maratoolDumbbell Dead Lifts
How to do the dumbbell dead lifts
- Grasp 2 dumbbells and stand with your feet shoulder width apart.
- Keeping your back straight bend at the waist, allow some bend in your knees.
- Grasp the dumbbells with an overhand grip in each hand.
- Straighten your back as you hold the dumbbells at arm’s length.
- Bend over again lowering the dumbbells to just above the floor.
- Return to starting position.
- Repeat.
Muscles worked
The prime movers are the spinal erectors running either side of the lumbar spine, which hold the spine extended instead of letting it round under load.
Even with a single joint doing the moving, the muscle is not working alone — the calves control the ankle and hold the heel position; the hamstrings assist hip extension and slow the knee down.
Every exercise for:Lower backCalvesHamstrings
How this movement works
Everything happens at one joint. That gives you direct control over where the tension sits; the trade-off is that the muscle gets no help, so the load that feels hard here is a fraction of what a multi-joint version of the pattern would take. Slow, complete repetitions beat heavy ones.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
Dumbbells let each side work on its own, surfacing a strength difference between limbs that a barbell would quietly cover for, and leaving the wrist free to rotate through the movement.
Every exercise using:Dumbbell
These train the lower back too, using equipment this one does not:
- Hug A Ballexercise ball
- Hyperextensionsbench
- Hyperextensions With No Hyperextension Benchbody only
- Lower Back-SMRfoam roll
- Rack Pull with Bandsbarbell
Illustration: Everkinetic — CC BY-SA 4.0 — license. Modified versions are shared under the same license. Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.