Do Terry Crews' 24s Circuit at Home With Just Dumbbells

Here is the apartment-ready version of the Terry Crews home workout routine most people are actually looking for: 6 dumbbell high pulls, 6 dumbbell power cleans, 6 dumbbell Romanian deadlifts, and 6 jump squats, repeated for 4 rounds with no planned rest. That gives you the same clean little math as Crews' "24s" circuit: 4 exercises times 6 reps equals 24 reps per round.

This is an adaptation, not a claim that Terry Crews trains in his living room with one pair of dumbbells. The original 24s circuit is described as upright row, power clean, Romanian deadlift, and jump squat, and Muscle and Health attributes its creation to Olympic trainer Mike Talik in 1999, with the name coming from 4 exercises times 6 reps.[1] The dumbbell version keeps the structure and movement jobs, not the exact equipment.

The Dumbbell 24s Circuit

Set one pair of dumbbells where you can reach them without stepping around furniture. You need enough room to hinge, stand tall, and jump or rise onto your toes. A hallway, the side of a bed, or a living-room corner can work if the floor is clear and your landings are quiet.

1. Dumbbell high pull: 6 reps
2. Dumbbell power clean: 6 reps
3. Dumbbell Romanian deadlift: 6 reps
4. Jump squat, bodyweight or with light dumbbells: 6 reps
5. Repeat for 4 total rounds, moving continuously unless your technique breaks

The load should feel snappy, not heroic. If you have to grind the second clean, the dumbbells are too heavy for this circuit. The point is to keep four compound movements moving in a row, so the heart rate climbs while the hips, legs, back, shoulders, and trunk keep trading work.

Crews himself has described the format as something you are trying to get through, adding, "It's almost a cardio workout."[2] That line matters more than the celebrity gloss. If you turn the circuit into four separate strength sets with long breaks, you may still train, but you are no longer doing the thing that makes 24s feel like 24s.

How Each Substitution Keeps the Original Job

Dumbbell High Pull

The high pull replaces the upright-row slot, but do not make it a slow shoulder exercise. Start with the dumbbells in front of your thighs, soften the knees, push the hips back slightly, then drive through the floor and let the elbows travel high as the weights rise. The dumbbells should feel like they float because your hips helped launch them.

Keep the weights close to your body and stop the pull before your shoulders feel pinched. If the top position feels crowded, use a slightly wider path or switch to a dumbbell high pull from a hang position with a smaller range of motion. This is a power movement, not a contest to drag iron to your chin.

Dumbbell Power Clean

For the dumbbell power clean, start with the weights just outside your thighs or slightly in front of them. Hinge, keep your back braced, then stand hard. As the dumbbells rise, guide them to shoulder height and catch them with your knees soft and ribs down.

The catch should be quiet. If the dumbbells crash onto your shoulders or pull you backward, slow the drill down and practice one rep at a time before putting it back into the circuit. Apartment training has a useful built-in honesty test: if it sounds like a toolbox fell over, the rep probably got sloppy.

Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift

The Romanian deadlift is the control point in the circuit. After the high pull and clean, it forces you to own the hinge instead of bouncing through everything. Hold the dumbbells in front of your thighs, push your hips back, keep a long spine, and lower until your hamstrings tell you the range is enough.

Do not chase the floor. The barbell version may look tidy in a gym clip, but with dumbbells at home, your best range is the one where your back stays set and your hips move behind you. Stand by squeezing the glutes and driving the floor away.

Jump Squat

The jump squat is the finisher, and it is also the move most likely to annoy a neighbor if you treat it like a box-jump highlight reel. Start with bodyweight if you are not sure. Squat to a depth you can control, jump or rise explosively, and land with bent knees, whole-foot contact, and as little noise as possible.

If jumping is not a good fit for your joints, floor, or downstairs neighbor, use fast bodyweight squats, squat-to-calf-raise reps, or light dumbbell squat drives. The intent is a final power demand. It does not have to be a maximal jump.

How to Keep the No-Rest Effect Without Losing the Reps

Zero rest is the engine of this circuit, but it should not become a dare. Move from one exercise to the next without standing around, then let your technique decide whether you continue at the same pace. A clean rep beats a panicked rep every time.

Use one of these versions depending on your current conditioning:

The fastest way to ruin the workout is to choose dumbbells for the Romanian deadlift and then discover they are too heavy for the clean. Pick the weight for the most technical movement, not the strongest one. In this circuit, the clean and high pull usually set the ceiling.

A simple rule: if your first round looks athletic and your third round looks like furniture assembly, cut the load or use the technique-entry version. The circuit is supposed to be blunt and uncomfortable. It is not supposed to turn your living room into a form-failure lab.

What the 30-Day Result Does and Does Not Prove

Fitness Volt published a 30-day experiment in June 2024 in which a male writer over 50 followed a Terry Crews-style training and fasting setup. He reported body fat dropping from about 19.4% to about 18.15%, along with 4-rep max increases of 20 pounds on the deadlift, 15 pounds on the squat, and 20 pounds on the bench press.[3]

That is useful as a real-person benchmark, not as proof that this dumbbell circuit will deliver the same numbers for you. It was one writer, one month, and a broader system that included fasting. It does show that the 24s idea is not just a movie-star ornament; in a hard program, it can sit inside a serious conditioning and strength routine.

For a renter with limited equipment, the better takeaway is narrower: the format gives you a way to train power, hinge strength, squat power, and conditioning without assembling a full commercial-gym split. That is enough. It does not need to promise a celebrity body transformation to be worth doing tonight.

Where This Fits Compared With Crews' Actual Training

Crews' wider training history includes barbell work, cable machines, Smith-machine exercises, running, and later lower-impact cardio tools. In 2026, Men's Health reported that his cardio tools included a stair stepper and an anti-gravity treadmill, a shift that lines up with the reality that training changes with age, injury history, and joint tolerance.[4]

That matters because a home version should not pretend to freeze one famous person's gym life in place. Crews has trained through different phases, and the public routines attached to his name come from different years. The useful part for a small apartment is the 24s structure: four explosive compound movements, six reps each, four rounds, continuous work.

If you want more dumbbell-only structure around this, pair the circuit with a basic full-body dumbbell plan rather than piling on random celebrity accessories. The 24s can be a short conditioning block after strength work, or it can stand alone on a day when you have limited time and enough energy to move sharply.

Small-Space Setup

You need one pair of dumbbells, shoes that grip the floor, and enough cleared space to hinge and land. Put pets, laundry baskets, coffee tables, and rolling chairs somewhere else before you start. The circuit moves too quickly for you to negotiate with clutter mid-clean.

• Use rubber-coated dumbbells or a mat if your floor is loud or slippery.
• Face away from mirrors and screens if they make you twist during cleans.
• Keep the dumbbells close between exercises so transitions stay fast.
• Choose bodyweight jump squats if loaded landings get noisy.
• Stop the round if your back rounds, catches get sloppy, or landings turn heavy.

Run the workout after a short warm-up that includes hinges, bodyweight squats, shoulder circles, and a few easy high pulls. Then set a timer only if it helps you stay honest. The goal is not to win a stopwatch. The goal is to keep the rounds continuous while every rep still looks like it belongs to you.

Done this way, the home 24s circuit keeps the useful part of Crews' setup: explosive compound work under fatigue. It is not his exact gym routine, and it does not need to be. Preserve the structure, use dumbbells you can move fast with control, and keep the work continuous, and you can capture the high-heart-rate conditioning effect without a barbell, rack, cable station, or big floor plan.

References

1. Terry Crews 21 Days to Change Program — Muscle and Health
2. The Old-School Workouts Behind Terry Crews' Incredible Physique at 57 — Men's Health UK
3. I Trained and Fasted Like Terry Crews for a Month — Fitness Volt, June 2024
4. Terry Crews Men's Health Six Pack Essential Gear — Men's Health, 2026