Can You Get Bulky With Ten Pound Dumbbells?

If you're concerned that those 10-pound dumbbells you're lifting will cause you to bulk up, you needn't worry. Your muscles will only get bulky if your workouts are of high enough volume to overload and exhaust your muscle tissue. Whether lifting with 10-pound dumbbells is enough to overload your muscles depends on your current strength levels, but that amount of weight is likely not enough to stimulate growth.

  1. Getting Bulky

    • Workouts that build muscle bulk feature multiple exercises that target each of your major muscle groups. For example, a muscle-building workout will include multiple exercises that target the chest as well as multiple exercises for the shoulders, back, biceps, triceps, glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings and calves. Each of these exercises would have to be performed for three to six sets of six to 12 repetitions. If you stick to doing just one set of 12 repetitions for each exercise, as suggested for beginners by the American Council on Exercise, you won't get bulky.

    Appropriate Weight

    • Even if you did follow a muscle-building program and did three to six sets of six to 12 reps of each exercise, the 10-pound dumbbells probably wouldn't be heavy enough to elicit muscle building. According to Dr. Helen M. Binkley of the National Strength and Conditioning Association, when you’re lifting to increase muscle size, you should use a load that’s 67 to 85 percent of your one-repetition maximum. Your one-repetition maximum is the highest amount of weight that you can complete one repetition of an exercise with. If the weight you’re using falls into this load range, you’ll only be able to do six to 12 reps. For example, for your 10-pound dumbbells to be adequate for building bulk, they’ve got to cause you to become fatigued by that 12th repetition. If you’re able to do more repetitions, then the load that you’re using isn’t enough for stimulating muscle building.

    Varying Weights

    • Your 10-pound dumbbells may be enough of a resistance for some exercises but likely won’t work for all exercises in your workout. The weight that you’ll need to elicit muscle overloading will vary significantly between each exercise. For example, because of their size differences, your chest muscles are typically able to produce a greater amount of force than your biceps. Therefore, using your 10-pound dumbbells may be enough of a resistance for biceps curls but are likely not enough when you’re doing a chest press.

    Considerations

    • If you only have access to 10-pound dumbbells and are looking to put on bulk, consider adding bodyweight exercises to your regimen. Use the 10-pound dumbbells for the exercises where that load is adequate, and then incorporate more challenging bodyweight exercises like pullups, chinups, pushups, bench dips, squats and lunges into your workout. Each of these exercises requires you to lift your own bodyweight, which is clearly heavier than the load provided by your dumbbells.