right hand. Extend your right arm straight upwards. Extend your left arm straight out to the side on the floor, while your left leg rests extended and your right knee bends with your foot planted firmly on the floor. This is your starting position.
2. Push through the right foot, coming up onto your left elbow. Continuing pushing the dumbbell upward, maintaining tension in your right arm.
3. Push into the floor with your left hand, raise the hips off of the floor and bring your left leg underneath reaching a half-kneeling position on the left knee. You will have three points of contact with the floor at this time: your right foot, left knee, and left hand. 
4. Sit up tall in the half-kneeling position, removing your left hand from the floor. The dumbbell in your right hand should now be directly overhead pushing, similar to the end position of a shoulder press. Swing your left foot so that it is facing the same direction as the right foot. 
5. From this position, stand up, pushing from the right heel.
6. Reverse these steps to return to the lying position, starting by stepping back into a lunge to return to a half-kneeling position. The rep is completed when you return to the starting position on the ground.
7. Repeat as needed. You may complete all reps on one side before switching sides or alternate sides each rep, depending on your personal preference and goals.

Why It’s Great: RDLs isolate the hip hinge, building strength in the core and lower body while simultaneously translating into explosive power for cleans, box jumps, and sports performance.

Muscles Worked: Dumbbell Romanian deadlifts are excellent for the posterior chain muscles, including the erector spinae, gluteus maximus, hamstrings, and adductors.

How to Do It:

1. Stand hip-width apart with a dumbbell in each hand. Hinge at your hips with your arms fully extended to the floor and your palms facing your shins. The hinge position is your starting position for this exercise.
2. Maintaining a flat back, tight core, and slightly bent knee, stand up straight. Squeeze your glutes at the end of the movement.
3. Hinge forward and slowly return to the starting position.
4. Repeat as needed.

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Why It’s Great: Dumbbell thrusters are a fantastic compound movement, combining everything good about dumbbell squats and overhead presses in one fluid motion.

Muscles Worked: The squat portion of the thruster will hit various muscles in your lower body, including your glutes, quads, and hamstrings, while the explosive upward motion and overhead press will recruit the core, back, triceps, and shoulders.

How to Do It: 

1. Standing shoulder-width apart, hold a dumbbell in each hand at shoulder height.
2. Holding a tight core, lower your body into a deep squat position.
3. From the bottom of your squat, push from your heels and explode back into a standing position.
4. Use the force to propel the dumbbells overhead. Straighten your arms and extend your head forward so that your ears come in front of your biceps. The dumbbells should reach the overhead position due to the force generated by your legs and hips, not by pushing with your arms like a strict shoulder press.
5. Squeeze your glutes at the peak of the movement. 
6. Lower the dumbbells back to their starting position as you cycle into the next rep fluidly.
7. Repeat as needed.