Forget the gym—you can build strength all over in 30 minutes with just a set of dumbbells and these five moves

A man in shorts, t-shirts and sneakers performs a dumbbell workout on an exercise mat in a living room. He is doing a renegade row exercise on the floor, with his body held in a straight line from his heels to his shoulders. Both feet are on the floor and his left hand is holding a dumbbell on the ground for balance, while his right hand rows a dumbbell up towards his ribcage. In the background we see a sofa and plants and a large window framed by sweeping curtains.

Sandy Sklar is a certified trainer who's been setting workouts for more than 20 years, so she knows a thing or two about how to get results. Her sessions feature clever combinations of tried-and-tested moves, which target a wide range of muscles in a short space of time.

Her recent full-body session is a great example of her workout style. It only features five movements, but strengthens your chest, back, shoulders, legs, core and arms. All you need to do it is a pair of moderately heavy dumbbells.

How to do Sandy Sklar's full-body dumbbell workout

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There are five movements to master in the routine: the renegade row with twists, push-ups, Romanian deadlifts (RDL) to squats with biceps curls, front rack reverse lunges and thrusters. The moves are demonstrated in the video above, just swipe through to see them.

Perform each exercise 10 times or 10 times on each side for the reverse lunge. Complete the exercises one after the other, resting for 60 seconds after completing them all, then repeat the routine three more times to finish.

Why this full-body workout is so effective

Sklar combines compound exercises, which means she takes moves that target multiple muscles and adds them to another exercise to work your body harder.

A good example is the RDL to squat with biceps curl, which is the third move in the sequence. Both the RDL and the squat work the core and glutes, but RDL also fires up the backs of your legs, particularly the hamstrings in your thighs, while the squat also taxes your quads (the muscles on the front of your thighs). The curl executed during the squat will also recruit the biceps, so this compound exercise hits an impressive number of muscles.

While these moves are efficient, they are also difficult to master. The RDL and the squat look similar but involve completely different movement patterns. You hinge at the hip during an RDL, with minimal movement in your knees, while the squat requires both your knees and hips to bend as you lower.

It’s easy to get this wrong, so you might want to practice the moves in isolation to nail the movement patterns before diving into the full workout.