19 Best Dumbbell Exercises to Target Every Muscle Group

Benefits of Floor Presses

While I generally recommend purchasing a weight bench for your home gym, I love floor presses for the simple fact that they bring all the benefits of bench press without requiring another expense. Adding floor presses to your dumbbell workout routine can increase strength in your chest, triceps, deltoids. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Floor Presses

• Flaring the elbows too far out to the side, which can strain the shoulders
• Bouncing your elbows off the floor
• Pressing too fast and losing control, rather than moving the weights in tandem

How to Do a Floor Press

1. Start by lying on the floor with one dumbbell in each hand.
2. Hold the dumbbells directly over your chest with your elbows resting on the floor at 45 degrees.
3. Push the dumbbells up over your chest until they meet in the center, then slowly return to your starting position.

Benefits of Dumbbell Flyes

Most people use this move for aesthetics since it’s one of the only exercises that can isolate the upper and lateral pec muscles. However, the dumbbell fly also increases overall upper body strength and teaches you how to move your scapula (shoulder blades) in a healthy pattern.  

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Dumbbell Flyes

• Lowering the dumbbells too far and straining the shoulder joints
• Excessively bending the elbows
• Using too much weight and turning the movement into a press

How to Do a Dumbbell Fly

1. Start by lying on your back with your upper back on the edge of a bench.
2. Hold a dumbbell in each hand with your arms extended over your chest.
3. Slowly lower your arms out to the side, being careful not to let the dumbbells go past your shoulders.
4. Return to the starting position and repeat.

Benefits of Standing Upward Chest Flyes

Upward chest flyes can contribute to well-developed pec muscles. They also strengthen your anterior deltoids, or the front of your shoulders.

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Upward Chest Flyes

• Using momentum and swinging the weights instead of controlling the movement with your muscles
• Shrugging the shoulders during the movement
• Letting the weights fall instead of controlling the lowering phase

How to Do a Standing Upward Chest Fly

1. From a standing position, hold dumbbells by your side with your palms facing forward (underhand grip).
2. Keeping your core engaged, bring the dumbbells up at a diagonal to meet in front of your chest.
3. Slowly lower back to the starting position and repeat.

Benefits of Dumbbell Bent Over Rows

This is one of the best muscle-building exercises for your back. It targets your entire back from your traps to your lumbar muscles thanks to the hip-hinge position. It’s an extremely functional exercise—one you mimic doing everyday activities such as picking up a heavy box from the ground.  

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Dumbbell Rows

• Rounding the back instead of maintaining a neutral spine position
• Using momentum to lift the weights
• Failing to control the lowering phase of the movement

How to Do a Dumbbell Bent Over Row

1. While standing, hold one dumbbell in each hand by your side.
2. Start by bringing yourself into a hinge position and bend at the waist to 45 degrees, keeping the core tight, back flat and knees slightly bent.
3. Bring the dumbbells up towards your ribcage, squeezing behind the shoulder blades.
4. Return to the starting position and repeat.

Benefits of Seated Dumbbell Reverse Flyes

In addition to sculpting your back muscles, seated reverse flyes reinforce healthy scapular movement (movement of the shoulder blades) through repeated contracting and releasing. Doing the movement seated eliminates pressure on the lower back and hamstrings. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Seated Dumbbell Reverse Flyes

• Shrugging the shoulders too much
• Excessively bending the elbows and turning the movement into a row
• Using too much momentum and swinging the weights up

How to Do a Seated Dumbbell Reverse Fly

1. Sitting on the edge of a chair or bench, hinge forward at the hips until your body is at 45 degrees.
2. Hold dumbbells by your side with your palms facing each other.
3. Bring your arms up to the side with your palms down, like you are flapping your wings, squeezing behind the shoulder blades as you lift.
4. Return arms to starting position and repeat.

Benefits of Dumbbell Renegade Rows

A challenging exercise, renegade rows dually target the upper back and the core. Core engagement and stability are key. Your legs and glutes will also engage, making this a full-body strengthening exercise. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Dumbbell Renegade Rows

• Turning your body rather than maintaining a neutral back position
• Raising or dropping the hips, rather than maintaining a flat plank position
• Dropping the weights instead of controlling the lowering phase

How to Do a Dumbbell Renegade Rows

1. With dumbbells on the floor, prop yourself up into a plank position with your hands on the dumbbells.
2. Make sure your wrists are stacked directly under your shoulders.
3. Holding a plank, bring one arm up into a row, using the muscles of the core and back to maintain stability.
4. Return the dumbbell to the floor and repeat on the other side.

Benefits of Dumbbell Bicep Curls

Curls help you build bigger biceps, yes, but they can also strengthen the muscles needed to stabilize your wrist and elbow joints, as well as increase grip strength. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Dumbbell Bicep Curls

• Leaning your body and using momentum to lift the weights
• Failing to control the weight throughout the entire movement
• Using a partial range of motion instead of fully lowering the weight after each rep

How to Do a Dumbbell Bicep Curl

1. From a standing position, hold dumbbells in front of your body with palms facing away from you.
2. Keeping your core tight with a slight bend in the knees, bend at the elbow to bring the dumbbells up toward your shoulders .
3. Return to the starting position and repeat without changing your body position.

Benefits of Hammer Curls

Hammer curls target your biceps and forearms just like regular dumbbell curls, but because of the angle of the lift, your forearms and wrists get more recruitment. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Hammer Curls

• Bending the wrist too much
• Swinging the weights or leaning to the side to use momentum
• Lowering the weight too fast instead of controlling the entire movement

How to a Do Hammer Curls

1. While standing, hold a dumbbell in each hand by your side with palms facing inward toward your hips.
2. Bring your hands up toward your shoulders, bending at the elbows.
3. Return to the starting position and repeat.

Benefits of Lying Skullcrushers

This is a push exercise that isolates your triceps, which translates to any other pushing exercises as well as tons of everyday activities. Also, when done correctly, skullcrushers help stabilize the elbow by strengthening the muscles that surround the joint.  

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Lying Skullcrushers

• Letting the elbows flare out too much
• Using more weight than you can safely control
• Using an unsafe, open grip that increases the risk of dropping the weight on yourself

How to Do a Lying Skullcrusher

1. Lying on the floor, hold one dumbbell with both hands, palms on each side.
2. Start with the dumbbell directly over your face and slowly bend at the elbows, lowering it above your head.
3. Extend the dumbbell back up toward the ceiling and repeat.

Benefits of Standing Tricep Extensions

In addition to strengthening and building muscle in your upper arms, standing triceps extensions are great for practicing core engagement: With your arm overhead, make sure to keep your pelvis tucked to prevent your lower back from hyperextending. This exercise also helps with flexibility in your lats (the large muscles along your back that run from your rib cage to your hips).

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Standing Tricep Extensions

• Arching the lower back instead of bracing the core to maintain a neutral spine position
• Moving too fast and failing to control the weight
• Using a partial range of motion instead of locking out each rep at the top

How to Do a Standing Tricep Extension

1. From a standing position, hold the dumbbells by your side with your palms facing your body. Hinge forward, keeping your elbows close to your hips. 
2. Extend your arms straight behind you, squeezing through the triceps at the end of the movement. 
3. Bend the arms, bringing the dumbbells back towards your shoulders and repeat for reps. 

Benefits of Seated Shoulder Press

The primary benefit of the seated dumbbell shoulder press versus its standing counterpart is that sitting down for the pressing motion reduces the possibility of compensation in the core. That is, you get all of the benefits of standing presses—shoulder strength and development—with a lower probability of hyperextending your back and tricking yourself into thinking you can move more weight than you really should.   

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Seated Shoulder Presses

• Flaring the elbows out too far to the wide, or behind you, which may strain the shoulder joint
• Using more weight than you can safely handle
• Letting the weight drop quickly, instead of controlling the lowering phase

How to Do Seated Shoulder Press

1. Sitting on the edge of a bench, box, or chair, hold a dumbbell in each hand at shoulder level with your palms facing forward. 
2. Holding your arms out to the side at 90 degrees, slowly push up overhead until the arms are straight. 
3. Bring back down to shoulder level and repeat. 

Benefits of Lateral Delt Raises

Lateral delt raises can help you build boulder shoulders, for sure, but more importantly, they can strengthen the muscles that protect your shoulder joint, reinforce core engagement, and emphasize elbow stability. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Lateral Delt Raises

• Swinging the weights instead of controlling the entire movement
• Leaning forward or backward to create momentum
• Locking the elbows or bending them too much instead of maintaining a slight bend

How to Do Lateral Delt Raises

1. While standing, hold dumbbells by your side with your palms facing your body.
2. Keeping your core tight with knees slightly bent, lift the dumbbells up to the side until you reach shoulder height. Maintain the angle of your elbow throughout the lift. 
3. Return to the starting position and repeat. 

Benefits of Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts

Romanian deadlifts isolate the hip hinge, resulting in intense activation of the hamstring muscles and glutes. This helps form developed legs, as well as increase strength for power-based exercises like cleans and box jumps. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts

• Arching the back too much, rather than maintaining a neutral spine
• Letting the knees travel forward, rather than moving through your hips
• Allowing the dumbbells to drift forward too much

How to Do a Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift

1. In a hinge position, arms straight toward the floor, hold a dumbbell in each hand, palms facing your shins.
2. Keeping a slight bend in the knees with your core engaged bring yourself to standing squeezing through the glutes.
3. Hinge forward to return to the starting position and repeat. 

Benefits of Dumbbell Front Squats

The benefits of any type of squat are many, ranging from hip and ankle mobility to lower body strength and core stability. Front squats, in particular, require more engagement from the core and upper back.

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Dumbbell Front Squats

• Leaning forward instead of keeping your torso upright
• Lifting your heels and pressing through the front of your feet instead of driving your heels into the ground
• Shortening the movement instead of squatting through a full range of motion

How to Do Dumbbell Front Squat

1. Stand with your feet shoulder-width or hip-width apart, feet slightly turned out. Hold a dumbbell in each hand, resting one head of the dumbbell on your shoulder. Point your elbows out in front of you. (Another variation is the goblet squat, where you hold just one dumbbell with both hands in front of your chest.)
2. Sink your hips back into a squat as if you are going to sit in a chair. Make sure to keep your back straight during the entire descent. 
3. Keeping your weight in your heels, return to standing, squeezing the muscles of the glutes as you stand. 

Benefits of Dumbbell Walking Lunges

Life happens one leg at a time. Walking lunges train your lower body in patterns it’s likely to see in real life. Plus, the applications are endless. You can use heavy dumbbells to build strength, or you can toss high-volume sets of walking lunges into HIIT dumbbell workouts for conditioning. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Dumbbell Walking Lunges

• Leaning your torso forward too much
• Moving too fast and slamming your knees into the ground
• Using your back foot to push instead of driving through your front heel

How to Do Dumbbell Walking Lunges

1. From a standing position, hold a dumbbell in each hand by your side.
2. Taking a big step forward, bring yourself down into a lunge, lowering the back knee toward the floor. 
3. Shift your weight into your front foot and step forward with the other leg to continue lunging across the room. 

Benefits of Russian Twists 

This exercise targets your oblique muscles, which most core exercises don’t do. However, it still recruits your other abdominal muscles, as well as your hip flexors, to promote overall strength and stability in your core. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Russian Twists

• Rounding your lower back during the movement
• Using momentum and twisting too quickly, instead of keeping your abs tight and controlled
• Using your arms to move instead of rotating your torso to engage the core muscles

Benefits of Woodchoppers

Few exercises train rotational movement patterns like this wood chop exercise. This action teaches you how to move your body through an extended range of motion without compromising the stability of your spine. It also strengthens your arms, shoulders, core, and upper back. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Woodchoppers

• Swinging the weight too much instead of controlling the entire movement
• Using only your shoulders and arms instead of rotating and engaging the core muscles
• Relaxing your core muscles rather than bracing them and using them to help rotate the torso

How to Do a Dumbbell Woodchopper

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart holding a dumbbell in both hands in front of your body. 
2. Rotate to one side, bending the knee to bring the dumbbell to the outside of your leg. 
3. Keeping the core tight, bring the dumbbell across your body above your opposite shoulder, straightening the legs as you do this. 
4. Repeat on the same side and then switch sides.