Wanna know the secret to getting lean? Fast, intense workouts. The following are some great high intensity techniques you can use with a pair of dumbbells:

Method#1: Alternating Sets

Most people that train with dumbbells will perform a set of an exercise, then rest for a given period of time. Then they’ll move back to the workout. Instead, you can get a more effective workout if you alternate between two exercises and cut down the rest period.

For example, lets assume your workout looks something like this:

• Dumbbell Chest Press, 3×10, rest 60 seconds after each set
• Dumbbell Row, 3×10, rest 60 seconds after each set

If each set takes you 60 seconds to complete, plus a 60 second rest period after each set, the entire workout would take you 12 minutes. Not bad, but we can make the workout last even shorter, hence making it more intense while still performing the same amount of work.

Using the alternating sets strategy, we’re going to alternate between the two exercises and cut the rest period to 30 seconds. The workout will look something like this:

• Dumbbell Chest Press, 3×10, rest 30 seconds after each set, then move onto Rows
• Dumbbell Row, 3×10, rest 30 seconds after each set, then move onto Chest Press

After the chest press, you’re resting 30 seconds. But even while doing the row, your chest muscles are getting rest. Hence, you’re getting the full 60 seconds of rest (maybe even more) that you received with the original workout. However, this workout takes you just 9 minutes.

Method #2: Peripheral Heart Action

Peripheral Heart Action (PHA) refers specifically to how you organize your workouts. PHA is actually a fancy term for alternating between an upper and lower body exercise. This simple strategy offers a much better workouts then simply alternating between two upper body movements, even if they do stress opposing muscle groups such as the workout above.

I’m not exactly sure why this is the case. It may have something do with the fact that muscles are getting more rest between sets. When you do a chest press and row, there are still certainstabilizer muscles that are shared amongst the two movements.

However, if you perform a set of chest presses followed by front squats or even swings, you’re pretty much targeting a completely different set of muscle groups.

You can combine the PHA principle with alternating sets to create your own short, intense dumbbell workouts.

Method #3: Watch the Clock

This is one of my least favorite training methods because it is so ridiculously brutal. My suggestion is to use some sort of full body exercise such as a dumbbell snatch. Lets assume that for each set, you want to perform 5 repetitions. That’s 5 repetitions with each hand.

Place some sort of clock or timer in front of you and determine how long you want to workout. Lets assume you use a regular clock. Stand in front of it. When the second hits “12″ perform 5 repetitions with each hand. Rest for the remainder of the minute.

The main idea is to do a set for each minute that you workout. So if you’re training for 10 minutes, do 10 sets. The brutal part of this workout is that after about 3-4 sets, you start to feel tired. And so your sets last longer. But you still need to move onto the next set with the second hand hits “12″

Hence, you take longer for each set but are forced to rest less between each set.

You can combine this principles with PHA and alternating sets to design a truly intense, puke-inducing workout.

However,you’ll never truly achieve the level of fitness you desire without a good dumbbell training guide. The best guide out on the market today is Superior Dumbbell Workout.

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