Iron Cross with Dumbbells

🎯 Quadriceps🏋️ DumbbellCompoundTraps (2°)Glutes (2°)Shoulders (2°)Lower back (2°)Hamstrings (2°)

How to do the iron cross with dumbbells

  1. With a dumbbell in each hand, stand in a low squat stance, your feet shoulder width arms held out in front of you with your palms facing in.
  2. Standing upright, move your arms out and away from your body forming a “T” or “cross”.
  3. Note: Do this exercise with light weights until you are comfortable with the movements.

Muscles worked

The prime movers are the quadriceps across the front of the thigh, which straighten the knee and, just as importantly, control it on the way back down.

Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the traps anchor the shoulder blade against the load; the glutes finish hip extension; the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range.

The lower back and hamstrings take a share of the work as well.

Every exercise for:QuadricepsTrapsGlutesShouldersLower back

How this movement works

Several joints move together, so effort spreads across a chain rather than concentrating in one place. Coordination is part of the difficulty: the movement is only as good as its weakest link, and improving it often means fixing a position somewhere other than the muscle you meant to train.

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 quadriceps too, using equipment this one does not:

Related exercises

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.