I have been lifting weights for about a year and a half now, and have moved from 3 lb. weights to 5 lb. weights. The 5 lb. weights have been much too easy to lift for several months now (I can do dozens and dozens of reps). The next step up is 10 lbs. but these are too heavy! I cannot even LIFT them to perform the exercises! There doesn't seem to be anything in between. What is a weakling like me to do? :>

Advice and suggestions would be appreciated.

There are 8# dumbbells. I've seen them at Walmart and KMart.

I have looked at Walmart, Target, etc. -- all the cheap places. Should I go to a specialty store or something?

I recently bought 6 through 9 pound foam-covered dumbbells in one-pound increments at a fitness and exercise equipment store. They were only slightly more expensive than similar products at Sports Authority, but there was a greater range of sizes. So my advice is, yes, try specialty stores.

as others have mentioned - there are 8 lb. db avail out there. others come in 1 lb. increments - you just have to shop around. try a sporting goods store.

there are also adjustable dumbell sets where you slide the plates on and off to vary the weight - but you might not be interested in making that kind of investment.

You didn't say what exercises you are doing with these - you could try holding two (5+3) together in one hand - or use an alternate weight depending on what you are doing -

- water weighs 8 lb to the gallon - so you could work with gallons of water
- or fill a smaller water bottle with sand and weigh it on a scale
- if sand alone is too light you can add rocks or lead fishing weights or even lead shot in the middle of the sand - or even just hold the bags of lead shot.

I've have 8# weights - Kmart special, I believe.

Might try adding wrist weights.

There are 2nd hand exercise equipment stores, too. I'd call around first.

Good luck!

The idea when you move up a weight is not to be able to do all of the sets reps and forms with a higher weight

cut down dramamtically on how many you do. maybe you can only do 4-6 instead of 15-20 at 5lbs...

but your muscles will grow, and each time you should be able to do more until you are back up at your full routine.

If you are finding weakness in wrists ect, you should focus on bring them up to the strength of your other muscle groups.

Something that comes to mind are those ankle/wrist weights. They wrap around your arms or legs and come in 1 & 2 lb sizes. Maybe you could use the 5lb weights you have AND something like this to increase the weight?

I also wanted to mention, that light weight and high reps = definition, whereas lower reps and higher weight = more mass. So the more resistance you add to a specific muscle group, the more growth you'll see from that group.

Good luck!