Fully Armed: The 15-Minute Arm Workout You Can Do At Home

Locked, loaded and ready to workout. You don’t need much equipment to build lean, toned arms at home. In fact, all you need for this 15-minute arm workout is a pair of dumbbells.

As I’ve shifted my workout classes online, “minimal equipment” has taken on a whole new meaning. But a lack of equipment by no means equates to a lack of progress!

In fact, all you need is a set or two of dumbbells and you can get a whole lot done. (I wrote an entire article about my love affair with free weights…you can read it here).

I came up with this 15-minute arm workout when I needed a mid-day energy boost but had too much to do to sacrifice a full hour!

This workout focuses on your arms: triceps, biceps and shoulders and you can pretty much do it anywhere you can bring your weights.

Compound Exercises

Compound exercises live at the heart of this workout. These exercises are multi-joint and multi-muscle movements that work several muscles or muscle groups at one time. They’re one of the reasons I love working out with free weights – exercise machines just don’t give you the same range of motion.

The Benefits of Compound Exercises

There are many benefits to using compound exercises in your workouts, and here are just a few:

• You can get a total body, or total muscle group workout done in less time.
  
• The exercises often simulate real life movement so you build functional strength.
  
• You can burn more calories while strength training because you recruit more muscles to complete one rep, and you often raise your heart rate higher than you might with isolated exercises.

Progressive Overload

If you do this workout multiple times you will find that it starts to feel easier to complete. That’s because your body has adapted to the workout aka you’re getting stronger.

To continue to see results, you need to practice progressive overload. Sounds complicated but it’s really not. Progressive overload simply means that you gradually increase the difficulty over time. You overload your muscles and body with work so that you continuously grow stronger and build more muscle.

How to Continuously Challenge Your Body with Progressive Overload

• Use heavier weights. What feels like light-to-moderate weight now will soon just feel…light. When that happens, you know it’s time to get some heavier weights!
  
• Decrease your rest time. You’ll see that you rest for 15 seconds in between exercises in this workout. One way to increase the challenge is to decrease that rest time. Knock it down to 10 seconds and then tell me how easy it is!
  
• Aim for more reps. If you don’t have access to heavier weight and you like that 15 second transition period, try to complete more reps in the 45 second work interval than you did last workout.

Fully Loaded: a 15-minute Arm Workout You Can Do From Home

Perform each exercise without stopping for 45 seconds. Rest 15 seconds in between exercises. If you feel that you cannot complete the 45 second round without sacrificing form, either use lighter weights or pause for 3-5 seconds before jumping back in to the workout.

Complete 3 rounds.

Bicep Curl to Shoulder Press

1. Hold a dumbbell in each hand, arms straight down and palms facing out.
2. Curl the dumbbells to your shoulders.
3. Rotate your wrists so that your palms are facing away from your body, while pushing the dumbbells up over your shoulder into a press.
4. Reverse the motion.

Renegade Row

1. Start in a straight arm plank position with a dumbbell in each hand.
2. Drive your right elbow up, bringing the dumbbell to your rib cage.
3. Return to the start position.
4. Repeat on left side.

Hammer Curl to Bent Arm Lateral Raise

1. Hold a dumbbell in each hand, arms at your sides and palms facing each other.
2. Curl the dumbbells to your shoulders.
3. Bring dumbbells down to hip height, with arms bent at a 90 degree angle.
4. Use shoulders to raise arms to a “T”, keeping the 90 degree bend at your elbow.
5. Return to start.

Close Grip Shoulder Press to Overhead Tricep Extension

1. Hold dumbbells together in front of your chest, elbows bent.
2. Pressing the dumbbells together, press both up over your head until arms are straight.
3. Bend elbows to complete the tricep extension.
4. Reverse the motion.

90 Degree Hold to Cross Body Punch

1. Hold dumbbells in front of your body with elbows bent at a 90 degree angle.
2. Punch your right hand across your body until straight.
3. Return to start position and repeat with your left hand.

Interested in more free workouts? Try these!