Dumbbell routine for conditioning and toning?

[Samadhi]

I'm looking to start a basic beginner dumbbell routine to supplement my Kung Fu practice. There's about a bazillion different workout routines and the like around the internet, and my brain seems to just switch to zombie-tv mode when scrolling through so many google hits and badly worded sites.

Any ECers out there with dumbbell experience whom I could nitpick from? I'm looking to tone and strengthen, without bulking too much - I don't want huge, slow fire muscles slowing me down, but I also want to work on developing what I have to increase the strength portion of martial power. I'm doing a cardiovascular fitness program - c25k if anyone's heard of that - and my nutrition is still a little... unwise

I don't have access to a gym (financially) at the moment, and I don't have nor want to use barbells or fancy gadgets and doohickeys.

Any recommendations, experiences, advice? Websites are ok, but as I'm totally newb at weightlifting, I'm hesitant to just choose one arbitrarily.

[Ridiculous]

Well muscle mass gain is pretty much directly related to the weight you are lifting. Say, for example, that you started using 5kg weights which caused you gain 2 inches around your biceps. Once you've gained those 2 inches, you won't gain any more by using the same 5kg weights; once you've reached that that plateau the only way to increase mass is to increase the weights you are using. So you don't have to worry about getting too big; if you get to a certain size and don't think you want to go bigger all you have to do is not increase the weights.

The problem is strength is also pretty much directly proportional to size, so if you want to increase your strength you will have to increase your size to some degree. It is possible to improve your ability to use your muscles (e.g. better reflexes, reaction time) which would have the effect of you being stronger without increasing size, but obviously you can't rely on this alone and once you are utilising your muscles to their absolute best the only way to increase strength is by increasing mass. I would think that your martial arts training would be giving you what you need to utilise your muscles fully anyway.

I think this idea of "increased strength without increased size" is what most people mean when they say "toning", but it can be unclear because "toning" is a very wishy-washy term that doesn't really have a biological meaning.


I would suggest looking at scooby1961's YouTube channel. He is a bodybuilder which could put you off, but his advice applies to everyone. He's also an advocate for minimal equipment (the disclaimer in all his videos is that all you need is a cheap set of dumbbells) and there's no conflict of interest because he isn't trying to sell any products. This video has some good advice about how much weight to use (his example is bicep curls but the principles work for your whole body):

+ YouTube Video

[Samadhi]

Yeah, I don't like the body-builder look much (especially for myself) But, I checked his stuff out - seems pretty awesome. I don't have a pull up bar though, and our door frames are metal casing lol

Yeah, I don't get "toning" much myself. I don't mind a bit of muscle gain, but what I want to aim for is more intense muscle training to increase my overall power (kind of like you would train long cardio sessions and quick, high intensity intervals, to prepare for quick actions during a drawn out fight, etc).

Thanks for the link, Ridiculous! Maybe an ECer doing martial arts could chime in, but I guess I'll just have to suck it up and do more research

[KaraBulut]

This site has an option to list exerices by different options. If you look about halfway down the table under "Equipment", there's an option for dumbbell.

[Samadhi]

O_o

That's a lot of exercises! Thanks - I'll start researching