The Mass & Power Resurrection!

Build Massive Muscles and Monstrous Strength with Heavy, Old-School Dumbbell Training

     I don’t know when it happened, or how it happened, but when it comes to strength and power training, we think of barbells and little else.  I’m guilty of this myself.  I’ve written before about using the “two barbell workout.”  It’s a sound theory, don’t get me wrong.  Basically, if you start your workout session, any workout session, with 2 big, compound barbell lifts—say, front squats and power cleans—you can then do whatever else you want for the rest of the workout and you will get great results.  Or, heck, you can just do 2 compound barbell lifts and nothing else at each workout.  But there was a time not that long ago, when the largest, most massive, muscular, and strongest lifters on the planet—the so-called “Bronze era” of the late 19th century, early 20th century—when strongmen did most of their training with dumbbells and not barbells.  They used barbell movements, and plenty of them, but they used just as much, or more, dumbbell movements.  You can still see remnants of this long-gone era in modern strongman competitions when they do heavy, one-arm dumbbell overhead presses or they attempt to lift the “unliftable” Thomas Inch dumbbell.  But for the modern, average gym-goer, dumbbells mean stuff such as high reps, “toning” the muscle, circuit training, isolation movements, or how you train Granny or the rest of the octogenarians down at the local rest home.  In this essay, I’ll try my best to toss that sort of thinking on the trash heap of training that does need to be forgotten.  In its place, I’ll give you reasons to resurrect real dumbbell training.  Despite the fact that it’s a little-used method, using dumbbells instead of barbells for heavy, serious strength and power training has some benefits that really do need to be resurrected.

     As I wrote, implementing the “two barbell rule” is a decidedly sound method for ensuring you build strength, mass, and power.  But its real benefit lies in the fact that you are using two heavy, compound, free-weight (as opposed to machine) lifts that utilizes a lot of your major muscles.  If you start a session with deadlifts and military presses for 5 sets of 5 reps, sure, that’s a great way to begin a workout.  But it would be just as good if you did a 5x5 workout with thick-bar dumbbell deadlifts and dumbbell overhead presses.  In fact, it might be better.  So, first things first, let’s look at why this might be so.  Are there actually some benefits of heavy dumbbell training that make it superior to its barbell counterparts?

     Before we get around to just why I believe dumbbells might be superior, and are superior for certain lifters (such as older guys like myself), let’s take a look at the best methods of training for building mass and power regardless of the implement—barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell, or even band or machine.  This will then help us to further understand the benefits of dumbbells.

     The first essential component is what has already been mentioned—you must train with big, compound lifts.  You need to squat heavy weights, press heavy weights (both overhead work and “bench” work, standing, seated, or lying down), pull heavy weights off the floor (various deadlifts along with all of the “quick” lifts), and also do different “odd” lifts, such as tire flips, sled drags, farmer walks, and stone or sandbag carries, just to name a few.  The better your body “moves through space,” then the better the movement.  Basically, this means that any standing movement is superior to one where you are seated.  It also explains the reason why weighted dips and chins can be so effective, since your entire body moves through space in those exercises.  And it explains why machines pretty much suck at building a lot of mass and power—none of your body moves through space, but is, rather, locked into a very fixed plane of motion, meaning you also don’t build any strength that transfers to athletic components, making machines really inferior for the athlete.

     Full-body workouts are another essential factor.  If not full-body sessions, you should use a split regimen that uses multiple muscle groups.  The more muscle groups, the better when it comes to split training.  At the most, you should use a 3-way split (push/pull/legs, for example), though anything other than a 2-way split isn’t necessary.  If you have yet to train with a full-body program, however, that should be the program you use.  After training full-body for a while, it would be good to then switch over to a split where, say, one day is squats, overhead presses, and curls, and the next session is some sort of heavy pull, bench presses, and chins.

     To get massively big and strong, heed the advice of the legendary Silver-Era bodybuilder and champion weightlifter Marvin Eder.  In an article from Strength & Health magazine in 1953, Eder told the writer, Paul Waldman, that the key to massive strength and power “lies in employing very heavy weights for a great number of sets with low repetitions.”  I have long extolled this method of training.  Let this be your mantra: “big weights, big sets, low reps!”  You can start with 5x5 training, and, as you advance, add more sets.  As I’ve written in my ongoing “Big and Strong” series—I have a 5th part coming at some point—one of the best set/rep combinations for strength and prodigious size is 8 sets of 5 reps.  As your training progresses, you can start using even lower reps.  10 sets of 3 reps works well.  As does 8 to 10 sets of 5, 3, and 2 reps.  A good “rule” is this: When doing between 8 and 10 sets on a lift, your total reps should be somewhere between 30 and 50 when both size and strength are trying to be achieved at the same time.  This keeps your reps from being too low—8 sets of 2 would only be 16 total reps; good for strength but not for hypertrophy—or too high—10 sets of 8 would be good for hypertrophy but not so much for strength.  That is not a hard and fast rule.  5x5 is 25 reps, and that is good for someone not advanced enough yet to handle more.

     The last factor—at least, for the sake of this article—is that the more frequently you can train, the better.  Now, notice that I did not write that the more frequently you train, the better.  Just adding more sets, more reps, more days of training, etc. is not the answer.  You want—to paraphrase great Russian strength coach Vladimir Zatsiorsky—to train as heavy as possible, as often as possible, while remaining as fresh as possible.  Old-school bodybuilders, from the “Golden Age” (of the ‘70s) and before, knew this.  They would start with 3 days per week, full-body workouts.  Using full-body training, they would slowly add sets and then exercises.  Once they reached a point that it was hard to continue adding sets and movements, they switched over to 2-way split training, but still trained each muscle/lift 3 days weekly.

     Putting all of these factors together—compound lifts, full-body workouts, multiple sets of low reps, frequent training—it makes sense that dumbbell training might, just might, be the superior “tool” for your workouts since it, potentially, allows you to recover from all of the above faster than barbell training, though there are other benefits.

     A compound dumbbell lift—dumbbell versions of squats, deadlifts, power cleans, power snatches, various bench presses, overhead work, rows, curls—allows strength to develop completely without one side of the body taking over.  If you only do barbell versions of all of the above, one side of your body will always remain stronger than the other.  You’ve probably witnessed this yourself at the gym when lifters who only do the barbell bench press can never lock out the bar evenly.  Dumbbells work all of the smaller, auxiliary muscles that don’t get worked with barbells alone, allowing you to work your stabilizer muscles and, therefore, fixing any imbalances you might have, or preventing them in the first place.  The fact that you can also do a one-arm version of all the above lifts makes the dumbbell even better.

     Back to recovery.  One of the “issues” with heavy barbell training is that constant lifting can take a real toll on your body.  Dumbbells, not so much.  I discovered this a few years ago, and wish I would have done it sooner.  Around 5 years ago, I decided to do a little experiment.  I simply replaced all of my barbell lifts with dumbbell versions of the same movements without changing anything else.  I was using (as you might expect) a high-frequency training (HFT) regimen.  I think I got such great results because it was easier for me to recover from the dumbbell training.  Because you simply can’t use as much weight on dumbbell movements, your workload naturally lowers without even trying to do so.  This allows you to train frequently with greater ease, something ol’ Zatsiorsky would be proud of!

     Because of both the lower workload and the “nature” of the dumbbell movement (over the barbell version of the same lift), dumbbell training can allow you to still train heavy when overcoming injuries or as you get older.  Those are the primary reasons that I attempted my “dumbbell experiment” in the 1st place.  I wanted to still train heavy, but remain (at least relatively so) injury-free.

     With what we’ve discussed so far, let’s look at a couple of example programs that are dumbbell-centric.  The first one is a HFT routine.  This is almost exactly the kind of workout I did 5 years ago:

Monday:

Dumbbell Front Squats: 3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple

One-Arm Dumbbell Clean and Press: 3-5x2 - work up over 3 to 5 sets (each arm) to a heavy double

One-Arm Thick Bar Dumbbell Deadlifts: 3-5x2 - Work up over 3 to 5 sets (each arm) to a heavy double.  This exercise, unlike deadlifts of the two-handed variety (both barbell and dumbbell) puts far less stress on the lower back and lumbar muscles, therefore making it ideal for such frequent training.

Dumbbell Curls: 3x3 (straight sets)

Tuesday:

Dumbbell Front Squats: 3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple

One-Arm Dumbbell Snatches: 3-5x2 - work up over 3 to 5 sets (each arm) to a heavy double

Weighted Chins:  3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple

Flat Dumbbell Bench Presses: 3x5 (straight sets)

Wednesday:

Dumbbell Power Cleans (two-handed): 3-5x2 - work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy double

Dumbbell Front Squats: 3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple.  Clean two dumbbells so that they rest high on your chest/front delts.  If you have access to ones that are heavy enough, you could also utilize kettlebells.

One-Arm Thick Bar Dumbbell Deadlifts: 3-5x2 - Work up over 3 to 5 sets (each arm) to a heavy double

Thursday: OFF

Friday:

Dumbbell Front Squats: 3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple

One-Arm Dumbbell Clean and Press: 3-5x2 - work up over 3 to 5 sets (each arm) to a heavy double

One-Arm Thick Bar Dumbbell Deadlifts: 3-5x2 - Work up over 3 to 5 sets (each arm) to a heavy double

Saturday:

Dumbbell Front Squats: 3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple

One-Arm Dumbbell Snatches: 3-5x2 - work up over 3 to 5 sets (each arm) to a heavy double

Weighted Dips: 3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple

Weighted Chins:  3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple

Sunday: OFF

     On the following week, you could repeat the routine verbatim, or switch over to some same but different movements.  If you are more of a “low volume lifter,” meaning that you know you respond better to less total work, you can also cut out one of the exercises from each training day, so that you are only using 2 or 3 movements per session instead of 3 or 4.  Conversely, if you know that you respond better to more work (as I discussed in my last article on tailoring your program), you can always add a movement to each day.

     As mentioned above, and in other posts, I’m also a fan of workouts that use higher sets (typically between 8 and 10) per movement.  If you truly want to get monstrously big and strong, especially as a natural lifter, I think this form of training is almost a must.  A program that would work well would be something similar to the following.  In this one, I have included barbell squats—you can use a dumbbell version if you can have access to heavy enough dumbbells—but the other movements are dumbbells.

     When I retired from powerlifting competitions due to multiple injuries, and back/neck surgeries, I used a program very similar to this one in order to become quite massive.  Also, I was 40 when I started training this way, and was completely natural.  The results can be seen on the cover of my book “Ultimate Strength.”

     If I would have known about this kind of training when I was 19 or 20, and totally dedicated to bodybuilding, I wonder just how large I could have gotten.  Of course, I also had the work capacity to be able to handle these workouts once I did take them up, so that must be taken into account.  If you have the work capacity to handle it, and you know you respond well to volume, then consider using a program such as the one below.  It would have also been very similar to what the great Marvin Eder used.

Monday:

Squats: 8 sets of 5 reps.  Do 5 or 6 progressively heavier sets of 5 reps, followed by 2 or 3 top-end sets of 5 with the same weight.  For your final sets, use a weight where you have a rep or 2 left in the tank.  In other words, hard but not all-out.

One-arm dumbbell overhead presses: 8 sets of 5, 3, and 2 reps (each arm).  Do 5 progressively heavier sets of 5 reps, followed by 2 progressively heavier triples, then finish it off with one heavier double.

Alternate dumbbell curls: 8 sets of 3 reps (each arm).  Do 2 or 3 progressively heavier triples, then finish off with 5 or 6 “straight” sets with the same weight.

Thick-bar dumbbell farmer walks: 2 or 3 sets, hard but not all-out.

Tuesday:

Dumbbell deadlifts: 8 sets of 5 reps.  Use the same format as the squats from Monday.

Two-arm dumbbell overhead presses: 8 sets of 5, 3, and 2 reps.  Use the same format as the one-arm presses from Monday.

One-arm dumbbell power snatches: 8 to 10 sets of 3 reps (each arm).  Use the same weight on all sets.

Two-arm flat-footed dumbbell power cleans: 8 to 10 sets of 3 reps, same as the power snatches.

Wednesday:

Repeat the Monday workout

Thursday: OFF

Friday:

Repeat the Tuesday workout

Saturday:

Repeat the Monday and Wednesday workout

Sunday: OFF

     On the following week, do the Tuesday and Friday workout on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, and do the M/W/S workout on T/F.  Alternate back and forth in this manner from week-to-week for however long you run the program.

     This program takes, in the words of Bradley Steiner, a “mature muscle man” who knows his (or her) body well.  You need to know when to push it and when to back off.  Some workouts, you need to take it easy and use less weight from the previous session of the same workout.  Other sessions, when you feel strong, you need to go for some PRs. Most of the workout sessions, however, should probably be “moderate.”  Despite the large amount of work, you should feel good when you leave the gym, as if you could do more if you really needed to.   In other words, this is for the lifter who knows his body well.

     If you want even more workout ideas, then look through the blog, find a workout that you think you would enjoy doing, and simply replace any barbell movements with dumbbell versions.  The workouts, for example, in my article Skill Training as Size Building would work well with dumbbells.  My most popular recent article is my Mass Made Super Simple Regimen, which uses front squats, incline bench presses, and barbell curls.  I think, by replacing those movements with double dumbbell front squats, incline dumbbell bench presses, and standing dumbbell curls, you would have another stellar program.  But those are just examples.  Find a program that you think you will enjoy, you know you will stick with, and one that’s similar to others that have brought you results in the past, and you will be well on your way to making impressive gains.

     In the future, sooner or later, depending on the interest, I will write some more dumbbell programs for mass and power.

     Some programs have been forgotten and should probably stay that way.  But heavy dumbbell training for size and strength needs to be resurrected.  If you’ve grown stale or haven’t made gains recently, it may be just the thing you need to resurrect your muscle growth and strength.

     If you enjoyed this article, then consider purchasing one of my books.  If you want more mass and power programs, then my book “Ultimate Mass and Power” is packed with similar workout routines.  You can also purchase my new book on Bill Starr: “The Strongest Shall Always Survive.”  For more information on it and others, visit the My Books page.  By purchasing my books, you are supporting my work, which allows me to keep Integral Strength alive and kicking!