If anyone can show you how to build strength from home, it’s Olympic legend Sally Gunnell. The former track-and-field athlete now coaches women in midlife to get fit and strong for life, and she does so with one guiding principle: keeping it simple.
She’s a keen advocate that you don’t need an expensive gym membership, lots of equipment, or hours of time; a pair of dumbbells, four-five exercises and 20-30 minutes is enough. Not convinced? Gunnell is living proof that it works, sharing that she sticks to ‘3 quality strength training sessions each week’, all from home, and using just a set of dumbbells which she increases in weight gradually over time to ‘challenge her muscles’.
Her 566k Instagram followers can attest that the approach works, too. As one commented, ‘I love your exercises. Nothing complicated, I can do them at home so no expensive gym fees, and they don’t take long so fit in to a busy day!’
Her session below is the ‘perfect workout to stay fit and strong as we age’, she says on Instagram. Here’s exactly how to do it with proper form, and demos from Gunnell.
Sally Gunnell’s 15-minute full-body dumbbell-only workout
How to do it: Perform the five exercises for prescribed reps below, resting as long as you need between moves. Repeat for 3 rounds, resting as you need to between each round.
How to do the moves
Goblet squats
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- Hold a dumbbell at your chest. Sit your hips back and bend your knees to lower into a squat, then drive through your feet to stand.
Seated shoulder press
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- Sit tall with a dumbbell in each hand at shoulder height. Press both weights overhead, then lower with control.
Romanian deadlift
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- Hold two dumbbells in front of your thighs. Hinge at your hips, keeping your back flat and knees softly bent, then squeeze your glutes to stand.
Renegade row
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- Start in a high plank with a dumbbell in each hand. Brace your core and row one dumbbell towards your ribs, then lower and repeat on the other side.
Single-arm march
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- Hold one dumbbell at your side and stand tall. Keeping your core braced, march in place, lifting one knee at a time while resisting the pull of the weight.
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As Women’s Health UK’s fitness director and a qualified Pilates and yoga instructor, Bridie Wilkins has been passionately reporting on exercise, health and nutrition since the start of her decade-long career in journalism.
After earning a first-class degree in journalism and NCTJ accreditation, she secured her first role at Look Magazine, where she launched the magazine’s health and fitness column, Look Fit, before going on to become Health and Fitness writer at HELLO!
Since, she has written for Stylist, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Elle, The Metro, Runner’s World and Red. Today, she oversees all fitness content across Women’s Health online and in print, spearheading leading cross-platform franchises, such as ‘Fit At Any Age’, which showcases the women proving that age is no barrier to exercise.
She has also represented the brand on BBC Radio London, plus various podcasts and Substacks – all with the aim to encourage more women to exercise and show them how. Outside of work, find her trying the latest Pilates studio, testing her VO2 max for fun (TY, Oura), or posting workouts on Instagram.
