List of Exercises You Can Do With Weights

Resistance training with weights can build muscle and create a leaner body. Depending on your fitness goals, weight training can add muscle mass, reduce body fat and increase strength. There are numerous weight training exercises for each major muscle group. Many of the exercises can be performed with barbells or dumbbells.

  1. Upper Body

    • The bench press primarily works your chest, but also the triceps and shoulders. Dumbbell flyes concentrate on the outer chest and front shoulder. Military presses train all three deltoid muscles in your shoulders. For biceps, the curl is highly effective. In addition to the biceps, hammer curls also work the forearms. Exercise the back of your arms with triceps extensions. Rows are excellent for targeting the traps of the upper back. Exercise your traps by performing shrugs.

    Core

    • The deadlift is an effective movement for training the low back. Barbell Good Mornings are also excellent for this muscle group. For abs, do weight-resisted crunches or situps while seated on a fitness ball. Weighted twists -- or trunk rotations -- and standing or seated side bends work the obliques.

    Lower Body

    • The squat is a powerful exercise for targeting the glutes and quadriceps. With a barbell, you can choose from regular, half, front and hack squats to focus on specific muscles within the larger group. Front and side lunges stress the hamstrings, calves and lower quads. Using dumbbells, reverse lunges increase focus on the quadriceps. Toe raises target the muscles of your lower leg that comprise the calves.

    Considerations

    • Always use a spotter when lifting heavy weights, especially for barbell bench presses, military press and squats. Make sure to keep your hands dry so a firm grip is always maintained. Also, keep in mind that dumbbell exercises engage more muscles for balancing. Try switching up barbell and dumbbell exercises to challenge your muscles. For example, substitute dumbbells for a barbell when bench pressing. Using dumbbells, the weights can be lowered below chest level to work your muscles further.