The Only Dumbbell Exercises You Need To Get Strong (Strongman Inspired)

It takes more than squats, bent-over rows and bench press to develop real-world strength. I drew inspiration for today’s video from modern-day strongmen who have taken functional strength to the next level.

To choose the only dumbbell exercises, you need to get strong. We first have to develop a solid foundation, then blend these exercises to create functional strength movements.

One of the exercises strongmen and powerlifters excel at is the deadlift. To do a dumbbell deadlift, you start with the handles of the dumbbells just in front of the shins.

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I find it more comfortable with the dumbbells at a slight angle to my body than parallel, but your hands need to stay in front of your legs as you go up.

This hand position is what makes this exercise different than the suitcase squat, where the dumbbells and your hands stay by your side. The result is your hips will be farther back when doing the deadlift, engaging the glutes and hamstrings as you drive your hips forward to complete the movement.

The stone carry and atlas stones inspire this next exercise. In both of these exercises, you’re required to handle a heavy weight in front of your body, much like when you pick up a box or help a buddy move a couch.

To build strength for this type of movement, we’ll use a goblet squat, where our body works to stay properly aligned with a heavy dumbbell in front of us.

Ways you can upgrade this is to elevate your heels on a couple of plates to help increase the range of motion, and as you get stronger, try 2 dumbbells as it allows you to load the exercise even heavier.

When we come up out of the bottom position of a goblet squat, it mirrors the movement strongmen do when they stand up with an atlas stone.

The farmer's walk is a very popular exercise and straightforward to do with two dumbbells. To upgrade this exercise, I would suggest doing walking lunges. This increases the range of motion and the overall muscle-building effectiveness of the movement.

The truck pull is one of the most impressive of the strongman events. You need strong legs to drive yourself forward with the weight of a semi-truck strapped to your back, or I’ve even seen them pull an airplane.

Back and lat strength is required, too, as some of the pulling power is generated from the upper body as they pull themselves forward using the rope.

To build upper body pulling power, we’re going to do one-arm dumbbell rows, but instead of doing it with one knee on a bench like I traditionally do. We’ll do it standing perpendicular to the bench.

We hinge forward with our hips back, kind of like when we do a Romanian deadlift—placing one hand on the bench. We want to focus on the larger lat muscle.

We do this by thinking about rotating our elbow back toward our hip and pivoting around the shoulder joint instead of pulling the weight straight up, which would use more bicep and take away from the lats.

The log press inspires the next exercise. To accomplish this, you have to combine multiple movements. It starts like a deadlift with the weight in front. Then once he lifts the weight to waist height, he sits down into a front squat. From there, as he squats up, he rolls the weight to shoulder height.

Finally, he push presses the log overhead.

The dumbbell exercise that best emulates this is the hang clean and press. It’s done in one fluid motion without the pauses that the strongmen have when doing a log press, but it starts much the same way with your hips back and the dumbbells in front of your legs just below the knees.

Then you explode up, driving your hips forward. It’s the momentum created by this force with a shrug at the top that brings the dumbbells to shoulder height, not your arms.

You drop into a part squat and push press the weight up overhead.

To get stronger at all these exercises, you need to increase the repetitions or the weight you are using over time.