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How to Progress When Your Weight Jumps Are Too Big

You finally have a home gym. Kind of.

There's a 16kg kettlebell from when you got serious about swings three years ago. A pair of 20kg dumbbells you found on sale. A single 12kg kettlebell that came with an online course. A 24kg kettlebell you bought when 16kg got easy, and some 15kg dumbbells from back when you thought you'd do a lot of overhead pressing.

You didn't plan this collection. It accumulated. And now you're trying to progress, but the weight jumps feel like cliffs. The 16kg kettlebell is too light for goblet squats. The 20kg dumbbell is too heavy. The gap is 25%—enormous when you're trying to add load gradually.

So you stall. You do more reps with the 16kg, hoping volume will compensate. It works for a while. But eventually, you need more weight, and that jump to 20kg breaks your form or you can't complete the set.

Here's what most home gym guides won't tell you: your random assortment isn't the problem. The problem is thinking each piece of equipment lives in its own silo.

The Weight Jump Problem

Progressive overload is simple in theory. Add a little weight over time. But "a little" is relative to what you're lifting.

A 2.5kg jump on a 100kg barbell squat is 2.5%. Manageable. A 4kg jump from a 16kg to 20kg kettlebell is 25%. That's not progression—it's a leap.

When jumps are too large, people either stall indefinitely or push through with compromised form. The percentage matters—your body can adapt to small increases consistently, but large jumps often break technique before strength catches up.

This is especially brutal for home gyms. Commercial gyms have full dumbbell racks in 2kg increments. Kettlebell sets with 4kg steps. Barbells with fractional plates. Home gyms have what you could afford, found used, or accumulated over time.

The standard advice is "buy microplates" or "fill out your kettlebell set." But that's expensive. A full kettlebell ladder from 8kg to 32kg in 4kg increments costs hundreds. Most people don't need that. They need a system that uses what they already have.

Equipment Doesn't Care About Categories

Here's the shift: a goblet squat doesn't know if you're holding a kettlebell or a dumbbell.

The movement pattern is identical. You hold weight at chest level. You squat. The muscles recruited are the same, the loading is the same. The only difference is the shape of the object, and that difference is irrelevant to the exercise outcome.

Yes, they feel different. A kettlebell hangs differently than a dumbbell. The grip is different. But "feels different" doesn't mean "trains differently." Your quads, glutes, and core don't care about the implement's center of mass when you're loading a squat pattern. They care about the total resistance and the movement path. Unless you're training for kettlebell sport where that specific feel matters, the slight difference in grip is just a different stimulus. Not better or worse. Different. And different is fine for general strength development.

This applies to more movements than you'd think:

Goblet squats - Kettlebell or dumbbell, vertical or horizontal grip.

Romanian deadlifts - Kettlebells in each hand or a single dumbbell held vertically.

Floor presses - Dumbbells, kettlebells lying on their side, or a combination.

Rows - Single-arm with either tool, same hinge pattern.

Overhead presses - Kettlebell or dumbbell, the shoulder doesn't distinguish.

Deadlifts - If you don't have a barbell, two heavy kettlebells or dumbbells work identically for the pattern.

The shape matters for specific skills. If you're training for kettlebell sport, you need kettlebells. If you're doing Olympic lifting, you need a barbell. But if you're training general strength and conditioning—which is what most home gym owners are doing—the implement is just a vessel for load.

Building a Weight Ladder from Chaos

Let's say your collection looks like this:

At first glance, that's two separate equipment types with awkward gaps. But look at it as a single weight ladder for goblet squats:

  1. 12kg kettlebell
  2. 15kg dumbbell
  3. 16kg kettlebell
  4. 20kg dumbbell
  5. 24kg kettlebell

Suddenly, your progression isn't 12→16→24 with massive jumps. It's 12→15→16→20→24 with much more manageable increments. The largest jump is still 4kg (20→24), but you've smoothed the earlier stages where those percentages hurt most.

This works for single-implement movements too. Let's say you're doing single-arm rows:

Same ladder. Same principle.

For bilateral movements like Romanian deadlifts, you can mix and match:

And if you only have one 16kg kettlebell but a pair of 15kg dumbbells, you can do 16kg + 15kg = 31kg. Not perfectly balanced, but close enough for a deadlift pattern where balance isn't critical.

The Mental Shift

This requires letting go of categorical thinking.

Gym culture teaches us to organize by equipment type. Kettlebell workouts. Dumbbell workouts. Barbell workouts. That's fine for specialization, but it's limiting for general strength.

Think in movement patterns instead:

For each pattern, ask: "What can I hold to load this movement?" Then use whatever creates the appropriate resistance for your current progression.

This isn't revolutionary. Strongmen have done this forever. They lift odd objects—stones, sandbags, logs. The principle is the same: resistance is resistance. Your body adapts to load and movement, not to specific implements.

Practical Application

Let's walk through a real progression using the mixed equipment approach.

Month 1: Goblet Squats

You've progressed from 12kg to 16kg in six weeks. With only kettlebells, that would've been a single brutal 33% jump. With the dumbbell as a stepping stone, it's two smaller jumps: 25% (12→15) and 7% (15→16).

Month 2: Continue

Now you're squatting 20kg for reps. The jump from 16kg to 20kg (25%) happened over four weeks with volume built up before and after the load increase.

Month 3: Advanced

You've gone from 12kg to 24kg—double the load—in 18 weeks without buying a single new piece of equipment. You just used what you had more intelligently.

"But won't switching between equipment types mess up my tracking?" Not if you track the movement pattern and load, not the implement. A 16kg goblet squat is a 16kg goblet squat whether you're holding a kettlebell or dumbbell. Your body doesn't reset progress because you changed the shape of the object. Log the weight, log the reps, log the movement. That's your progression metric. The implement is just the delivery mechanism.

When Equipment Shape Actually Matters

Let's be honest: there are times when the implement does matter.

Kettlebell swings require a kettlebell. A dumbbell doesn't move the same way.

Barbell back squats need a barbell. You can't replicate that loading pattern with dumbbells.

Turkish get-ups are designed around the kettlebell's off-center mass.

Dumbbell bench press allows a greater range of motion than kettlebells on their side.

But these are specific movements, not general categories. A kettlebell swing is a kettlebell swing. But a squat is a squat and a press is a press. The vast majority of strength-building movements are implement-agnostic.

If you want to train the swing specifically, you need kettlebells. If you want to build your squat and press, you can use whatever you have.

"What if I want to get better at kettlebell-specific skills?" Then train those skills with kettlebells and use this mixed approach for everything else. You can do Turkish get-ups with your kettlebells while using the mixed equipment ladder for your squats and presses. This isn't an all-or-nothing system. Use the right tool when specificity matters, and use whatever works when it doesn't.

The Home Gym Advantage

Commercial gyms have everything, but that creates decision paralysis. Should you use the barbell or dumbbells for Romanian deadlifts today? Does it matter? You waste mental energy on choices that don't affect outcomes.

Your home gym forces constraints. You have what you have. That's actually liberating once you stop thinking you need more.

The key is viewing your equipment as a unified system rather than separate tool sets. When you do that, your "incomplete" collection becomes a progression ladder that's perfectly suited to where you are right now.

How BringHIIT Handles This

This is exactly why BringHIIT lets you link exercises to multiple equipment types.

When you set up a goblet squat, you can tag it for both kettlebells and dumbbells. Then in your equipment settings, you list the specific weights you own:

When the app generates a workout, it treats these as a single pool of available weights for that exercise. It doesn't care that one is a kettlebell and one is a dumbbell. It just knows you have access to 12kg, 15kg, 16kg, 20kg, and 24kg for goblet squats.

"What about adjustable dumbbells? Don't they solve this whole problem?" Partially. If you have adjustable dumbbells that go from 2kg to 40kg in 2kg increments, you have a complete weight ladder for any dumbbell exercise. But you still need kettlebells for swings. And adjustable dumbbells are bulky and slower to change between sets. Plus, many people already own fixed-weight equipment before they consider buying adjustables. This system works whether you have a mix of fixed weights, adjustables, or both. It's about using all available equipment intelligently, not replacing one type with another.

As you log workouts and the system tracks your progression, it automatically prescribes the next appropriate weight from your available ladder. You don't have to manually figure out which implement to use. The app picks the smallest viable jump based on what you own.

This works for any exercise where the equipment is mechanically interchangeable: RDLs, floor presses, overhead presses. Your random collection becomes a cohesive progression system.

And when equipment does matter—like kettlebell swings or barbell squats—you just tag the exercise to that specific type. The system adapts to reality rather than forcing you into rigid categories.

Common Questions

"I only have kettlebells (or only dumbbells). Does this help me?"

Not directly for creating a mixed ladder, but the principle still applies. Look at your weight gaps and fill them strategically with your next purchase. If you have 12kg and 20kg kettlebells, buy a 16kg next, not a 32kg. Think about your progression path, not just adding heavier weights. And if you already have dumbbells at home (even old light ones in a closet), dust them off and add them to your available weights for appropriate exercises.

"Won't it be confusing to switch between kettlebells and dumbbells mid-program?"

Only if you make it confusing. Write "16kg" in your log, not "16kg kettlebell." Think of the weight as the variable, not the implement. After a few sessions, you stop noticing. You just grab whatever weighs the right amount for that movement. Your body adapts to load and pattern, and your brain follows.

"The center of mass is different between kettlebells and dumbbells. Doesn't that change the exercise?"

It changes the feel, not the fundamental training stimulus. The center of mass difference is most noticeable in ballistic movements (swings) or overhead stability work (get-ups, windmills). For strength exercises like squats and presses, the slight variation in load distribution is minor compared to the total resistance being moved. Think of it like how a barbell and safety squat bar load you differently—they're both building squat strength. Different tools, same outcome.

You Already Have Enough

The fitness industry profits from making you feel incomplete. You need more weights. Better equipment.

Progression isn't about having every possible increment. It's about using what you have intelligently and adding load in a way your body can adapt to.

Your mismatched kettlebells and dumbbells aren't a problem to solve. They're a weight ladder waiting to be climbed. Stop organizing by equipment type. Start organizing by movement pattern and available load.

That 16kg to 20kg gap that felt like a wall? It's not a wall anymore. It's just two rungs on a ladder that includes everything else you own.

Use it all.