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Crush Your Week: 5 Dumbbell Core Workouts

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Crush Your Week: 5 Dumbbell Core Workouts
Presented by Spartan Training®

This week's five workouts, courtesy of Spartan SGX Coach Sarah Pride, attack the muscles of the central torso using only bodyweight and a few additional dumbbells. Each 20-minute workout incorporates several styles, from circuits to AMRAPs to supersets. Mixed modalities will help ensure variety and eliminate boredom, with Pride even incorporating some yoga.

What are the benefits of dumbbell core workouts?

There are plenty of benefits of targeting your core with dumbbell workouts, including:

  1. Reduced back pain
  2. Reduced injury risk
  3. Improved balance
  4. Increased functional fitness (bending, squatting, etc)
  5. Reduced fatigue in daily activities 

01

Workout: Monday

A 4-round circuit workout with a 40-second work-to-20-second rest ratio. Rest 1 full minute between rounds.

  1. Plank around the worlds
  2. Kneeling dumbbell wood chops
  3. V-ups
  4. Single-leg glute bridges
  5. Side plank with hip touches

02

Workout: Tuesday

Perform 4 sets of each exercise before moving on to the next exercise. Focus on isometric holds here, and rest 30 seconds between sets. After you have done 4 sets of the final exercise, you are finished.

  1. 30-second reverse table pose hold
  2. 30-second boat pose hold
  3. High lunge hold with 10 reps of single-arm overhead dumbbell press
  4. 10 butterfly crunches holding dumbbell
  5. 30-second locust pose hold

03

Workout: Wednesday

Warm up with 5 minutes of light cardio and cool down with 5 minutes of stretching. Perform as many rounds as possible in 10 minutes.

  1. 5 reps (each arm) of bridge plus single-arm dumbbell press
  2. 10 renegade rows
  3. 8 reps (each arm) of single-arm dumbbell thrusters
  4. 20 crab walk steps
  5. 20 bear crawl steps

04

Workout: Thursday

For this superset workout, perform 10 reps of each exercise in the superset, performing 3 sets per superset. Rest 45 seconds between sets. 

  1. Spiderman push-ups / bridge walk-outs
  2. Superman holding light dumbbell / Russian twists
  3. Inchworms / single-leg balance and chop
  4. Leg lifts / reverse crunch

05

Workout: Friday

Two unique circuits, each done for 3 rounds each. For each exercise, do 30 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest. 

Circuit I

  1. Side star plank (right)
  2. Side star plank (left)
  3. High-to-low plank
  4. Glute bridge with marches

Circuit II

  1. High-to-low boat
  2. Dumbbell cross punches
  3. Glute kickbacks (left)
  4. Glute kickbacks (right)
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