One way for you to get fit without joining the gym is to purchase some dumbbells and do dumbell training for strength and fitness yourself. The advantages of doing this is mainly convenience working out from the comfort of your own home.

Dumbbells are also convenient to store and don’t take up a large space of your home. You don’t have to dedicate any space for training unless you have ample space. You only need to take them out for training and then store them away afterwards. I normally train with dumbbells when I am watching TV.

Dumbbells are cheaper to buy if you shop around. You don’t even have to buy pairs. What I would do is probably to buy one dumbbell at different weights for example, 2.5kgs, 5kg, 10kg and 20kgs. It might be harder to buy just one dumbbell but look around for end of stock sales or second hand shops. If you still prefer buying a pair in case you may lose one, then that is entirely up to you.

In your dumbbell training for strength and fitness routine, try and use compound exercises. That means you can do exercises like shoulder presses and raises which affects the large muscles.  After warming up, start out with smaller weights first and then move up to the heavier weights at the end of the workout.

I often use shoulder presses, bicep curls, side bends, side raises and bench presses using a bench. If done properly, there is no reason you can’t get a lot out of your dumbbell training for strength and fitness in the same way that you can, from a normal gym workout. But please be realistic, a dumbbell training for strength and fitness routine will never match the intensity and ability of a normal gym workout to stress your muscles thoroughly.

Please remember that working out with dumbbells should only be a temporarily arrangement and you should not depend on it for your ongoing fitness training. While dumbbells training are effective, they are best suited to times when you cannot go to the gym, when you are away on holiday and so forth.

On the other hand, if you don’t have access to a gym then by all means stick to your dumbbell training for strength and fitness program.