Whether you’re looking to build some muscle or add a new twist to your workout routine, adjustable dumbbells are a more compact (and usually less expensive) alternative to a full rack of traditional weights.
After lifting thousands of pounds and completing hundreds of reps, we recommend Core Home Fitness’s Adjustable Dumbbell Set — which can go up to 50 pounds faster than you can sneeze — as the best set for at-home use.Lifting weights is not always easy, but the Core Home Fitness Adjustable Dumbbell Set provides a lot of simplicity and can go from 5 to 50 pounds with just a twist of a handle. The weights are also a manageable length, and they get shorter — and therefore more ergonomic to handle — as you reduce the load.
Our complaints about these dumbbells are minor: The weight increments are 5 pounds (rather than the 2.5 pounds found on some others). And like most adjustable dumbbells we tested, the weights require careful alignment to rerack them. The racks sometimes stick when you pick up these weights fully loaded, but the Core Home Fitness model still offers the best, easiest-to-use experience in its price range, making it a great choice for most home gyms.The MX Select MX55 Rapid Change Adjustable Dumbbells come with two handles affixed with two permanent plates, starting you off at 10 pounds. Nine additional plates are stored on each side of a cradle, and weight is added to the handles through a distinct process. You press a release button on each side of the handle, which allows you to turn a separate knob on the top of the handle. Choose your desired weight, press down the knob, and lift up the dumbbell for use.
Although this is done fairly quickly, it’s not as fast as adjusting the Core Home Fitness set. But just like with the Core Home Fitness dumbbells, you have to carefully align the handles back into their cradles — the plates have a ridged design that connects like a puzzle piece into the next plate in line.
Get today’s recommendationLifting weights isn’t some trending social media fitness fad or a hobby reserved for bodybuilders in muscle shirts gulping creatine. Resistance training confers a host of health benefits including protecting joints from injury. The US Department of Health and Human Services’s Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion recommends (PDF) that American adults complete a minimum of two muscle-strengthening sessions per week. Such regular training can pay huge (no pun intended) dividends. “Engaging in one hour of resistance training every week has the ability to lower your risk for metabolic syndrome or even cardiovascular morbidity,” said exercise physiology and nutrition expert Nathaniel Jenkins.
One way to reach those goals is to use free weights such as standard dumbbells or kettlebells. (Resistance bands can also do the trick.) But as you get stronger, you’ll find that you need to add more weight (or resistance) to achieve the maximum benefits. “The only reason the body adapts is because it’s challenged beyond its present capacity,” exercise scientist Brad Schoenfeld told us. “If the weights are too light, you can’t do that.”
If you’re committed to weight training at home, investing in a set of adjustable dumbbells — two handles that each allow you to load them incrementally with weights usually totaling up to 50 pounds or more — can save you money and space. A full set of traditional dumbbells can be prohibitively expensive and require the same amount of storage space as a small bookcase.
Up to 50 pounds per dumbbell may seem like a lot of weight. But even a novice exerciser is usually capable of deadlifting a load equal to their body weight for at least one rep after proper training, so 50 pounds per weight ends up making sense for most people. If you’re an experienced lifter and you would like more than 50 pounds per dumbbell, we have recommendations for you, too.
Source: Nytimes.com
