By adding a dumbbell to your workouts, you will greatly increase the strength gains you see and will even get a good ab workout. One of the advantages of using a dumbbell of a weight machine is that you will not have the machine to guide you through the movement. This means that you will be forced to work the stomach muscles harder in order to keep the core strong and support the weight in whatever way you are moving it.

Some of the exercises you can perform with a dumbbell include over head presses, chest presses, upright rows, bent over rows, bicep curls, tricep extensions, lateral and frontal raises, squats, lunges, deadlifts and calf raises. If you performed a circuit of those exercises you would have just completed a very good, all-inclusive full body workout.

Finally, another terrific benefit to this piece of equipment is that you can easily use it at home or when you are traveling. This makes sticking with your workout routine so much easier when life gets busy.

Just make sure when you are choosing what weight to use that you do not try and push yourself so hard you cannot maintain proper form throughout the movement. Often individuals will do this as they think that the main goal they should have is lifting a heavier weight. If form is sacrificed however, they are really no better off and could potentially be risking injury.