Shoulders and Legs at Home: Superset Dumbbell Workout

Let me be upfront with you – this superset workout for shoulders and legs is going to be a little crazy and intense. But you’re going to feel awesome and pumped when you’re done.

The best part is you can do this workout at home. And all you need is a pair of dumbbells. So it’s perfect for those days when you can’t make it to the gym or if you normally do all of your workouts at home.

You’re going to build muscle and burn more calories because you’ll be continuously moving by doing supersets. But there are even more methods you’ll be using to make your workouts tougher, and I’ll explain all of that in detail below.

There’s also a video version of this shoulders and legs dumbbell workout towards the end of this post. So make sure you watch that too.

Dumbbell Exercises for Shoulders and Legs Together

First, let’s go into detail about the exercises for shoulders and legs that you’ll be doing. You’ll also see that it’s much more than just performing each exercise.

There are going to be some techniques you’ll be doing to make each exercise more intense.

Lateral Raises

Lateral raises are a great way to warm-up your shoulders. You can also get that deep muscle separation from this exercise.

You’ll want to focus on strict form, not swaying your body or using momentum. And doing lateral raises first will prime your shoulders for the exercises to come.

Dumbbell Lunges

Dumbbell Lunges are going to work all of the muscles in your legs. Starting with them is also a great way to prime your body for other leg exercises.

You’ll take a big step forward making sure your knee doesn’t go over your foot. During this part of the rep, your hamstrings are supporting your body. When you press that leg as you bring the other leg up, you’ll be activating your quads and glutes.

Dumbbell Shoulder Press

Dumbbell (overhead) press is an exercise you can do seated or standing. The image above shows seated but the video you’ll see (after the workout) gives you the example standing.

There’s no better exercise for building muscular shoulders and also building upper body strength. It’s a basic movement, but extremely effective.

Dumbbell Squats

Dumbbell squats are a great alternative when you don’t have access to do barbell squats. Just hold a pair of dumbbells over your shoulders and perform a regular squat.

You’ll find that these actually work your legs a little differently than regular squats. And you may feel that you can get a better range of motion and work your legs harder with dumbbells.

The article on the Iron Master website ‘Dumbbell Squat vs Barbell Squat – Which Should You Do?‘ gives a great explaining of dumbbell squats and their benefits.

Arnold Press

Arnold press is a variation of shoulder press. You can also do these seated or standing.

The difference is you’ll start with your palms facing towards you. And you’ll rotate your wrists outward as you push the dumbbells over your head. This version of the dumbbell press recruits more muscles.

Stiff-leg Deadlifts Squats

Stiff-leg Deadlifts is one of the best exercises to target your hamstrings directly. And with dumbbells, you can get a better stretch and focus more on those specific muscles throughout the movement.

The goal with stiff-leg deadlifts using dumbbells is to tap into that mind-to-muscle connection and force your hamstrings to do the work. You do this by keeping that slight arch in your lower back and hand a slight bend in your knees.

Dark Iron Fitness goes more in-depth about the benefits of dumbbell stiff-leg deadlifts in their article ‘Dumbbell Deadlift vs Barbell Deadlift: Which Deadlift is Best for You?‘

Dumbbell Sumo Deadlifts

Dumbbell sumo squats work the inner part of your legs. This is an area often neglected.

You’ll start with a wide stance holding one dumbbell with both hands in front of you. Then squat down until he dumbbell almost touches the ground. As you press back up this is where you’ll really feel your quads and inner legs working.

Dumbbell Toe (Calve) Raises

Dumbbell Toe Raises is going to work your calves. Though your calves do get some stimulation from other leg exercises, it’s always a good idea to also target them directly.

The dumbbell toe raise is the perfect exercise if you have no equipment. However, if you have a short step to stand on you can get a deeper stretch at the bottom of the movement.

Either way, make sure you flex your calves as hard as you can at the top of the rep. And hold that for a few seconds for the extra burn in your muscles.

How to Increase Intensity

Now I want to briefly go over the methods you’ll be using to increase your workout intensity. Remember, your goal is to make every workout count. And you want to build muscle and burn fat in these workouts.

So you have to keep moving and you must stay focused, concentrating on every rep. There are 3 techniques we’ll cover:

• Circuit training – Doing a series of exercises back to back
• Supersets – Going from one exercise to another (similar to circuit training, but you will see how these methods work together in your workout below)
• Combined controlled and pump sets – Doing slower reps controlling the weight so that you force the muscle to work hard followed by pumping our faster reps to get that burn

I’ll further discuss on how you’ll be using these techniques in the workout below. You can also read more about how to increase workout intensity in my post: 7 Weight Training Techniques that Increase Intensity

Shoulders and Leg Workout with Dumbbell

Now it’s time to train your shoulders and legs. Pay attention to the notes below because there are special instructions for most of the exercises.

• This workout will be performed as a circuit, meaning you’ll go from one exercise to the next
• The circuit will consist of 3 rounds of combined exercises
• Each round consists of doing supersets, alternating exercises for shoulders and legs
• You’ll rest about 20 seconds between each round
• There will be additional techniques listed in the ‘reps’ section, so don’t miss those
• For some exercises, you’ll do extended sets (ex: 10 controlled reps followed by 10 pump reps)
• For others, you will do a superset within a superset for the same muscle (ex: going from lunges to calve raises)
• After completing the circuit, all 3 rounds, you can repeat the circuit (in fact, it’s recommended that you repeat at least once more!)

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

VIDEO: Superset Shoulders with Legs At Home

If you’d like an entire routine with dumbbells that you can do at home, be sure to read my post: Muscle Building Workout at Home with Dumbbells

Shoulders and Legs At Home

You can still get an awesome workout at home with minimal equipment. The only thing you need to bring is the intensity. It’s all about making your muscles work harder.

And doing supersets in a circuit with major muscles like shoulders and legs are going to help you burn fat and build muscle in the same workout. Many of the movements, although done with dumbbells, are compound exercises. This means you’re recruiting more muscles during the lift.

You’re also alternating these exercises for shoulders and legs. This helps ramp up your intensity even more. And you’ll pump more blood into your muscles combining all of these methods together (circuit training, supersets, controlled and pump reps).

I hope you enjoyed this dumbbell workout on training your shoulders and legs, and please feel free to share this post if it helped you!

Excuses Don’t Build Muscle,

Jason