11 Best Dumbbell Back Exercises – Dumbbell Back Workout
It can be easy to totally miss major muscle groups in your workouts. The back tends to be one of them. (Out of sight, out of mind amiright?) It’s also a breeze to add back exercises to your regular routine and get a strong, sculpted back. (Really!)
All you need is a set of dumbbells, 15 minutes, and some motivation. To help you achieve your back-building and posture goals, “Revenge Body” star Lacey Stone, CPT, put together the best dumbbell back exercises for you to try right at home.
There’s way more than aesthetics going on here. Your back muscles play an essential role in helping you move, stand up straight, and breathe. (Yes, inhaling and exhaling involves the back muscles.) In your workouts, they stabilize your spine and torso to help you bend, rotate, flex, and extend your back, says Stone.
Meet the expert: Lacey Stone, CPT, is a fitness trainer who works with iFit and formerly Revenge Body. Stone has consulted for fitness and sport brands including Nike, Google, Fitbit, Carbon38, Coca-Cola, Reebok, and more.
The muscles in your back are categorized into three groups—superficial, intermediate, and intrinsic—and research suggests that strength workouts, such as dumbbell exercises, can target all of them.
- Superficial muscles help with shoulder and neck movements and assist with moving your upper limbs.
- Intermediate muscles support the respiratory system and thoracic cage (aka your rib cage).
- Intrinsic muscles produce movement in the vertebral column (the bones, muscles, and tendons from your skull to tailbone).
There’s no doubt that a strong back is key for your overall health and wellness, but you need to train it right to enjoy all those benefits. That includes warming up before lifting and maintaining proper form throughout this dumbbell back workout Stone programmed.
Dumbbell Back Workout
Time: 15 minutes | Equipment: Dumbbells (Select a weight that challenges you, says Stone.) | Good for: Back
Instructions: Choose three moves below. For each move, do 20 reps (or 20 on each side for unilateral exercises), then continue to the next move. Repeat the entire three-move circuit three times total. Don’t skip the warm up. “Do the movement patterns that you’re going to do before [you lift] to loosen up your body,” says Stone.
