1st step: Standing straight up with your feet shoulder width apart, bend your knees to lower your body as you simultaneously bend your upper body downward and slightly forward until you are able grab each dumbbell firmly with each hand and then lift yourself back into the standing position you started in with the dumbbells naturally resting at your sides and slightly in front of you with your palms facing your thighs. If you are holding the weights to much in front of your thighs or to far back your arms may feel like they are in an uncomfortable and unnatural position, and if that happens, just adjust your arms while holding the dumbbells to the position that your arms naturally are at when you let your arms relax at your sides when you are not holding anything. Remember to keep your feet shoulder width apart and to keep your back straight, your head facing straight forward and level.
2nd step: Now lift the dumbbells up by performing a bicep curl or hammer curl with one arm at a time or a bicep curl with both arms at the same time, and once you have both weights at the middle of the bicep curl, hammer curl, position, immediately lift the weight from that position outward and slightly upward by simultaneously rotating your elbows outward towards your sides, a little past and to the side of your shoulders so that the dumbbells are in-line with, above and close to, and a little wider than your shoulders. Your elbows should be less than 90 degree in line with your sides, in-line with, your shoulders. This is the starting position. This is the beginning of the repetition.
If you are unable to get the dumbbells into this position by using your arm strength, this is the only time you can use a little body motion, momentum, to help lift the weights up, but don’t overdo it, don’t over swing. To do this, you have to bend your knees a little as if you were about to sit down, and then stand up and swing the dumbbells up in a controlled fashion to the starting position, or slightly tilt forward and swing your body back to a straight standing position and simultaneously perform the movement that was described for this exercise, but you should only use a little body momentum to get up to the starting position because if you find yourself having to jerk or swing really hard to get the dumbbells into the starting position, then you are using too much weight; if you can safely use your body momentum to lift the weight, then lift it the first way that was described in the beginning of this paragraph. If you can’t get the dumbbells into the proper position using good technique, then you will need to drop down to a lower weight that isn't so hard for you to lift to the starting position. This is one reason why I recommend people practicing the exercises with the weight they chose before they begin their fitness program so that they will already know whether or not they can do this with the weight they chose, and if they can do it, then do it, and if they can’t then get a weight that they can do it with, that is still challenging, before they begin their fitness program.
3rd step: From the starting position, press the dumbbells straight upward by extending your arms straight up as you simultaneously breathe out, but keep your elbows slightly bent at the peak of the contraction, positive movement, so that you do not lock them completely out. You can bring the dumbbells slightly inward and over your head if you want to or you can just lift them straight up above your shoulders. Either way, squeeze your shoulder muscles at the top of the lift. You should not be using your legs to press the weights above your head, so do not bounce to lift the weight up. But if you, as you get higher in reps, if you use a little bounce movement to get them up, that isn’t too bad, but limit the little bounce as much as possible because you want your shoulders to do the lifting and not your legs or momentum produced from your legs. You should be using your shoulder muscles as the primary lifting muscles. This is the positive movement of the repetition. This is the middle of the repetition.
4th step: Now breathe in as you slowly lower the weights downward back to the starting position. This is the negative movement of the repetition. This is the end of the repetition.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 as many times as you need until you complete the number of repetitions for this body part for the day.
5th step: Once you have finished the set number of repetitions, gently lower the dumbbells to your thighs by bringing your elbows down and inward, and then perform the negative movement of the bicep curl, hammer curl, one arm at a time, or both arms at the same time. Then slightly bend your knees to get closer to the ground and lean your upper body slightly downward and forward so that you can set the dumbbells back on the ground.