Gain Size and Strength Using Just Dumbbells with Our Three

Three weekly workouts and two dumbbells is all you need for the best body of your life

Welcome to the Men's Health Dumbbell Club, your new weekly plan for a fitter, stronger body using just two dumbbells.

With workouts lasting from 20-40 minutes, which are designed to add lean muscle, build fitness and increase strength, your weekly dose of dumbbell goodness drops weekly.

We’re moving into the second and final week of our ‘repeat and beat’ phase. This week we’re looking back at our reps, sets and weights from the second week of the ‘Centurion Phase’ (Week 10), with the intention of going bigger, lifting harder, finishing stronger and beating our previous ‘high scores’. With more reps, sets and total volume in the notebook, you’ll be pushing your muscles harder than ever— provoking the principle of ‘progressive overload’, and ensuring that visible growth isn't far behind your new found strength gains.

In the first two weeks of the Centurion Phase your goal was to reach 100 reps of each movement in as few high quality sets as possible. Now, your goal is to get there even quicker, whilst maintaining the same perfect form, muscle-building tempo, and consistent, breath based rest periods.

As an example— if the front squats you performed on day one broke down into sets of-

16, 14, 15, 12, 12, 10, 8, 5, 5, 3

With 15 deep breaths between each effort; your goal this week is to beat each one of those sets, with the same rest between each, resulting in fewer total sets, for the same 100 rep target.

If this is your first week on the programme and you don't want to head back and start from a previous week, simply aim to complete all 100 reps in as few sets as possible, working close to muscular failure, but avoiding a breakdown in form and tempo.

Coach's tip: Use a pen and paper notebook to track your workouts and try to avoid Instagram doomscrolling between sets. Whilst there's nothing inherently wrong with this, staying mindful of your breath and focussed on the reps ahead will help you to optimise your rest, and ultimately— maximise your gains.

After a thorough warm-up grab your bells and get to work. If you have a selection of weights, pick a pair that you clean no more than 15-20 times. Push each set as close as you can to ‘technical failure’ (the point at which your form or tempo begins to break down). Between each effort, tally your reps and focus on taking 10-15 deep belly breaths before jumping straight back in. Continue in this fashion until you achieve 100 reps, then move onto the next movement.

Be sure to record how many individual sets each movement took to complete, this is the number we’ll be attempting to beat in future outings.

Clean your dumbbells onto the front of your shoulders (A). From here, drop into a front squat, by pushing your hips back and bending at the knees until your thighs pass parallel to the ground (B), before driving back up explosively. Keep those dumbbells secured high, with a strong, upright torso throughout.

Stand tall holding your dumbbells at your side. Hinge at the hips to lower them to your knees (A). Stand back up explosively with a slight jump, coming right up onto your toes and using the momentum to pull the dumbbells on to your shoulders (B). Stand up straight, then lower under control to your sides and repeat.

Lay flat on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the ground. Press the weights above you, locking out your elbows (A). Lower them slowly until your upper arms are resting on the floor (B), close to your body, pause here before explosively pressing back up. If you have a bench, use it.

Finally, finish with a bodyweight lung blaster. Step one foot backward and sink into a deep lunge, with your rear knee lightly touching the floor (A). Explode upward, jumping into the air and switching legs mid jump (B) to land in a lunge position with the opposite leg forward. Repeat the movement, alternating legs each rep. Focus on getting as much ‘air time’ as possible, keeping each rep explosive.

As with day one, warm-up adequately and jump straight in. If you have weights to choose from, pick a set of dumbbells or kettlebells that you can't row for more than 20 reps without seriously compromising your form.

Stand tall with your dumbbells at your sides. Hinge forward until your torso is almost parallel to the ground and allow the dumbbells to hang just below your knees (A). Maintaining a flat back, row both dumbbells towards your hips (B), squeeze your shoulder blades down and back before slowly lowering your bells back to the start position. Repeat.

After your final row drop your bells to the ground and assume a long armed plank position, with your core tight and hands gripping your dumbbells (A), bend your elbows and slowly lower your chest to the floor over a strict count of three seconds (B). Keep your elbows close to your body and pause for one second, feeling the deep stretch through your chest as you push back up explosively. Break your set when you can no longer control your descent or explode back up.

With your dumbbells on the floor just outside of your feet, hinge down and grip them with a flat back and neutral spine (A). Engage your lats and stand upright, ‘pushing the ground away’ with your feet, keeping your chest up and black flat throughout (B). Lower them back to the ground in a hinging motion and repeat. Avoid excessive rounding in your lower back, keeping your form tight throughout. When you can no longer keep your form tight, take a rest.

Finally, lets turn up the heat. Lean slightly forward as you squat (A), then explode up, jumping as high as you can (B). Cushion your landing with bent legs, then sink immediately back into another squat and repeat. Aim for the maximum possible height you can achieve on each and every rep, as soon as you start slacking, take a breath.

If you have a selection of weights pick a pair that allows you to perform no more than 15-20 presses in your first set. If you weights are a little on the light side, stick to ‘strict press’ only roping in your legs to help if you start flagging. Be sure to note what set this occurred on though.

Clean your dumbbells onto your shoulders, palms facing in. Take a breath and create tension in your core. (A) Dip at the knees and use your legs to help (B) press your dumbbells overhead. Lower with a strict controlled tempo to your shoulders and repeat. If your weights feel a little too light, don't use any drive from the legs and focus on a strict press from the shoulders.

Stand tall with your dumbbells at your waist, in front of your body. (A) Keeping your core tight hinge forward slightly before explosively standing back upright and pulling the dumbbells up towards your chin, driving your elbows up and back (B). Slowly lower back down to your waist under complete control. Avoid simply ‘dropping’ your dumbbells back to your waist to build more muscle and avoid injury. If your dumbbells feel light, avoid the help from your hips and simply stand tall and pull the weights up to your chin.

Raise your heels up on a weight plate, block or the heads of your other dumbbell. Keep your feet within 6 inches of each other, heels close together. Hold your dumbbell close to your chest. Squat down until your thighs pass parallel to the ground, (A) stand up explosively, stopping just short of locking your legs out to keep the tension on the quads (B). Repeat. Push through the burn on this one, and it will burn.

With both dumbbells on the floor next to you step back and hit the deck into a press-up position. Lower your body until your chest touches the floor (A). Stand back up and jump powerfully over the dumbbells (B) – driving through your hips when you take off. Land and immediately drop to the floor and repeat. The dumbbells keep you accountable for the height of each jump.

With almost 18 years in the health and fitness space as a personal trainer, nutritionist, breath coach and writer, Andrew has spent nearly half of his life exploring how to help people improve their bodies and minds.

As our fitness editor he prides himself on keeping Men's Health at the forefront of reliable, relatable and credible fitness information, whether that's through writing and testing thousands of workouts each year, taking deep dives into the science behind muscle building and fat loss or exploring the psychology of performance and recovery.

Whilst constantly updating his knowledge base with seminars and courses, Andrew is a lover of the practical as much as the theory and regularly puts his training to the test tackling everything from Crossfit and strongman competitions, to ultra marathons, to multiple 24 hour workout stints and (extremely unofficial) world record attempts.

You can find Andrew on Instagram at @theandrew.tracey, or simply hold up a sign for ‘free pizza’ and wait for him to appear.

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