I Swapped The Gym For These 5-in-1 Adjustable Dumbbells & I'm Never Going Back

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August 30, 2022 — 23:03 PM

Allow me to set the scene: It’s the spring of 2020 and the gyms are closed, dumbbells are sold out across the entire internet (Amazon, Target, you name it), and I’m utterly lost as to how to maintain my hard-earned “gains”—cringey, I know. Without a set of weights to fall back on, I was doing more cardio than ever, but I missed being able to crank out a few overheard reps at a moment’s notice. 

By the holiday season of 2021, I was yearning for a piece of at-home workout equipment that would allow me to still get in my strength training exercises without taking up too much space in my apartment—and Santa delivered. What found its way to me carefully wrapped in snowflake packaging was a box containing one of my next workout essentials: LifePro’s Adjustable Dumbbell Set. Just like that, I was right back in love with lifting weights and the feeling of content exhaustion after each workout. 

These affordable dumbbells quickly became an essential in my routine. Each dumbbell comes with five weight options: 5 pounds, 10 pounds, 15 pounds, 20 pounds, or 25 pounds. In order to swap from one weight to the next, all you have to do is place the dumbbells back into the base and move the knob on the top to your desired weight. This resets the plates at your designed heaviness, so unwanted plates are left in the storage base when you lift up your dumbbell.

Now, there are several things that I love about this set. First off, $190 for five sets of weights is significantly cheaper than buying individual weights, not to mention this compact set takes up a mere tiny corner of my apartment that hardly has any room to spare to begin with. It’s also worth noting that while you might think an adjustable weight set would pose the risk of the plates falling off, this secure set is as sturdy as you would want two 25-pound dumbbells to be.

I’m also often doing full-body workouts that switch between varying dumbbell weights (my favorite right now: this 20-minute full-body workout from BB Arrington), and after putting my dumbbells back into the base, they’re easily changed with the push of one lever. The moral of the story: No matter how easy or difficult I want my workout to be that day, I still only need one piece of equipment to get through it. Well, and my favorite Gaiam yoga mat.

Plus, this adjustable dumbbell set has only become more vital to my workout routine after sustaining a hip injury from running about a month ago. A cornerstone of any and all my workouts, these dumbbells are key to both my physical (and mental) well-being.