Ask any experienced Weight Trainer and he'll vouch for the benefits of using free weights such as dumbbells, barbells and kettlebells.
A weight exercise done with these kinds of weights and with proper form leads to greater stability in your body.
But why these weights when there are sophisticated machines which are easier to work with and have supposedly the same benefits, as those fitness trainers on late night infomercials would have us believe? The best reason to do them is that they imitate real life situations and thus improve our efficiencies in our daily activities.
Think about a barbell squat or a deadlift and relate it to your daily activities of bending down for picking something or even just sitting.
While a workout machine does some part of your work and puts everything else in a stable position, a free weight requires you to use additional muscles for stability.
For instance, when benchpressing, besides your chest, triceps and shoulders, you bring in more supporting muscles to keep the barbell balanced.
This results in increasing your muscle and strength and this is apart from cost and space saving advantages.
Let's see which are the common exercises using dumbbells and barbells.
Benchpress is perhaps the most popular free weight exercise, no wonder then that you always have to wait for your turn there! Besides this, parallel bars dips, dumbbell pullovers, rows and deadlifts are excellent upper body exercises using only free weights.
For a lower body workout, look at squats, calf raises and lunges.
Contrary to what most people think, dumbbells and barbells allow for more ranges of motion of the body.
However, it is very important to maintain good form while using free weights as you don't want to injure yourself while working out.
You can use them along with Swiss balls and medicine balls and thus, have several exercise choices.
Weight training using free weights helps to maintain general good health and fitness, apart from building muscle strength.