How to Build a Dumbbell Home Gym
This article covers how to build a dumbbell home gym, which is ideal for people living in smaller apartments or on a tight budget. With two adjustable dumbbells, you can build just as much muscle as you can with a full barbell home gym. Your workouts may not be quite as efficient, but there are actually some interesting advantages to dumbbell training, too—especially for your arms, chest, and shoulders.
There are several different types of adjustable dumbbells, and some are much better than others. When I built my first dumbbell home gym, I made the mistake of buying the wrong type. They were rickety, it was difficult to adjust the weight, and I couldn’t rest them on my legs, making it hard to do the dumbbell bench press. They were such a pain to use that I wound up disliking dumbbell training. But we’ve learned a lot since then. Buying better dumbbells makes all the difference.
Finally, there are some great accessories you can add to your dumbbell home gym, including a workout bench, a chin-up bar, a couple of kettlebells, and maybe even some parallettes or gymnastic rings. These are totally optional, but we’ll go over the advantages they offer.
The Advantages of a Dumbbell Home Gym
The majority of your muscle growth comes from doing the big compound lifts along with a few key accessory lifts, and it doesn’t much matter whether you do them with a barbell, dumbbells, or exercise machines. Commercial gyms have a wide variety of equipment and exercise machines, ranging from cable machines to preacher curl benches, but none of that is needed to build muscle at full speed.
Training at home has some advantages, too. It saves you from the cost of a gym membership and the hassle of commuting. You also get to choose your own equipment and never need to wait to use it. So even if training at a commercial gym is slightly more efficient, training at home often eats up less total time.
If you have the space for it, barbell home gyms are a great default. If you don’t have the space for it, dumbbell home gyms are a great alternative. You can store the dumbbells in the closet or bury them in the earth of a large potted plant. All you need is a bit of floor space to do your workouts.
Dumbbells are as good as barbells and exercise machines for building muscle, especially in your upper body. In fact, for some lifts, dumbbells offer some advantages over barbells. For example, consider the bench press. With the barbell bench press, all you need to do is press the weight up. But with the dumbbell bench press, you also need to hug the weights together, similar to a dumbbell fly. As a result, your chest needs to work proportionally harder.
The downside to dumbbells is that they aren’t always as efficient. Going back to the bench press example, dumbbells shift more emphasis to your chest, but at the cost of your triceps. After all, if you flex your triceps during a dumbbell bench press, the dumbbells will shoot off to the sides. As a result, it becomes even more important to include triceps extensions in your workout routine.
The bigger downside to dumbbells is with the leg lifts. Goblet squats are ideal for beginners. The problem is, you’ll eventually get to a point where you’re too strong to train both legs at once. You’ll have to switch from goblet squats to split squats. Your leg training will begin to take longer. You’ll need to endure twice as many painful sets. Plus, because you’ll be lifting lighter loads, you won’t be training your spinal erectors as hard.
Because it’s harder to build massive, strong legs with dumbbells, most serious strength athletes and bodybuilders train at commercial gyms or get barbell home gyms. For the average skinny guy who’s trying to build muscle, though, it matters much less. If you can do sets of goblet squats for 12–15 reps with a 100-pound dumbbell, your legs will look great.
How to Build a Dumbbell Home Gym
If you have a decent budget but don’t have space for a full barbell home gym, the second-best option is to build a nice dumbbell home gym. It’s a very close second, too. You can build muscle just as fast, especially in your upper body; it’s just that your workouts might take slightly longer. Instead of doing three hourlong workouts each week, you might be doing three 75-minute workouts each week. Not a big difference.
- Adjustable Dumbbells: these are the only required piece of equipment. With a pair of adjustable dumbbells, you can build muscle at nearly full speed.
- Workout Bench: we recommend getting an adjustable bench for extra versatility. It’s optional, though, and you can always buy it later on. The main thing you need it for is the dumbbell bench press, but you can always do push-ups instead.
- Chin-up bar or gymnastic rings: you can train your back with dumbbell rows and pullovers. That’s enough, especially for a beginner. But chin-ups are the best back exercise. If you can do them, your workouts will get even better.
The Best Adjustable Dumbbell Brands to Buy
There are three different types of adjustable dumbbells that you can buy:
- Fixed-weight dumbbells (left): most commercial gyms have an assortment of fixed-weight rubber dumbbells, which are incredibly sturdy, don’t rust, and can be tossed around without breaking. These are great, but getting a whole set running from 10 to 100 pounds can be pricy. Plus, they take up a ton of space.
- Premium adjustable dumbbells (middle): Powerblock (Marco’s choice) and IronMaster (see review in comments) make sturdy adjustable dumbbells that are durable and easy to adjust. Their flat sides also make it easier to set up for most lifts. These are old brands with great reputations that have stood the test of time. We recommend these if you can afford them.
- Cheap adjustable dumbbells (right): several brands make cheap adjustable dumbbells you can load with little metal plates. They’re a bit more awkward than the premium ones, and they make it harder to do certain lifts (such as the dumbbell bench press), but they get the job done. I gained muscle with these without a problem, but I didn’t love them.
We often recommend that people get a pair of adjustable dumbbells that go up to at least 90 pounds. But if your adjustable dumbbells are lighter than that, don’t worry. You can do plenty with two 50-pound dumbbells. You’ll just need to lift in higher rep ranges and train your legs one at a time. It’s not a dealbreaker.
The Best Workout Bench Brands to Buy
First of all, you don’t need to buy a workout bench. They allow for quite a few movements, ranging from bench presses to incline curls. But you can do push-ups instead of bench presses. You can do standing dumbbell curls instead of incline curls. You can do dumbbell rows with your hand on your knee. Workout benches are nice to have, but don’t worry if you don’t have the money or space for one.
Flat benches are sturdy, comfortable, and often sit lower to the ground, making it easier to do the bench press. The problem is, you can’t adjust the incline. You can’t do incline bench presses, incline curls, incline reverse flyes, and various other incline lifts. That can be a bit of a problem, especially when you’re already limited to just dumbbell exercises.
Incline benches are more versatile, allowing you to do incline bench presses and incline curls—both great lifts—but they’re wobbly and don’t always work as well. The higher-end brands solve most of these problems, but they can be pricey.
The best workout benches for your dumbbell home gym:
- Rep Fitness Flat Bench ($169): This bench is sturdy, has a wide and grippy pad, and is 17 inches tall, which is perfect for all but the tallest of guys. People also love how it has just one leg in the front, giving you the freedom to position your feet however you like when benching. There’s also a version with a wider pad that’s popular among more competitive lifters.
- Rogue Adjustable Bench ($545): This bench is adjustable, sturdy, and has a minimal gap between the pads. It’s 17.5-inches tall, which makes it a little bit high for the bench press but great for everything else. If you can afford it, this is absolutely ideal.
- Rogue Flat Bench ($180): This bench is sturdy, durable, and welded together, removing any hint of wobble. The pad is flat, wide, grippy, and comfortable. The main downside for the average guy is that it’s 18 inches high. For taller guys, though, that’s an asset. (I’m 6’2 and use this bench. It’s amazing.)
- Rep Fitness Adjustable Bench ($209): This is an okay budget adjustable bench. It’s 17.5 inches tall, and it’s not that wobbly. I had a bench like this one but didn’t like it. I gave it to a friend and got a flat bench instead. Most people like them more than I do, though.
*Note that the Rogue Fitness links are affiliate links. After building my own home gym with their equipment, I became a fan of their brand and reached out to them for an affiliate deal. We’re not affiliates of Rep Fitness, but many of our members appreciate that they sell decent lifting equipment at lower prices.
The Best Chin-Up Bars to Buy
The first thing to note is that chin-up bars are often called pull-up bars. A chin-up is done with an underhand grip, a pull-up with an overhand grip. These are two different exercises, but the same bars are used for both. We call them chin-up bars because chin-ups are better for building muscle.
As with the bench, you don’t need a chin-up bar. You can build a great back with dumbbell rows and dumbbell pullovers. You can build great arms with biceps curls. You don’t have to do chin-ups. With that said, chin-ups are the best exercise for your back. A chin-up bar is something you can use every single workout. If you have room to mount one on a wall, they’re a great addition to a dumbbell home gym.
As for what type of chin-up bar to get, a simple straight bar is a good default. The only problem is that some people have cranky elbow joints that prefer a freer range of motion. In that case, gymnastics rings are a better choice.
- Rogue Gymnastic Rings ($72): gymnastic rings have the same functionality as a chin-up bar, but they allow your hands to rotate freely, making them easier on your joints. If you have a way to affix these to your ceiling, they’re a great default option.
- Rogue’s P3 wall-mounted pull-up bar ($150): this chin-up bar is made of coated steel, making it both sturdy and durable. It can be mounted 1–2 feet from the wall, which is more than enough space to do chin-ups. (They have another variant made for kipping pull-ups, but those aren’t any good for building muscle, so that doesn’t matter.)
- Rogue’s P5v ceiling-mounted pull-up bar ($125): this chin-up bar is also made of high-quality coated steel. The difference is that it can also be mounted to the ceiling. If you’re training in a garage, this extra versatility can be handy.
Extra Home Gym Equipment
Kettlebells
The problem with kettlebell training is that because you can’t adjust the weight, you need to adjust your reps instead. Instead of adding 5 pounds each workout, you need to fight for extra reps instead. As with bodyweight training, that can quickly become a nightmare. That’s why dumbbells are so great. They make progressive overload so simple. They allow you to follow a proper bulking routine.
Even so, when I added kettlebells to my dumbbell home gym, I started enjoying my workouts way more. Kettlebells aren’t better for building muscle, and they didn’t improve my results. But some exercises feel better with kettlebells than dumbbells. They’re sturdy and ergonomic, and they have a lower centre of gravity, making them easier to balance. They don’t work well for all exercises—they’re awful for bench presses and biceps curls—but they’re great for some. In my case, I prefer doing my overhead presses, squats, and triceps exercises with kettlebells.
The other benefit is that having a few kettlebells lying around allows you to perform more of your exercises as supersets. You can do a set of dumbbell bench presses and then a set of goblet squats without needing to adjust the weight of your dumbbells. They’re handy and efficient.
- Rogue Kettlebells ($100): I recommend buying an 18-pound and 40-pound kettlebell. That way, you have a light and medium weight, giving you more flexibility with your rep ranges and exercise variations.
Most of our staff have some kettlebells in their home gyms, and they all swear by them. Kettlebells aren’t necessary, but they’re nice to have. I think you’d enjoy them.
The Power of Parallettes
If you don’t have a bench or if you’re a fan of push-ups, one of the best ways to upgrade your home gym is to get a pair of parallettes. Again, these are 100% optional. They’re cool, though. Parallettes raise your hands above the ground, allowing you to do push-ups with a deeper range of motion (deficit push-ups), making them even better for building muscle. They also let you do handstand push-ups, which are a great shoulder and trap exercise.
- Rogue Formed Parallettes ($75): these are a great default option, and are both sturdy and durable. But they’re also kind of bulky, making them harder to ship across countries or store in a closet.
- Rogue Bolt-Together Parallettes ($135): these bolt-together parallettes are a bit easier to ship and store, they’re just as sturdy and durable. But they’re also more expensive.
What About Resistance Bands?
At the moment, we don’t recommend resistance bands as a default option. It’s not that they don’t work; it’s just that they’re painful and inefficient. You may need to do several sets of resistance-band exercises to get the same muscle growth as you’d get from a single set of a dumbbell exercise. Plus, resistance-band training tends to feel harder and more painful (study, study).
If all you need to get resistance bands, no problem. They can be a nice addition to bodyweight workouts, especially for arm exercises. But they aren’t in the same league as dumbbells. With adjustable dumbbells, you can do fairly optimal muscle-building workouts. With resistance bands, you can’t.
For more, we have a full article on resistance bands.
Dumbbell Exercise Alternatives
We use five big compound movements to build muscle, all of which can be trained with dumbbells. Here are some of the best dumbbell variations for those movements:
- Squat: goblet squat, dumbbell front squat, split squat, Bulgarian split squat, lunge, and step-up.
- Bench press: push-up, dumbbell bench press, and the incline dumbbell bench press.
- Deadlift: dumbbell sumo deadlift, Romanian deadlift, one-legged Romanian deadlift (aka kickstand deadlift), and hip thrust.
- Overhead press: dumbbell overhead press, alternating overhead press, one-arm overhead press, and vertical push-up.
- Chin-up: chin-up, pull-up, bent-over dumbbell row, one-arm dumbbell row, and dumbbell pullover.
Compound lifts are great, and you can build a muscular physique with those alone. But you can make your workout routine even better by adding in some isolation lifts. For example, chin-ups and rows are great for your back muscles, but the extension at the shoulder joint interferes with biceps activation. So there are a few extra accessory lifts we recommend for building bigger arms. Dumbbells shine here:
- Biceps curls for building bigger biceps. Incline curls, biceps curls, and alternating biceps curls are great. If you want to emphasize your brachialis instead, you can do hammer curls.
- Triceps extensions for building bigger triceps. Skull crushers and overhead triceps extensions are great.
- Lateral raises for building broader shoulders. You can do them one side at a time or both at once. You’ve also got the option of doing upright rows.
This isn’t as much exercise variety as you’d get a commercial gym, but you get about as much as you would with a barbell home gym. And it’s enough. You’ve got at least a couple options for every movement pattern, allowing you to build good workout splits and to adjust your exercises from phase to phase.
These exercises are also good. You can bulk up your biceps just as well with dumbbell curls as with barbell curls. In fact, incline curls are arguably the best variation of all, and you can’t do them with a barbell. The same is true of almost all of these exercises. They’re great bodybuilding exercises. Dumbbells are awesome for building muscle.
Summary
If you have the space to build a full barbell home gym, that’s a great default choice. If you don’t have space, no problem—dumbbells are equally good for building muscle. They’re also extremely versatile, a little bit cheaper, don’t take up nearly as much space, and are amazing for bulking up your upper body and arms. The only downside is that dumbbell training isn’t quite as efficient as barbell training, especially when training your legs, glutes, and spinal erectors.
All you need to build a great dumbbell home gym are adjustable dumbbells. That’s it. You can bulk up every muscle in your body with just a single pair of adjustable dumbbells.
There are some handy pieces of equipment you can add, though:
- A workout bench will allow you to do the bench press, dumbbell flyes, pullovers, skull crushers, and a slew of other great hypertrophy exercises. If the bench is adjustable, you’ll be able to do the incline bench press, incline curls, reverse flyes, and a few other nice lifts. It’s something you’ll use almost every workout.
- A chin-up bar or gymnastic rings will allow you to do chin-ups and pull-ups, which will make it quite a bit easier to build a bigger upper back. You can also do hanging leg raises, which are one of the best ab exercises. Again, it’s something you’ll use for most workouts.
- Parallettes will let you do deficit push-ups and handstand push-ups, which are fantastic for building a bigger chest and broader shoulders. You can also do some ab exercises with them. You don’t need them, but they can be nice to have if you like bodyweight training.
If you want more muscle-building information, we have a free bulking newsletter for skinny guys. If you want a full bulking program, including a 5-month workout routine, diet guide, recipe book, and online coaching, check out our Bony to Beastly Bulking Program. You can do the entire thing with a dumbbell home gym.
Shane Duquette is the founder of Outlift, Bony to Beastly, and Bony to Bombshell, each with millions of readers. He's a Certified Conditioning Coach (CCC), has gained seventy pounds, and has over a decade of experience helping more than ten thousand naturally thin people build muscle. He also has a degree in fine arts, but those are inversely correlated with muscle growth.
Muscle-Building Mini-Course via EMAIL
Sign up for our 5-part muscle-building mini-course that covers everything you need to know about:
- Hardgainer genetics and how to make the most of them.
- How to take a minimalist approach to building muscle while still getting great results.
- What you need to know about aesthetics, health and strength while muscling up.
Thanks for writing this! I love it! I will definitely look into rings.
I’m a b2B alumni and have been using an at-home, ironmaster dumbbell gym since just before the pandemic hit. I wanted to chime in and “yes and” with a few things I realized along the way.
Exercises:
The 1-arm floor press: I was hesitant to do a traditional dumbbell bench press at home because of possibly damaging my floor or even just disturbing my neighbors if dropped the weights. Instead, I settled on a 1-arm floor bench press. No bench needed! All you need is a foam mat (I use an Ikea PLUFSIG playmat because it’s pretty).
For the 1-arm floor press, it also doesn’t matter if you’re using fancy dumbells with flat bottoms or cheap dumbbells with screw-on weights (rightmost in the illustration above). Those cheap DBs wouldn’t dig into your legs, and wouldn’t be awkward to use. I’m trying to find a video link that includes setup and dismount, but I can’t right now, so I included a text description at the bottom.
Kickstand deadlifts: Depending on how you define things, these are a little different than 1-leg deadlifts. They’re a great way to challenge your glutes and hamstrings, but, yes, they’re lighter on your spinal erectors.
Weighted pushups: Depending on what you have on hand (e.g. books in a backpack) this can be a nice one.
Pros of Ironmaster:
They sell a kettle-bell attachment so you can use the same plates to adjust the weight of a kettlebell. I have that attachment. It has an awesome hand-feel. Right now my deadlift isn’t very strong, but as I improve it, I’m planning on strapping other weights onto this kettlebell attachment for sumo deadlifts. (I can send a picture of what this looks like, but it’s kind of niche.)
They sell a “brick” which is designed for increasing the dumbbell weight, but it’s also great for doing weighted pushups.
You don’t have to load the dumbbells symmetrically. Instead, you can load up one of the dumbbells with all of the weight plates for a more challenging single-sided exercise.
They also sell a barbell that works with the dumbbell plates so you can augment your home gym to be a barbell gym later on without having to buy new plates. An even cheaper option: since the DB plates appear to have “standard size” holes, I think you can use them with any “standard” (1-inch, non-Olympic) barbell. But the drawback of these “standard,” cheaper barbells is that they don’t have the nice give and flex to them that fancier Olympic barbells can have, and you still need to figure out how to fit some kind of rack in your space. Although the elegance of a barbell/dumbbell system sharing 1 set of weight plates is very tempting to me, I haven’t gone down this road because of space constraints.
Caveat with Ironmaster: The “locking screw” pins that Ironmaster sells are just barely long enough to fit 75 pounds on a dumbbell. They’re advertised as being designed for holding 75 pounds, but there are stories online of the screws failing (unscrewing) when the DBs are loaded to that weight. In the Amazon reviews for Ironmaster, there’s a video of this happening to a guy in his garage while he’s doing incline press. He was fine, no injuries. It’s just freaky. To fix this, I bought “extra long locking screws” and use them whenever I’m loading at 65lbs or above. From my perspective, this makes me feel very safe. I really think ironmaster should adjust their use guidelines along similar lines; they’re mildly cagey about it.
To set up for 1-arm floor press: Lie on your side, on the ground, with the dumbbell on your left. Stretch your left (grounded) arm out over your head to get it out of the way. With your right (upward-facing) arm, pull the DB into your chest, and roll onto your back, bringing the DB onto your chest. Use two hands to lift it off your chest, shift it to one arm, and do a set. Then, use two hands to bring it back to your chest, switch your grip. Use two hands to lift it again, shift the weight, and then do your other arm. Finally, reverse the movements to lie it back on the ground, being sure to get your left arm out of the way by stretching it overhead.
Thank you so much for this comment, Aaron! This is amazing.
Kickstand deadlifts: Yes! Totally agree. This is the type of one-legged deadlift that we prefer. The emphasis is still entirely on one leg, but balance is less likely to be a limiting factor. I can add that alternate name to the article to avoid confusion 🙂
Dumbbell floor press: The dumbbell floor press is a good exercise, and we use to use it in some of our programs. But with most recent research showing a strong benefit to training at longer muscle lengths, nowadays we prefer using the bench press, push-up, and deficit push-up instead. That way we’re training our chests under a deeper stretch. The floor press is still a great exercise, though. We just don’t use it as a default anymore.
Ironmaster review: this is so, so helpful! Thank you so much. This adds so much value to the article.
Cool!
Hmmm… we’ve toyed with getting a bench. Maybe this will put us over the threshold!
A follow-up: even though cheap, spin-on DBs can be used for floor bench, I totally agree that they are still a huge pain in the butt.
It did!
Just ordered a flat bench. Can’t wait!
Thanks again for the write up 🙂
Hey Shane, do you yourself use dumbbells in your home gym? Or are you exclusively using Barbell training now?
Hey John,
I’ve gone through periods of training at a commercial gym, using a dumbbell home gym in my small bachelor’s apartment, and now using a barbell home gym in my house. Thing is, my barbell home gym is in Cancun, and my dumbbell home gym was in Toronto. I had to build it from scratch. No dumbbells. Here’s a photo of my current home gym. So, yeah, I’m exclusively using barbell training right now.
Hello Shane! I’d like to thank you for all your articles here — they’re absolutely inspiring, and I intend to buy the B2B course at the start of next month. I’m building a barbell gym in anticipation of this, but I think this article might be a slightly better fit for a very specific question, if I may.
For spatial reasons, my gym will be distributed around the house. The only suitable place indoors that I can find for a chin-up bar is above a loft hatch. I intend to place a ceiling-mountable bar vertically above the hatch (so my head rises into the loft). The hatch is 120cm/4′ wide (perfect for the width of the bar) × 65cm/2’2″ deep. The bar will be approximately 35cm/1’2″ above the hatch, and so will be around 240cm/8′ above the ground.
My question concerns the 65cm/2’2″ depth of the hatch. I’m facing forwards along that line, and I wonder where to site the bar on it. Assuming it is enough clearance to lift up into, where should I place the bar along that length? I expect my elbows to extend forwards a little in front of it, and my shoulders out behind it somewhat further. So of that 65cm/2’2″, how much of it would you reserve in front of the bar for the arms, and how much behind it for a rising head and shoulders? Perhaps other exercises your course recommends might also influence your answer.
I hope this question makes sense. I’ve been watching videos of chin-ups from the side, but I’d still prefer to ask. Being as yet unable to complete a chin-up and with no bar in place to test it practically anyhow, it remains something of a guess for me, and I’d prefer not to re-site the thing if at all possible. Other exercises may be different, and mounting guides may not apply as I have unrestricted space for my lower body. Any advice that you (or anyone) can provide would be appreciated, and if the question isn’t clear or you would be uncertain in an answer, I’ll wait until I’m a forum member to crowdsource a response there.
Kind regards, and thanks again for everything. I am so stoked for this.
Hey Nik, thank you! That’s awesome 🙂
If you’re building a barbell home gym, why not get a chin-up bar as part of your squat rack? That’s how most people do it, and it’s very convenient that way. You can do your sets of chin-ups while resting between other exercises. Makes for very efficient workouts.
The other way that people often do it is by attaching the chin-up bar to the wall instead of the ceiling.
As for attaching it to the ceiling below your hatch, that’s a clever idea, and I can imagine it working. But if it’s in a separate area from the rest of your equipment, it might not be as convenient to use. And as you’ve said, it might be a bit finicky to make it so your body fits through the hole without bumping into anything. As for exactly how to do that, I’m not sure. Sounds like you’ve got plenty of space, though.
Thank you for your fast and thoughtful response, Shane.
Yes, I’ve plenty of available floor area but very little headroom, such is my property — there’s nowhere to dead hang indoors apart from the hatch. I looked at cages and tall squat racks but they’d be brushing the ceilings. The hatch is by the squat rack, though, so it isn’t so bad. Just the overhead press to move out for (to a tall conservatory but with thin walls and no ceiling — natch).
But no matter! I shall investigate more and take an educated guess on the hatch, and if it doesn’t work, I’ll be down six screws and some effort but can always move it to an outside wall or think again. Something will work out, and I don’t mind moving between spaces (inefficiencies notwithstanding). Inconvenient, but I’m luckier than many.
Thank you in any case for considering my question. You may expect my subscription in ten days’ time, and thank you again for everything you guys are doing here.
My pleasure, man! I’m sorry I couldn’t help more. Your setup sounds like it’ll be totally rad 🙂
Hey guys. J here. Love the website, so informative. My question is how many sets and reps per exercise when using dumbbells?
It really depends, and there are a lot of right ways to do it. We’ve got a big article on the hypertrophy rep range. For a very, very simple answer, though, you can’t go wrong with 6–20 reps per set. As a default, more like 8–12. If the exercise burns too much, use the lower side of the rep range. If it’s too hard to stabilize or feels bad in the wrong places, use the higher side. Every exercise can be different. Use what suits you best.
Hi, thanks for the nice article!
Is there a reason why under dumbbell exercise alternatives isn’t mentioned the dumbbell conventionel deadlift?
My pleasure, Kai! I can’t think of a situation where I’d program a dumbbell deadlift instead of a dumbbell Romanian deadlift. With a Romanian deadlift, you tend to get more with less weight, which is usually what you want when using dumbbells. A regular dumbbell deadlift isn’t a bad exercise, though, and you can absolutely do it.
I do dumbbell DLs and RDLs a lot at home, and one issue that comes up is setting the dumbbells on a raised platform. I use folded up play mats from IKEA.
Basically it’s a harder (AFAIU) to set up something like a rack pull with dumbbells, but not as hard to set up a RDL with dumbbells. Especially in lower weight ranges.
Yeah, I agree. The main limitations with dumbbells is that they aren’t as heavy as a barbell, and heavy dumbbells aren’t as easy to grip. So, usually, you want a deadlift variation that’s harder with less weight, like a Romanian deadlift or 1-legged “kickstand” Romanian deadlift. Anything that uses even MORE weight than a conventional deadlift (like a rack pull), tends to be less good.