Adjustable Dumbells

If you haven’t seen these, you owe it to yourself to check around online or run down to your local sporting goods store and take a peek.  If you’ve read my article on old-school adjustable dumbells, you know the ups and downs, and what you can expect if you pick up a pair of these for yourself.  If you haven’t do yourself a favor and take a peek.

Things have come a long way in the past few years.  If you think about a full rack of dumbells, with a range of weight from, say, 10 lbs to 50 lbs, you have 9 sets of weights.  That makes 18 total dumbells, and a total of 540 pounds.

For one thing, that takes up a lot of space.  18 dumbells probably need a rack, and the rack is going to be big.  Not to mention the dumbells themselves.  Further, the most you’re ever going to use of these weights will be 100 lbs at a time.  Think about it - one 50 lb dumbell in each hand.  So all the rest of that iron is just sitting there doing nothing.  Wouldn’t it be nice if you could use just a portion of that 50 lb dumbell and not have to pay for all the extra dead weight?  Last time I checked, steel is expensive.  It’s a shame to pay for something you’re not using.

Interestingly, you can do exactly that.  There are adjustable dumbells that allow you to do just that and are still easy to change and modify along the way.  All it takes is a click here and there, or the turn of a dial, and the weights that you want to use stay on the bar.  The ones that you don’t want will sit nicely on their stand while you perform your exercise.

These weights allow you to do exactly what we discussed before - have a 100 pounds of weight and use any combination of weights contained therein.  Now, they’re expensive, so don’t expect to pick them up for the price of a standard set of 100 lb dumbells.  But you’re really getting the use and functionality of 540 lbs of weights, so you would expect them to cost a little more.

These probably aren’t the best solution for a commercial situation where you have a clientele who are using the weights.  In that situation it’s an advantage to have more sets of independent equipment that people can use.  For the home gym, they’re perfect.