There aren’t too many “one-lift wonders” that can make you epic by delivering a ton of benefits in a single set, but the deadlift is one of them. The conventional deadlift gives you the potential to lift a lot of weight, get jacked, and brag about your massive deadlift PRs (if that’s something you’re in
Training
Simple bodybuilding programs are a little too easy to find. You could pull them from fitness magazines — those ghost-written workouts that your favorite bodybuilders supposedly follow. You could roll the dice and ask an artificial intelligence chatbot to generate one for you. Or, you could attempt to develop one for yourself. Just a few
The front squat is one of the most effective lower body exercises, offering tons of benefits from strength and muscle size to athleticism and mobility. The same exercise can also be daunting because it requires coordination from head to toe. This challenging squat variation can even be awkward for some lifters because it demands more
Due to their prominence, well-developed back muscles have been described as wings. Want wing-like back muscles? On the short list of things that allegedly “give you wings” are energy drinks, good deeds, and upper body vertical pulling. After consuming energy drinks throughout my younger years, I can dispatch the first claim. Alertness and insomnia? Yes.
“How much do you bench?” It might be the most frequently asked question among hardcore “gym bros” and experienced gym veterans looking to establish a pecking order, as well as curious beginners looking to strike up a conversation. It’s also one of the most popular (if misguided) ways to inquire about someone’s strength, fitness, and
When it’s time to hit the gym, most people instinctively gravitate toward hitting the weights. That’s certainly an understandable course of action, since weight training plays a role in everything from muscle-building and strength gains to fat-burning and even heart health. However, for maximum results toward any of those goals — physique, performance, or health
The lat pulldown can be a reliable and effective alternative to back-training staples like chin-ups or pull-ups. Pulldowns can be useful for novice lifters who may not yet be strong enough to perform high-quality repetitions, as well as more experienced lifters looking to minimize the role of their core or lower body while zeroing in
When it comes to building muscle one leg at a time, the Bulgarian split squat, also known as the rear foot elevated split squat, usually gets all the praise and attention. But the real ones know how underrated the front foot elevated split squat truly is. Credit: Zoran Pucarevic / Shutterstock The unfairly overlooked front
Whether you want to build an impressive set of wheels, boost your strength, or improve athletic performance, your training had better include some single-leg exercises. Indeed, they are invaluable for balancing your physique, addressing weaknesses, improving leg strength, and providing a nasty pump. Credit: Vladimir Sukhachev / Shutterstock Among the best single-leg exercises are lunges,
The gym is for everyone. It’s for bodybuilders working to reach 5% body fat on stage and powerlifters who want to bench press 500 pounds. The gym is also for folks who have some gray in their hair, some well-earned laugh lines, and a few general aches and pains from more than two decades of
Is there a feat of strength more visually striking than taking a heavy chunk of metal from the ground, heaving it into the air, and locking it overhead? The image alone, sometimes seen in silhouette, is iconic. The clean & jerk, along with the snatch, make up the Olympic lifts — the only strength sport
The quest for a deep, muscular chest has probably been ingrained deep in human DNA since time immemorial. As such, dumbbell chest flyes were likely the second exercise ever invented, right after the king of chest-builders — the bench press. The chest flye is an old school gem of an isolation (single-joint) exercise which has
Physical therapist John Pallof shared a simple exercise with a few influential strength coaches in the early 2000s. It offered an effective way to challenge core stability in an upright, athletic position. Due to the exercise’s relative starting and ending point, he called it the belly press. Fast-forward two decades. Pallof’s “belly press” was renamed by
Ask several people to describe the toe-to-bar movement and you’re likely to hear multiple descriptions of how the outcome should be accomplished. That is, actually getting one’s toes “to the bar.” You might think the exercise was relatively simple enough considering its self-evident name, but that’s like thinking there’s only one way to “squat.” Credit: Jordi
Although current social media pages might be filled with so-called “glute girls” who prioritize their posterior in the gym, targeting your glutes and hamstrings isn’t just for likes and shares. A muscular backside also happens to be a key component in performing big feats of strength, as well as driving athletic performance in nearly any
Pairing your back and biceps in one workout has been a classic muscle-building session for decades. It’s a time-tested approach that’s reliable, effective, and it simply makes sense — the majority of rowing and pulling-type movements that target your back also recruit your biceps. Credit: MDV Edwards / Shutterstock Even when your biceps aren’t getting
For most lifters, a week full of workouts just isn’t complete without some tickets to the gun show. But good arm training goes beyond simply ripping through some biceps curls and triceps pressdowns. There needs to be a method to the madness if you want to do more than build a pump that only looks
“Doubling up” can be a good thing — A doubleheader at the ballpark, double meat in your burrito bowl, and a double shot of espresso to jump-start the day. But it can also be, well, double trouble — Double vision, double traffic fines, and double-dipping your chip at a party. But how about doubling up
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