Dumbbell Swing - Full-Body Exercise

The dumbbell swing (or forward raise) is a great full-body exercise that simultaneously works out multiple areas of your body including your lower body: legs (thighs and hamstring muscles) and glutes and upper body including your lats and shoulders.

In my opinion, this exercise and full-body exercises in general are recommended for people who want to lose weight fast and build muscle at the same time. It's also ideal for women who want to tighten and tone their figure. Full-body exercises also do a great job in toning the problem areas of a person's body where body fat may accummulate.

Full-body exercises are also excellent time saving exercises that will allow you to maximize the amount of time you exercise allowing you to work multiple areas of your body all at one time enabling you to lose weight faster and build muscle.

This exercise can also be done with a kettlebell, a free weight or a medicine ball. In the text description I will use a dumbbell, but for the video description I am using a free weight. The method of performance is the same, regardles of which equipment you decide to use or have available.

Performing this exercise

• Step-by-step instructions plus video
• Choose an appropriate dumbbell and place it on the floor. To get the feel for this exercise, I suggest you choose a lighter weight. Once you have done a few repetitions and are familiar with the movement of the exercise, choose a heavier or more appropriate weight.
• Assume a squat position with your legs bent and slightly wider than the width of your shoulders and knees directly over your feet.
• Grasp the dumbbell between your legs with both hands. Arms are extended and the shoulders positioned over dumbbell.
• Back should be straight. By straight I mean flat and not curved.
• Raise the dumbbell forward with both hands. As you are raising the dumbbell, you are standing up simultaneouly until you are fully in the standing position. The dumbbell throughout this movement will be simultaneously raised to shoulder height directly in front of you and finally finishing the movement with the dumbbell being slightly over your head.
• Return back to the starting position by lowering the dumbbell and assuming the squat position.
• Breathe in as you raise (upward movement) and breathe out as you lower (downward movement).
• Do about 3-4 sets of 10 to 16 reps.

Here is video demonstration of this exercise using just a free weight plate.

A variation of this exercise is the low to high chop. This is just another free weight or kettlebell or dumbbell swing exercise that is done to the side.