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Tom's Guide
19-06-2025
- Health
- Tom's Guide
If I could only keep 1 weight to build muscle at home, I'd pick a kettlebell — here's why
I've been working out with weights for over a decade. My main focus was (and still is) to build functional muscle that'd help manage my chronic health condition. It also means a strong focus on developing core strength. I began training with dumbbells and switched to a pair of adjustable dumbbells when I started working out at home. But if someone told me I had to choose just a single weight to use from now on, I'd pick a kettlebell. The best kettlebells are incredibly versatile, don't cost anywhere near as much as adjustable dumbbells, and are more attuned to my goals: building full-body muscle, a stronger core, and blending in some cardio to my strength sessions. Here's why. This TRX kettlebell is the one I've been using for the past year during home workouts. The handle is easy to grip (even with sweaty hands) and easily accommodates two hands. The flat base stops it rolling all over the place, and it's durable enough that it survives long stretches outside. It's a hard trade, deciding between dumbbells and a kettlebell. After all, I just reviewed the Chris Hemsworth-approved Centr Smart Stack dumbbells and loved them. But if it was down to the wire, I'd still pick a kettlebell. You can do loads of great strength training moves with dumbbells, even classics like biceps curls and bench presses. But you can do almost all of those with a kettlebell, too. The same is partially true the other way around (kettlebell exercises with a dumbbell), but have you ever tried doing a dumbbell swing? I end up hitting my legs with the weight, and it's just a bit ungainly. Whereas kettlebell swings, once you perfect your form, are — I don't want to say easy, they're a tough exercise — pretty uncomplicated. The weight passes between your legs with plenty of space, and the handles on a kettlebell are better for a two-handed grip. Okay, great, so you can do a load of exercises with them, why's that a big deal? I mean, the same could technically be said about a can of beans, but that doesn't mean they are the ideal tool for the job. This comes down to the design, with a (often) large enough handle for a comfortable two-handed grip, with a ball-style weight hanging underneath. This offsets the weight, so you have the effect of gravity pulling you off-center before you begin. Even if you just hold the weight in one hand by the handle, you can feel the force it exerts, pulling you down on one side, and your muscles have to oppose that movement, especially your core. This effect gets more pronounced once you start moving the weight around, and to keep you balanced (so that you don't fall over), your core engages. This section of mid-body muscle connects your upper and lower body, and plays a vital role. Aside from connecting your legs to your torso, your core helps promote blood flow (that's one of the major reasons I train this area), improves your performance in multi-muscle compound exercises, and reduces your risk of injury from poor form. I've never been so worn out as after my first round of kettlebell swings. Until that point, I'd mostly opted for repetition-based workouts, not time-bound. But with swings, the aim is usually to keep the move going for around 30-45 seconds. That's a lot of swings! And it's an intense, full-body move that works muscles in your legs, arms, chest, and core. So doing as many reps as you can in the time is a tough ask, which, in turn, boosts your heart rate. Raising your heart rate means you burn more energy during your workout, but practicing like this gradually helps increase your metabolism, the amount of energy you burn throughout the day, for fat-burning results. You could say the same if you attempted to do dumbbell swings, and although I'm sure some people swear by them, I have two issues. First, I hit myself with dumbbells, which hurts, but also slows down the exercise and reduces the amount you can do. And secondly (and possibly more importantly), the way the weight hangs on a kettlebell makes it better suited to flowing through the air at speed. Because the force is off-center, it also works your core more as you attempt to keep it under control.
Tom's Guide
17-06-2025
- Health
- Tom's Guide
I'm a personal trainer — these 3 exercises build full-body strength while working your core
I have three moves that will help you build full-body and core strength you can brag about — and all you need is a set of dumbbells or the best kettlebells for weightlifting. Suppose you haven't already tried these exercises. In that case, I recommend checking out the instructions below and warming up with a few light sets or even using your bodyweight until you feel comfortable enough with the movement patterns to load them up. The heavier you go, the more resistance your muscles must overcome, which requires plenty of core engagement, helping you to strengthen these muscle groups tenfold. Ready to try them out? Here they are. Grab a set of weights and try these. The great thing about deadlifts? There are many variations you can try depending on the weights you have. If you use dumbbells, focus on holding them at an angle so that you can tap the ends of the dumbbells to the floor with every rep. Otherwise, use kettlebells. Learn how to deadlift with perfect form here. Aim for 8-12 reps and 3-4 sets. I've been testing the Centr Smart Stack dumbbells for a few months and have been thrilled with them, but right now, you can save 25% on a pair. This rare discount brings the cost down below some of my other favorite weights, so you get a premium set of weights that range from 5 lbs to 50 lbs that'll last you for years for the same price as a six-month gym membership. Gorilla rows use a unique foot position to engage more of the muscles down your posterior chain (the back of your body) as you hinge forward at the hips. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. You may also feel a gentle pull along your hamstrings and your core muscles working harder to keep you stable as you row — these muscles will help with anti-rotation. To make this move more challenging, position your chest parallel to the floor and row from the ground every rep — this is known as a 'dead stop' row. The squat press offers a double whammy by strengthening your upper and lower body while relying on your core muscles for stabilization as you hold the weights at your shoulders. It's the very definition of a full-body exercise. Short on time? Three reasons you don't want to avoid these moves.
Tom's Guide
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
I won't shut up about these adjustable dumbbells — and they were forged by Thor
I don't really like spending money. But if I have to, I want to be sure that whatever I'm buying is a good value, especially when it comes to weights. After all, some of the best adjustable dumbbells cost hundreds of dollars; on paper, it's hard to justify spending that amount when you can pick up a more rough and ready set for $50. So I was a bit skeptical when I came to start reviewing a premium set of dumbbells from Chris Hemsworth's Centr. Yes, that's the same Chris Hemsworth from the Marvel movies, and Centr began life as a standalone workout app before branching out to equipment. So my brain made the leap that the price was, at least in part, because of the famous name attached to the fitness brand. But none of that really matters because, after using the Centr Smart Stack Adjustable Dumbbells in my strength workouts, I can tell you that they are very definitely worth the money. These are some of the comfiest weights I've ever held, with very efficient adjustment mechanisms that meant I could just focus on the exercise at hand. I've been testing the Centr Smart Stack dumbbells for a few months and have been thrilled with them, but right now, you can save 25% on a pair. This rare discount brings the cost down below some of my other favorite weights, so you get a premium set of weights that range from 5 lbs to 50 lbs that'll last you for years for the same price as a six-month gym membership. And I know that might be hard to believe — they look like weights; pretty weights, but just weights. But it's the small details that only reveal themselves once you're actually using them. For example, the tray is not a cheap bit of plastic liable to break if you drop a dumbbell on it. Instead, you get a substantial tray that feels more like a product in its own right with magnets at points where the dumbbells touch down. This is a safety feature to make sure the weights are properly secured before you change the load or lift them off (and may prevent the kind of issues BowFlex had which led to a recall of almost 4 million dumbbells). And rather than playing around with switches or having to manually change weights plates, the Centr Smart Stack Dumbbells have a rotating handle which allows you to move between 5 lbs and 50 lbs incredibly quickly. For most of my time exercising at home, I've used manually adjustable 'bells with weights plates. These are cheap, but also very slow. If I'm doing a high-intensity resistance training workout with just a 15 or 20-second break, I often spend the whole rest period changing the load. But with the Centr weights, I'd finish a set, place them back in the tray, rotate the handle, and still have 10 seconds to catch my breath. And this might be a weird thing to include in what is essentially a product review, but the best thing about the Centr dumbbells is that I didn't really think about them at all while working out. I've used some terrible weights in the past, and I spent each session readjusting plates or worried bits would fly off mid-session. The best thing about the Centr dumbbells is that I didn't really think about them at all while working out. These dumbbells aren't like that. If you've used regular (non-adjustable) dumbbells before, you'll know that there's basically nothing to them. There's a metal handle, and two heads on either end. Some are hexagonal to prevent rolling, some are circular so you can move them around easily. But that's as much as you need to think about. Adjustable dumbbells are not quite as straightforward, as there's the adjustment mechanism, the heads, the materials, the grip (important when you're loaded to a higher weight) and how you store them. But the Centr weights just kinda faded into the background while I was training, which is the biggest compliment I can give them. There's no getting around the fact, though, that they're pretty expensive. Usually, that'd mean I find it hard to recommend them, but adjustable dumbbells are a rare category where, if you can spend the money, it can be good value in the long run. The weights run from 5 lbs up to a fairly substantial 50 lbs, so unless you buy them when you're already training with heavy weights, they're likely to last you quite a long time. This is true of all adjustable dumbbells, of course, which is why they're good companions if you're using the progressive overload training technique. But if you estimate that you'll get five years use out of them, even at full price, that's around $50 per year, far less than you pay for Netflix or Amazon Prime annually. It's still a lot to pay upfront, and that won't be on the cards for everyone, but if you can, you get a set of dumbbells that act and feel as premium as their price tag. Though if you're looking for something more wallet-friendly, I recently tried out the LifePro PowerFlow Plus adjustable dumbbells, which were a lot of fun to train with but are about half the price of the Centr Smart Stack weights. Of course, there are compromises; they feel cheaper, the plastic tray seems very fragile, and the adjustment mechanism isn't quite as seamless, but as I wrote in our adjustable dumbbells round up, "I'd call the LifePro PowerFlow Plus cheap premium adjustable dumbbells." You get a lot of what I like about the Centr weights, though with a bit less finesse, and each weight runs up to 25 lbs versus 50 lbs on the Smart Stack. However, this may actually make them a better choice for beginners, as you might not want to drop double the money on double the load when you're just starting out.
