Upper/Lower Split: Dumbbell Workout Routine

All you need for this workout routine is a couple of adjustable dumbbells and a bench. It’s ideal if you train at home, or travel a lot and don’t always have access to a well-equipped gym.

This upper/lower split comprises four different workouts – two upper body workouts, and two lower body workouts. Each muscle group is trained twice a week.

An upper body workout will hit your chest, back, shoulders, biceps and triceps, while the lower body workout works your quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves.

Upper/Lower Split Dumbbell Workout Routine

• Monday: Upper Body A
• Tuesday: Lower Body A
• Wednesday: Off
• Thursday: Upper Body B
• Friday: Lower Body B
• Saturday: Off
• Sunday: Off

Upper Body Dumbbell Workout A

• Low Incline Dumbbell Press 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Dumbbell Pullover 3 sets x 12-15 reps
• Flat Dumbbell Bench Press 3 sets x 10-15 reps
• Incline High Row 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Dumbbell Shoulder Press 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Dumbbell Preacher Curl 2 sets x 12-15 reps
• Overhead Triceps Extension 2 sets x 10-15 reps

Lower Body Dumbbell Workout A

• Bulgarian Split Squat 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift 3 sets x 10-15 reps
• Dumbbell Leg Extension 3 sets x 10-15 reps
• Sliding Leg Curl 3 sets x 10-15 reps
• Weighted Crunch 3 sets x 20-25 reps

Upper Body Dumbbell Workout B

• Push Ups 3 sets x As Many Good Reps As Possible
• Single-Arm Dumbbell Row 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Dumbbell Flyes 3 sets x 12-15 reps
• Rear Delt Row 3 sets x 12-15 reps
• Lateral Raise 3 sets x 15-20 reps
• Incline Dumbbell Curl 2 sets x 8-12 reps
• Overhead Triceps Extension 2 sets x 10-15 reps

Lower Body Dumbbell Workout B

• Dumbbell Hack Squat OR Goblet Squat 3 sets x 10-15 reps
• Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift 3 sets x 10-15 reps
• Deficit Reverse Lunge 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Dumbbell Leg Curl 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Reverse Crunch 3 sets x 15-20 reps

Upper/Lower Split Dumbbell Workout Split: Notes

1. In an ideal world, an upper body workout would include a vertical pulling exercise like the pull-up, chin-up or lat pulldown, rather than just rows.

For complete development of all the muscles in your back, you want to include both vertical and horizontal pulling exercises in your training program.

Problem is, vertical pulling exercises require either a cable machine or pull-up bar. You can’t do them using dumbbells. A dumbbell-only upper body workout essentially limits you to rowing movements and pullovers.

If you’ve got a home gym with a pull-up bar or cable machine, the pullovers can be replaced with pull-ups, chin-ups or pulldowns.

2. There are no direct exercises for the front delts, such as front raises, mainly because they’re worked heavily during both horizontal and overhead pressing movements.

3. The rep ranges for each exercise aren’t set in stone, and can be adjusted to ensure that you’re pushing yourself hard in each set. 

For example, the prescription for a particular exercise might be 3 sets of 8-12 reps. But with the dumbbells you’re using, 12 reps might be too easy. In which case, you can simply switch to a higher rep range, such as 15-20, 20-25 or even 25-30.

As long as you take your work sets close to failure, muscle growth is very similar across weights and rep ranges. 

That is, while heavy weights and low reps tend to cause greater gains in strength, most research shows that sets of low (5-8), medium (8-15) and high (15-30) reps can all be used to stimulate muscle growth.

4. You’ll also need to push yourself hard in each set. And by pushing yourself hard, I mean terminating each set within a rep or two of muscular failure, or the point where you’re not able to complete another rep using good technique.

The last 1-2 reps of every work set should be extremely difficult. Those are reps that take a muscle out of its comfort zone and make the largest contribution to muscle growth. 

Gaining muscle doesn’t require taking each set to failure, or the point where you’re physically incapable of doing another repetition, but you want to get close.

If you’re using a weight that you’re able to lift for 20 repetitions, but you only do 10, you’re unlikely to stimulate much in the way of muscle growth.

5. Finally, make sure you get enough rest between sets. To recover properly from one set to the next requires upwards of 2 minutes rest. 

Without enough rest from one set to the other, you won’t be able to do as many reps, which has the knock on effect of reducing the stimulus for growth.

How to Warm Up

The number of sets listed are the actual work sets only, and don’t include warm-up sets.

It’s always a good idea, especially if you’re using heavy weights, to do several progressively heavier warm-up sets. This will prepare the joints, the muscles and the nervous system that controls those muscles for the heavy work to come.

In most cases, somewhere between 1-3 warm-up sets will do the job. However, the exact number of warm-up sets you do will vary depending on a number of factors, including the temperature of the gym you’re training in, how your joints feel, the amount of weight you’re lifting, and where that exercise is placed in the workout.

There have been times when I’ve been training in a cold gym, it’s early in the morning and my joints are feeling a bit stiff, where I’ve ended up doing 7-8 warm-up sets before getting into the heavy stuff.

On the flip side, with some of the exercises that come later in the workout, the muscles being worked are already warm, so you won’t need many, if any, warm-up sets.

What about stretching?

In most cases, there’s very little benefit in stretching, be it dynamic or static, as part of a warm-up.

While the adverse effects of stretching on strength and power have been exaggerated, most studies show that pre-exercise stretching does little for injury prevention and has no beneficial effects on lifting performance.

Can you stretch as part of your warm up? Yes. Do you have to? No. It’s certainly not mandatory, and many people will do just as well without it.

You can read more about how to warm up for weight training here.

How To Progress a Dumbbell-Only Upper/Lower Split

You’ll notice that the workouts use rep ranges, such as 5-8 or 8-12, rather than a fixed number of reps in each set.

For example, let’s say that the prescription for a particular exercise is 4 sets of 8-12 reps.

The idea is that you select a weight that allows you to perform at least 8 reps in each set, but no more than 12.

Every time you go to the gym, you try to do more reps than you did the workout before. Once you’re able to do 12 reps in every set, increase the weight for the following workout. This is a form of progression known as the double progression method. 

I’m not saying you’ll make progress every time you go to the gym. To do so indefinitely would be impossible, and there’ll be times when you end up lifting the same amount of weight, for the same number of sets and reps you did before.

However, you should be pushing yourself to increase the amount of work your muscles are doing in the gym, whether that’s lifting heavier weights, doing more reps with the same weight, or doing more sets.

You need to give your muscles a reason to get bigger, or you’ll remain stuck at the same size you are right now.