Are dumbbells enough or do you need a barbell too?

Don't rule out bodyweight exercises as well into your lifting routine.

Have a look at You Are Your Own Gym or Body By You by the same author; Mark Lauren.

For example, for pushing, a variation on a push-up, depending on your current strength, pike push-ups, close handed push-ups, followed by chair tricep dips, mixed in with DB shoulder press or DB bench press - safer if you are working alone than having a barbell across your ribs.

For pulling, inverted rows and chin-ups or pull-ups, mixed in with DB rows and DB curls.

The barbell does come into its own for leg exercises - squats definitely as you can squat far more weight with a barbell across your shoulders than carrying two heavy DBs in your hands because your grip goes first. For legs though, I realised I would never be able to afford enough barbell discs to squat enough weight at home so I opted to learn bodyweight leg work: Bulgarian Split Squats ->Single Leg Squats -> Pistol Squats, and that's all the leg strength work anyone is likely to need if their honest.

It's not a case of one or the other - have the best of both!

Craigs list is your friend when looking for weight sets . most people just want them out of the way ..

which is better dumb bells or bars ????

You don't absolutely need a barbell unless you're lifting pretty damn heavy. But the heavier your weights get, the easier your life will be with a bar. You'll also need a squat rack.

Heavy deadlifts and squats are better exercises with a bar.

Most other lifts are actually better with dumbbells, but once dumbbells get heavy, they get awkward to handle. Using a barbell lets you concentrate more on the lifts and not just wrestling a damn 50-pound dumbbell into starting position.

Unless you're planning to become an advanced lifter, a 300-pound starter Olympic barbell set, 7-foot bar with a 600-pound limit will last you a lifetime. You can probably get away with less, but I'd be willing to bet you can find an Olympic set on craigslist for the same price as a crappy 120-pound standard weight set. But if you can't find an Olympic set, a standard set will probably be adequate. Just make sure any rack you buy will fit your bar.

If you want to be able to drop a loaded bar (using bumper plates), do some homework and spend money on a high quality bar.

Having to buy more and more weightplates and being concerned about having to buy a squat rack at some point and where was I going to house that when my garage serves as a gardening shed as well as a home gym was the first reason why I started to look at bodyweight movements and I'm now very pleased with the results I am getting from a combination of bodyweight, dumbbells, pull-up bar and various other bits like sandbags.

In my discipline of yoga it is good to train in such a way that the stabiliser muscles are also challenged so it serves me better to say train in pistol squats rather than muscle up under a squat bar. different strenths for different goals but equally valid.

only do dumbbells u can get sets like if u get 2 4 lb dumpbells and 2 6 lb dumbbells so u can move up in wts but u dont want to do too heavy of wts cause u will get too many musces

6 lbs weights won't build too many muscles.

barbell ftw
everything you do with DB's, you can do with a barbell & plates

I started with dumbbells (and I was so lacking in strength when I started that I used 2 pound dumbbells). I am up to 7 pound dumbbells and will probably go to 10 soon. My understanding is that women usually peak out at 25 pound dumbbells and then they must go to barbells to get heavier workouts--don't know if this is true or not. I would agree with the poster who talked about body weight exercise. I don't use a barbell yet because I need to take a few lessons and I haven't had time. But body weight exercise is pretty safe (I have arthritis and am concerned about hurting myself). I do wall pushups (the further out from the wall you stand, the more weight you push). I also do pullups at the pool--I grab one of the rungs on one of the starting platforms at the deep end of the pool. It has done a LOT for my arms, chest, shoulders and upper back. I have found muscle work to be superior to cardio for fat burning.

dumbbells are nice in the fact that you will train both sides equally - and you generally don't have to push as much weight (for instance my DB bench is much less then my barbell bench) And you certainly can have an effective program using just dumbbells

that being said barbells allow you to push more weight - and movements like the deadlift and squat I believe are really meant to be done with a barbell. If you have access to barbells then dont be shy about approaching them, once you get comfortable with the movements its nice to push as much weight as you can - and it does have the advantage with bench where you dont have to set up with the dumbbells

TLDR: if you have access to them dont be shy, but if you don't no worries you can build a great program with dumbbells

you can do very well with dumbbells and bodyweight exercises....especially with a set of adjustable dumbbells like the powerblocks you're hoping to get for your birthday. I'm not sure if you ever heard of metabolic resistance training, but the concept is doing a full body resistance and fat burning workout by doing supersets with non-competing muscles. The idea is that your heart rate goes up as you do the first exercise of the superset, and you exhaust that muscle.....so when you do the second half of the superset with a muscle that isn't exhausted, you're also pushing your heart rate.....and if you believe in the benefits of HIIT (where you get your heartrate to near max levels during the work interval, and then let it drop down in the rest intervals)....you will appreciate how MRT gives you some of the same cardio benefits of a HIIT workout while also adding resistance training (assuming you use heavy weights where you're doing 5-8 reps). Here are some supersets I do in my MRT routine (with my adjustable dumbbells, some bodyweight work, a stability ball and a pull-up bar (although there's a variation on pull-ups you can do without the bar)):

1. flat bench + goblet sumo squat (that's the wide stance squat, with toes pointed out, so when you squat down you look like a sumo wrestler...and you hold one dumbbell like a goblet in front of you).

2. incline bench + dead lift (dead lift with dumbbells on the side of you).

3. flat fly + single legged BW squat (you can use a dumbbell if you want, but do them first with BW only to get the form down).

4. chin-ups (or reverse lat pull-ups...where you lay on the floor, grab a pole that you line up between 2 chairs, and pull yourself up pivoting on your heels) + double legged jumping kickbacks (no weight for these suckers...you jump, kick both legs to your butt, and come down)

5. shoulder press + one arm rows

6. decline fly + squat and press (hold weights in bottom shoulder press position as you squat down....and, as you come up, press the weights up as if you're doing a shoulder press...then bring weights back down as you squat down. do lighter weight on this until you get the form down so you don't hurt your back)

7. bicep curl + one arm skull crusher (for triceps) + stability ball leg curl

8. I usually throw together a circuit of ab exercises

9. If you really want to finish this thing off....go outside and run 6 sprints. 10-15 seconds each where you're going max effort, max speed, pushing from your *kitten*. rest between each sprint so your heartrate comes back down. If you worked hard through the supersets, and you do the sprints the right way (going all out, pushing from the *kitten*...something that cannot be safely done on the treadmill), the sprints will both exhaust you and feel like your body is literally pulling the fat from your ribs.

p.s. don't do this workout on consecutive days.