What Is the Best Way to Work Out With a 15 Pound Weight?

Fifteen pounds might not seem like a great deal of weight, but you can still use it to gain strength. Working out with light weights is the best way to sculpt your body and refine the shape of your muscles. A variety of exercise routines targets nearly every muscle group in the body. A 15-pound weight offers versatile workout options: Use kettlebells, weighted belts and wraps, free weight plates, dumbbells or try a combination routine.

  1. Kettlebells

    • Working out with a 15-pound kettlebell provides the same versatility as a dumbbell, but allows you to target several muscle groups at once. The goblet squat, for example, is designed to mimic natural body lifting motions. In this exercise, you hold a kettlebell by the handle, just beneath your chin. With your legs shoulder width apart and bent slightly at the knees, squat your body down toward the floor. Keeping your back straight, extend your legs up again to perform one full repetition. This exercise primarily works the quadriceps muscles in your thighs, but you will also feel the burn in your shoulders, back and abdomen.

    Weighted Belts and Wraps

    • Sometimes, machines and free weights can become cumbersome. They don't always fit into your on-the-go lifestyle. You can turn nearly any exercise into a strength building workout by employing a 15-pound weighted belt or weighted ankle cuffs. You can even turn household chores like sweeping and mopping into a real quadriceps and hamstring workout, though be careful of movement to avoid injury or strains. Chin-ups also build upper body strength, and adding 15 pounds of ankle wraps or a weighted belt makes this exercise much more challenging.

    Weight Plate

    • Weight plates are the circular disks that are often found on barbells. These plates are not fixed to the bar and can be removed to perform different exercises. Hang the weight plate from a belt harness or hold it across your body. Adding a 15-pound plate increases adds resistance to an existing exercise that is no longer challenging. You might be able to complete 100 abdominal crunches, but draping a 15-pound weight plate over your chest and twisting your upper body at the height of the crunch challenges your core and adds definition to your abdominals.

    Dumbbells

    • Working out with 15-pound dumbbells is one of the best ways to introduce resistance to nearly every muscle group in the body. It's also extremely convenient, enabling you to work out at home or in the gym and perform a wide variety of exercises to suit nearly any fitness goal. Dumbbells enable a seamless transition from one muscle group to the next without having to change machines or adjust tension cables. The alternating front raise is a dumbbell exercise that can really pack a punch, especially for beginners looking to add more muscle mass to their frame. This exercise works the anterior deltoid, the front muscle fiber of the shoulder, as you raise and lower the dumbbell in front of your body.