“Better to light one candle than to sit and curse the darkness”
The truth is you can actually get a great workout in with only one dumbbell. You can get your entire team training for less than $500 in most cases.
To start, pick a dumbbell that will be challenging for Dumbbell Rows ( challenging but, not the heaviest you could use, think 80%) and then do the following
First, do your power movement for three sets of 5 reps. We use the Dumbbell Snatch but, you can use Jump Squats if you are not comfortable teaching the Dumbbell Snatch.
The key is to do a power exercise. Power and strength are not the same, power exercises are done explosively and are designed to work the nervous system more than the muscular system.
After doing three sets of your power exercise, it is now on to strength. I like to alternate an upper body exercise and a lower body exercise. For this program, we want to choose exercises that can be done in a with one dumbbell or no equipment so we will use some type of Split Squats or 1 Leg Squat and Pushups as our first two. Do your strength exercises for ten reps
Next, pair up a 1 Leg Straight Leg Deadlift progression with some type of row, again alternating from one to the other.
You can start with the reaching version of the One Leg Straight Leg Deadlift
Do this circuit 2-3 times and you will have a great total body workout that only requires one dumbbell per athlete.