Q: Hi mike, i'm liking these quirky new improvements on your site! I was just wondering, I've invested in a set of dumbells (2,3,4,6,8,10)kg pairs (on a rack) and would like to know any good legs workouts I could do with them. I'm pretty clued up with the whole shoulders and chest exercises. But I'd like to know how to do legs and possibly back with just dumbells. Adam :) (23yo male, good fitness, 74kg)

A: Thanks, Adam! Legs and back are two of your largest muscle groups and they can push (or pull) a lot of weight. The dumbbells you have now are probably a bit too light to make for a very effective legs or back workout for somebody already in good shape as you are. But there're still some things you can do...

Core leg exercises I would recommend doing at home are squats and lunges (check out my Exercises page if you are not sure what they are. You can do them both with dumbbells simply holding the dumbbells by your sides, adding extra weight. For squats, almost certainly even 10kg dumbbells will not prove too challenging -- but they are still better than nothing. However lunges with those 10kgs might be just around the right resistance level for you. So I definitely encourage you to do those. A sample leg workout for you might be several sets of lunges with dumbbells, 15-20 reps each, followed by several sets of squats with dumbbells to failure. The lunges will tire out your muscles pretty good, so even squats with relatively light dumbbells may prove challenging. And if you'd like, you can superset squats with highjumps from half-bent knees position (so you perform a set of squats to failure and then immediately do a set of high-jumps from half-bent knee position to failure, and then take a rest before the next set).

The back will be a little tougher to exercise with just those dumbbells. By far the most effective dumbbell back exercise is the dumbbell row, but it is almost certain that even with 10kgs it will simply be far too easy for you. Therefore my recommendation for back would be to either get significantly heavier dumbbells and/or find a place where you can do pullups. Pullups are a terrific back exercise and you can superset rows (even with light dumbbells) at the end of a set of pullups. Hope that gives you some ideas!