The 8 Best Lower Body Dumbbell Exercises For Muscle Growth

Using dumbbells to train your lower body will be a great way to progress in both strength and muscle gain. Thats because dumbbells are one of the most effective tools for acheiving these aims, with so many different lower body movements that we had condense them down to just 8.

4 min read
Sean Klein
Written by
Sean Klein
Published on
09/06/22
Last updated
12/01/23
In This Resource
  • Benefits Of Dumbbell Lower Body Training
  • Improved Aesthetics
  • Effective For Muscle Growth
  • Increase Strength
  • Training Considerations
  • Hypertrophy (Muscle Growth) Protocols
  • The 8 Best Lower Body Dumbbell Exercises For Muscle Growth
  • Sample Lower Body Dumbbell Bi-Set

Benefits Of Dumbbell Lower Body Training

Improved Aesthetics

  • If your just trying to look better or your preparing for a show, muscle gain will be a key part of improving your aesthetics and dumbbell lower body exercises will be one of the main tools you use to acheive this aim.

    • Effective For Muscle Growth

  • Dumbbells are probably second only to the barbell for muscle growth. They allow overload of almost every muscle group and don’t require as much stabilisation as the kettlebell making them more effective in some instances. If your goal is to put on muscle, you will likely have a large number of dumbbell exercises in your workout routine.

    • Increase Strength

  • Heavy dumbbells are a little less effective than heavy barbells, but they can still be a very useful tool to increase strength. Also the muscle put on through the hypertrophy training will help with increasing strength.

    • Training Considerations

    Hypertrophy (Muscle Growth) Protocols

  • Using high volume through each movement pattern will be crucial to gaining muscle. This will mean doing 8-12+ working sets for each movement pattern / muscle group. When writing your training plan, ensure that each muscle group is getting the volume it requires to grow. Yes that means lots of squats and deadlifts!

    • The 8 Best Lower Body Dumbbell Exercises For Muscle Growth

    Primary
    Lower Body
    Squat
    Primary
    Lower Body
    Hinge
    Secondary
    Lower Body
    Hinge
    Primary
    Lower Body
    Hinge
    Primary
    Lower Body
    Squat
    Primary
    Lower Body
    Squat
    Primary
    Lower Body
    Hinge
    Secondary
    Lower Body
    Hinge

    Sample Lower Body Dumbbell Bi-Set

    Complete 3 rounds

    1. Wide Stance DB Straight Leg Deadlift

    Complete 8 repetitions

    2. Rear Foot Elevated DB Squat in Lunge

    Complete 8 repetitions

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    This resource was written by Sean Klein. Sean Richard Klein has thousands of hours of coaching experience and a BSc in Sports Science with Management from Loughborough University. He owns a gym in Bayonne France, CrossFit Essor, which runs group classes and a Personal training studio.

    Sean Klein

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