an app for injury free resistance training with dumbbells

January 9, 2023 2:44 AM

Looking for recommendations for an app, I want to start resistance training at home with dumbbells to minimise the possibility of injury.

I am 57, my goal is to build muscle and strength. I have a pair of adjustable dumbbells that go up to 10 kg/22 pounds (the old style, where you manually add and remove plates). I also have an adjustable bench.
could you please recommend an app that will guide me through gradually building an exercise routine that includes warmups and stretches? I was looking at the free trial of the Peloton app, but the range of available classes is confusing and it is hard to know where to start, so I will be happy to hear from someone who found a good way of using it. For reasons, I will not go to a gym or employ a personal trainer. Please tell me if you had a good experience with a weight training app that was not aimed at budding bodybuilders.

posted by slimeline to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

Peloton does programs within the app. There’s a six week “beginner strength” one that covers warmup and stretching, starting with body weight exercises and moving on to dumbbell work. Once you’ve been through that you may feel better equipped to pick and mix from their strength and stretching classes, that’s what I’m doing.
posted by corvine at 3:02 AM on January 9, 2023

Just to add that on the Peloton app you can also filter by difficulty and there are also specific "beginner" classes. I'd also suggest doing the "programs" first, and go from there.

Personally, I just do one or two strength classes a week around other activities, so I just filter in the strength category for 20 min, and full body and then look at the most recent classes, checking their difficulty levels depending on what I feel like on the day.

There is a ton of warm-up, cool-down and stretching resources as well that will help bring down the injury risk and the instructors are generally excellent at suggesting modifications for most exercises that make things easier or harder depending on what you are looking for.
posted by Mattat at 3:34 AM on January 9, 2023

A book, not an app, but Liftoff: Couch to Barbell by Casey Johnston, aka "Ask a Swole Woman," is exactly what you're looking for. Scroll down that page for a FAQ, Q&A, videos, etc.
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:32 AM on January 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

In December I bought some adjustable dumbbells and I've been using the app "Dumbbell Workout at Home" for the last couple of weeks. It starts you off with a one exercise warm-up then has you go through 1 set of around 8 different exercises with short breaks in between, a one-minute break, and then a second set of the same 8 exercises with a 30 second stretch at the end. The workouts are fairly short. I don't know if it progresses the weights for you or not, I increased mine after 2 weeks and just entered the new weight into the app. It might be once you finish 30 day's worth of one level you'll move onto the next level where there are more exercises to do, I guess I'll find out when I get there.

It's a free app although you can pay to do something (unlock features?) so it's fairly risk free to try it out. I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with this app long term but for now it seems alright.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:39 PM on January 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

A quick note to say that after checking out this video for Liftoff: Couch to Barbell as mentioned above I bought the package and it is insanely good. Dumbbells come in phase 2!
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 2:53 AM on January 12, 2023