How much should the dumbbells weigh for strength training?

bismah55

I'm a female, 5'3 and weigh around 135 lbs.
I'm going to focus on strength training as opposed to cardio now in order to lose weight.
I've done a bit of it at the gym before, and I would usually use a 7-8lb dumbbell. But is that a too low of a weight of a dumbbell to begin with for strength training?
Any idea on what weight dumbbells I should use to get adequate results from strength training? Thanks.

Yanicka1

If you can lift that weight for more than 6-8 reps, it is too light.

dlbinin

I've been stalking posts about this too. Just in "research" stage right now. I'm intrigued by this. Do you have to belong to a gym to do this? Is it possible to do it at home?...with the purchase of weights of course.

Mighty_Rabite

^That.

It's good to start off lighter, but you may want a variety spanning into some heavier numbers depending on what kinds of moves you do with the dumbbells. You'll almost surely want to do dumbbell squats with heavier dumbbells than, say, bicep curls, for instance.

And yes, you can definitely do strength training at home with dumbbells. I actually more or less "learned" through P90X myself, and it is pretty much the root cause to my dumbbell collection (even despite the fact that I mostly work out at the gym now).

Yanicka1

I suggest reading the book "the new rules of lifting for women" even if you do not do the workout in it it will answer all your questions about strength training.

Plates559

depends on the lift, I can do a static front raise with like 10 pounds, or I can do a Kroc row with 120 pounds.

Jester522

It's been proven the most effective way to stimulate hypertrophy (somatic muscle growth) is training to failure. This means doing as many reps as it takes to make the last one physically impossible to perform. Really you can do this with lighter weight but who wants to do 3 sets of 30 reps? That's also ineffective in building strength and just wastes time. Keep in the 6-8 rep range with a 45-60 second rest period 2-3 sets. Stay with big motions like barbell rows, lat pulldowns, squats, bench press, overhead....

Training to failure stimulates the most testosterone and IGF release during training without over doing it to ellicit a real high cortisol response. It also keep epinephrine high as an agonist for the cAMP cycle in adipose tissue to metabolize triglycerides when glycogen is depleted (which doesnt take long in strength training.) Don't worry about my test comment (as many would shreek immediately)... women only possess 1/16 the concentration of men. Or, in my case, 1/32...lol, I kid.