Josh EnglandNovice–intermediate trainees who only have dumbbells or need a reliable home/hotel gym routine.
Written by Josh England for Muscle & Strength and hosted on Boostcamp, the plan fills the gap for trainees who lack barbell access but still want structured hypertrophy work. It adapts traditional bodybuilding splits to a five-day dumbbell format so users can train chest, back, legs and complete upper body across the week while keeping sessions time-efficient. The program is positioned to be sustainable up to 12 weeks before progressing intensity or equipment.
Program Roadmap
The plan runs five workouts per week across ~12 weeks with ~45-minute sessions. Typical split: Day 1 (chest/shoulders/triceps), Day 2 (legs/core), Day 3 (back/biceps), Day 4 (legs/core), Day 5 (complete upper body). Exercises are dumbbell variants (flat/incline presses, floor press, DB rows, split squats, RDLs, shoulder presses, lateral raises, curls, triceps work). Sets and rep ranges target hypertrophy (commonly 3–5 sets of ~8–12 reps) and short rest (~45 seconds) for time-efficient metabolic stress. The program emphasizes progressive overload by increasing dumbbell load, reps, or session density and suggests reassessing after 12 weeks.
Chest
Shoulders
Arms
Legs
AbsChest
BackArmsBackLegsAbsChestBackShouldersArmsPrioritise full range and tension on dumbbell movements; control eccentric phases and avoid momentum. Warm up joints and perform lighter technical sets before working sets. Progress by adding reps, slower tempo, or moving to heavier dumbbells when possible. Keep rest ~45s as suggested for conditioning, but extend rest when lifting near failure to preserve technique. Track weights and reps weekly to ensure progressive overload. If hypertrophy is the goal, pair the plan with adequate calories and protein and plan deloads or a program change after ~12 weeks.
- If your 1RM is 100kg
- "80%" on a set means you should lift 80kg.
Josh England is a NASM-certified personal trainer and one of the leading program authors at Muscle & Strength. He has consistently built practical, dumbbell-focused programs that deliver structured progression and progressive overload instead of guesswork, even when equipment is limited.
