Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1102: The Best Exercises for Each Body Part

Episode Date: August 22, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin compile a list of the top 3 or 4 exercises for every body part. What adaptation do you desire? The hierarchy of exercises for each major body part, the rules to determine them, falling into the ‘boredom’ trap & MORE. (1:58) The MOST effective GENERAL exercises for developing strength, function, and aesthetics for each major body part. (14:20) #1 – The Chest. (15:02) #2 – The Back. (24:49) #3 – The Shoulders. (36:50) #4 – The Traps. (44:30) #5 – The “show” muscle, aka Biceps. (47:32) #6 – The Triceps. (52:42) #7 – The Glutes. (56:17) #8 – The Quads. (1:01:07) #9 – The Hamstrings. (1:05:53) #10 – The Calves. (1:09:27) #11 – The Abs. (1:11:34) People Mentioned Danny Matranga | CSCS | BSc. (@danny.matranga)  Instagram Ronnie Coleman (@ronniecoleman8)  Instagram Dr. Ben Pollack (@phdeadlift)  Instagram Robert Oberst (@robertoberst)  Instagram Bret "Glute Guy" Contreras PhD (@bretcontreras1)  Instagram Ben Pakulski (@bpakfitness)  Instagram Dr. Jordan Shallow D.C (@the_muscle_doc)  Instagram Eugene Teo (@coacheugeneteo)  Instagram   Related Links/Products Mentioned August Promotion: MAPS Prime & Prime Pro ½ off!! **Code “PRIME50” at checkout** MAPS Mods Mind Pump TV - YouTube How to Fix Rounded Shoulders (GONE IN 4 STEPS!) | MIND PUMP MAPS Strong The ONLY Way You Should Be Doing Dumbbell Bicep Curls! The BEST Side Butt Exercise! (SUMO DEADLIFT) 3 Best Secrets - How To Make Your Butt Grow (AVOID MISTAKES!) | MIND PUMP How to do a PROPER Plank The Active Plank- An 6-Pack Building Powerhouse Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND One of the best exercises for blank body part. So here's what we did. We went through, we got all the major muscle groups, and we listed the top three or four exercises you should be doing for each of these body parts. There is a hierarchy of exercises. Some exercises are extremely effective at getting your body to change, at getting you develop muscle, shape your body,

at getting you stronger, and some exercises are just not nearly as effective. So we list the best movements, the ones that you should be doing every single week for each body part. Now, we also designed programs around this. We have something called Maps Mods. These are maps programs that are designed

just for individual body parts. So let's say you train your whole body, but your shoulders are lacking. You're not getting good development in your shoulders. You can get a MAPS mod shoulder workout, take your current shoulder workout and replace it with the one that we wrote for shoulders and watch what happens. Now at the moment, we have three mods that are out. They're more coming. We have a shoulder mod, a back mod, and a butt mod. You can find those at maps mods.com.

Also, before we get into the episode, I want to remind everybody that our two most popular full programs, Maps Prime and Maps Prime Pro are 50% off. Maps Prime teaches you to prime your body before your workouts to make your current workouts more effective. And Prime Pro is all about correctional exercise. Both of them 50% off. Here's what you do to get the discount. Go to mapsfitinistproducts.com and use the code prime50, PRIME50 for the discount.

What do you guys think is one of the most important things you should pick out or you should choose when trying to come up with like what you're going to do to train your body, like you're going to work out. You've got to come up with some really good exercise as hell. It's going to be the end of the day. That's pretty obvious. Yeah.

I mean, you serve that one right up to me. It's like, yeah, yeah. Well, that's easy. Well, I think there's, I think there's several things that you have to take into consideration when choosing a movement or an exercise, right? Yes. several things that you have to take into consideration when choosing a movement or an exercise, right? In other words, understanding what your adaptation is that you desire, right? So if I'm writing a program for somebody, for example, that is an athlete, and they say

to me, like, what's the best exercise for this muscle group versus somebody who is completely driven by aesthetics, and they say, what is this? My answer might be different. It might be the same sometimes, but it might be different. And I think that's important to understand too, because everybody has different goals, and not everybody cares just about the way their muscle looks and shaving some people actually care a lot more. And justice is a great example of this. I mean, that's when you see, when I see him work, I mean look at my body.

Yeah, like when I see him work out, I'm like mostly excited, I think they're terrible choices, but for him they're not. I mean, they're actually really good choices because he cares more about function. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, because an athlete will say, they might not even say what's a good exercise

for this body part. An athlete will be more like, what's a good exercise for this type of performance adaptation. I want to get more powerful, I want more lateral drive. I want more explosiveness or stability. That's totally different. But the vast majority of people that work out work out because they want to kind of change how their body looks. Now with that comes some performance. If you train

your body to change its aesthetics, you do get improvements in movement and function. And because that's the vast majority of people, I think that'd be a good place to kind of start, right? The vast majority of people go to the gym and they do wanna get stronger, they wanna feel better and move better, but they largely wanna kind of change how their body looks.

Well, I'd like to go through, and I don't know if we've ever done something like this where we go through every muscle, or every major muscle, I should say, we're gonna go through every muscle, we'll go through every muscle or every major muscle, I should say, when I go through every muscle, go through every major muscle and, you know, pick, you know, an exercise each that we think is the most important exercise. Getting the most out of it. Absolutely.

And this is important. This is something that you need to understand. There is a hierarchy of exercises. They are definitely not created equal. In fact, if you compare the most effective exercises to the least effective exercises, the difference is dramatic. I mean, if you were to do some of the most effective chest exercises,

you could expect to see significant improvements in changes in the way your chest looks and how it develops and how strong you are. If you do the least effective exercises, it's better than nothing, but it's not that much better than nothing. It's literally that big of a difference. This has to be one of the biggest issues that I have with poorly written workout programs, especially workout programs designed for women.

They seem to do the best job at picking the worst exercises. This is 100%. And I think it's because the best exercises that are out there have the, there's this weird notion that surrounds them, that they're, they're only for guys, that they're, they build too much muscle or they build a body that can block you. Yeah, a linebacker. Yeah, but that's not true at all. I wish I could find an exercise that builds too much muscle.

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, amazing. God damn, every time I do true at all. I wish I could find an exercise that builds too much muscle. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. God damn, every time I do that barbell bitch press, I just get my chest gets too big. And if that was the case, you would've used them anyway, because they would get your body. I mean, here's a case, here's a deal with it.

If an exercise was so effective that you could over develop your body, that's still the exercise you would start with, you would just at some point stop. You'd look in the mirror and be like, cool, two days of this super effective exercise. And then I'll back off a little. I'm as far as I want to go.

Well, I think you have to explain to, though, before we get into the movements, because we're going to rattle off. And it'd be interesting. I'm curious to see if we debate some or we agree on a lot. I know there's going to be obviously a lot that there's the obvious choice for many parts of the body, I think. But why is that? Why would we not the obvious choice for many parts of the body, I think.

But why is that? Why would we not know what the other one's going to say, but know, but all agree on something? What are the rules that make that a better exercise? For example, one of the things I think that we've talked about on the show a lot that, I didn't really start understanding until later my career as a personal trainer is the importance of a central nervous system. And what a role that plays in overall function, strength, and building muscle.

And there are certain exercises that challenge the CNS a lot more than other exercises. And that's an important factor when you're thinking about building muscle overall. Yeah, and they tend to be big gross motor movements, meaning they use a lot of muscles. Yeah, a lot of joints. But they're also, they also allow you to apply a lot of load because I could theoretically do create an exercise that involves every joint of my body all at once.

In fact, trainers did this a lot, especially in the late 90s and early 2000s. You'd see people do squat, curl, you know, or squat, row, curl, overhead, pressure, something weird like that. I'd be like, oh, we're working the whole body. Those exercises, although they do, they are big, gross motor movements. They do use a lot of joint of the body. They don't allow you to load a lot. You can't really maximize your force because they're so complex, it's so difficult to do that you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not. You need to be hyper focused. I mean, that's distracting you from allowing more of this force production to occur. So alongside that, you need your joints to be, you know, feel stabilized.

So your body needs to feel stable in order to be able to even produce that amount of force, which then produces what you want, which is building more muscles, giving you that signal to build more. Now the best exercises, the ones that are towards the top of the hierarchy of exercises, give you way more bang for your buck. In other words, you just get way more out of the time being spent In other words, you just get way more out of the time being spent doing them than you would with other exercises. I could make the case that the top two or three exercises for a body part would give you better results than the following five or six exercises on the hierarchy would. So you spend less time.

You spend less time in the gym and you get more results. And sometimes you can't even make up what those exercises can do with a bunch of other crappy exercises. So that's, and what I'm trying to do right now is communicate just how important it is that you pick the most effective exercises when you're doing your workouts. Here's the other thing about effective exercises.

They allow you to develop skill with them over long periods of time. For example, we talk a lot about barbell squats. Barbell squats could take you years to perfect. That's another one of the benefits of doing a barbell squat. You can keep doing it and don't have to change it like you would with other exercises frequently because the body continues to adapt, continues to get stronger, continues to build muscle.

The other thing is range of motion. Some exercises, one of the reasons that makes them effective is they allow for a really other thing is range of motion. Some exercises, one of the reasons that makes them effective is they allow for a really nice, deep range of motion. I just talked about the barbell squat. Barbell squat and a leg press both involve the hip joint, both involve the knee joint, both involve the ankle joint, both allow, both allow you to really load them heavily. But if you look at the range of motion of both exercises,

a squat has a much deeper range of motion, both at the hips and the knees and the ankles. And so that's one of the factors that makes a barbell squat, for example, more effective. Plus there's more to stabilize with the barbell squat, which is, you know, added intensity, louder signal and you get more out of that. That's true, and that brings me to another point.

Free weights, typically, if we were to pick the best exercises, I bet you, most or typically, if we were to pick the best exercises, I bet you most, or not, if not all of the exercises we pick, per body part, or free weight based exercises. I'm pretty sure we're not gonna pick any machines. Now that's not to say that machines aren't, there aren't some machine exercises that are up there, but I don't know if they're the best.

Now I love this topic too, because when I think back to my own lifting career, one of the mistakes that I did for a long time was Falling in that trap. I think is that a lot of trainers do when you start to learn Exercises and creating you know funny weird stuff, you know We were somebody tagged me yesterday on the you know the leg press shoulder press exercise You know, I've seen that right yeah, just you literally upside down a leg press and using exercise. I've seen that, right? Yeah, just you're literally upside down on leg press and you're using it to do a shoulder press. Yeah, just trying, people are getting bored.

Right, you learn a little bit about mechanics and then all of a sudden you start making up weird shit. You become a guiver. Right, and what ends up happening is you start doing all these weird crafty exercises and you start to miss the ones that are giving you the biggest bang for your buck. And I was definitely somebody like this. I for sure was and for me like the way I justified it as a trainer was I remember being in the gym and knowing that when I did something weird, it got the

attention of the members and it would always get a member to walk over to me and be like, hey, what are you doing? And then I would try and sound real smart while I was using this weird machine for this reason that would lead into a possible appointment that I could book them and then sell them on how I could help them. So, that I kind of fell into that trap

for a long time of trying to be so creative with my workouts, but I was missing the biggest rocks. And I remember when that really sank in for me. And this was probably about three years or so before we all got together. Did that start to come together for me where I was like, man, what was I doing all those years? All these weird exercises in the gym for an hour and a half. And, you know, I could be in the gym for half the amount of time with these movements that are giving me way more return and get as much or more results than what I was doing spending an hour and a half and they're doing all these other ones.

And I see this a lot. And it's easy because it's easy to fall in this trap because all the other exercises, even that they're creative and they look cool, are easier do. And to master, you know, getting on a... Or you feel them. Yeah, right? That's another one. Right, right. So I think one of the reasons why people avoid some of the best movements that you should be doing is because they are challenging. Yeah, and they're mundane, too, because like you really do have to work at those

specific exercises a long period of time. It's a skill that you acquire. It's something that you need to constantly improve. And to a lot of people like working on the same thing week after week becomes, you know, it's just mentally tough. And so that's another thing that, you know, a lot of marketing has been put into trying to make it look cool, exciting, something new, something new to try. It's an experience instead of something that actually is going to give you tangible results.

Right. Now, here's something before we get into some of the exercises per body part. I do want to be clear because there is a hierarchy of exercises and there are exercises that are way more generally effective that does not mean that other exercises are useless. Okay. Depending on the situation and the application, some exercises that are typically not ones

that I would use, all of a sudden can become very valuable. Some exercises, for example, for correctional exercise purposes, they may be terrible at developing overall strength and muscle and shape and aesthetics and even performance, but when it comes to correcting muscle and balances or function, they can be phenomenal. Oh, I get an example of that. I just put it in my story maybe two weeks ago. You know, doing prone cobras on a stability ball is not going to build me massive shoulders or

a back. No. But in a very, very important movement to counter my upper cross syndrome that I have going on. So, that's a perfect example of, we're not gonna shit on somebody doing a movement like that inside the gym because you don't know the reason why that person

is doing that and it could have a lot of value to what they're trying to address. So that's a very good point that you bring up cell. It doesn't mean that you neglect some of these other movements that may seem mundane or silly or like, oh, that's not going to build a lot of muscle. It's not always about building the most amount of muscle. Sometimes we're also trying to correct it. Maybe working your way back towards those exercises. Right. Now, that being said, for the purpose and sake of this podcast, the context is, what are the most effective general exercises for developing strength, function, aesthetics, and shape?

So we got to kind of, we'll stick to that kind of category because we could also go through and talk about the most correctional exercise movements, the best movements for power and all that stuff. But let's talk in generalities in terms of like the average person. The average person wants to go to the gym, a nice body a balanced body. They want good results. They want faster results And they don't want a waste time in the gym So I think in that kind of context that'll kind of help us pick otherwise we'll be here all day Yeah, talk about exercise. So each each guy add one then so we'll go through like a muscle

So we'll start off with chest chest. Okay. This is easy. Yeah, why don't you go first chest? It's bench press, I mean, that's silly. Why would we not do the bench press? I mean, that's, it, for, in terms of like chest and being able to have like everything, you know, in a stable ice position where I can, I can load heavy, you know, that's going to give you the most bang for your buck. Yeah, and, and the bench press really gained popularity, I would say, after bodybuilding started to get a little bit of popularity in the 70s, that's really when it started to come out. Now before way back in the day, strong men and strength athletes didn't do a lot of bench

press, didn't have benches to do this. And the first guys to do this would have to clean the barbell, lay down on a bench, and then do it. Then eventually thought, someone thought, hey, why don't we put a rack above the bench because it's so hard to clean how much you can bench press. Why don't we put a rack up there and then see what happens. And before you know it, these guys were developing incredible chest muscles.

It just allows you to load the bar. It's stable, like you said, just, and you press the bar. You can get really strong at bench press. Yeah, you can get ground forces with your legs. I know a lot of people don't realize how much more you can get out of that exercise when you incorporate your leg drive and you get your core involved getting the right position where your shoulders are fully retracted. You get that nice open position.

It's very much a chest focused exercise. Now, along those lines, I feel like, and I would argue that you're right, that this is probably the superior exercise, but I have to add in there a dumbbell press to compliment that, even though they're so similar and the barbell is probably a little more superior in terms of building overall mass,

because you can load it more. But I also seen a ton of value in that because the dumbbell press isn't that far behind that. And because you're having to stabilize it independently, one, you could still load it pretty damn heavy. I mean, you can hit. You get really good at that. Yeah, right?

And I find with the barbell press, when training clients, a lot of times there is some sort of an imbalance or a strength to highlight that right away. Right, a strength to scrap and see on one side or the other, which is really, really common. It's not, most everybody is right or left handed, which causes you to be kind of rolled forward a little bit more on one side or the other. If you don't know that, don't know how to address that, you get right under a bench press.

It's inevitable. One side tends to carry more the load than the other, if you don't know that, don't know how to address that, you get right under a bench press, it's an evidentable one side tends to carry more the low than the other. One of the best things that you can do to kind of negate that is including a dumbbell press. So I have to say that a dumbbell press, I would argue is right up there with a barbell bench. That's a range of motion, right? Yeah, and functionally,

like I like any exercise where we include a little more instability to the joint. Yeah, to the joint to make sure that you have proper muscles in place to be able to compensate for those forces that are opposing you. Plus the range of motion with the dumbbell chest press, you can go much deeper.

You can go deeper. You have to have healthy shoulders and have good positioning to be able to do this, but you just get a little bit of stretch at the bottom, which you can't kind of do with the barbell Now I have an exercise that I want to pick for this that I think well There's also something else about the demo press before you move to yours that I think is important also is this It does it allows you to position your your your elbows in a Much more individualized position, right?

Like you're gonna see some people will have more of a natural flare or less of a flare in a much more individualized position, right? Like you're gonna see some people will have more of a natural flare or less of a flare. And I think it just really, you can conform it to your body versus a barbell you're kind of in a fix. Yeah, you're in a more fixed position. So when I think of training clients

and the average person that I have to help, the dumbbell press for that reason, I think also. Well, the elbow follows the hand. So because the range of motion, a lot of people think more range of motion than dumbbell presses, because you can go lower. That's part of it. The other ones, because when you come up to the top,

the elbows come together closer, typically, unless you're using massive 200 pound dumbbells. You're gonna get a greater range of motion. You're more squeezeer at the top. You are. So I do wanna pick another exercise that I think, although generally speaking, isn't as good as the barbell bench press

for overall muscle, overall size and strength, I think aesthetically, though, this next exercise is superior, and that's the incline barbell press. Ooh, this one's near and dear to me. And I think it's superior aesthetically because a well-developed upper chest always looks good. And now women in particular, because women typically, you go to the beach, unless you're

in, depending where you're at, most women wear a bikini top, it's the upper chest that you can see. It's also the upper chest that tends to cause lift in the breasts. And this is actually a real thing, ladies. If you work out your upper chest, you will notice that your boobs seem to come up a little higher and that's because the upper chest develops and it pulls things up a little bit. And then for men, you know, you don't want that lower chest kind of saggy look to your packs, upper chest work with like an incline press.

Offset that. It's just aesthetically speaking, I think it's a superior exercise. I think if all you ever did were incline barbell presses, you probably have a nicer looking chest, maybe not as much muscle, but nicer looking. And a lot of this is because the way the chest is shaped in comparison to most of it, it has like this fan look to it, right? The way that the chest, the origin and insertion of the chest muscle. So it really does make a big difference. A lot of people would think that, well, isn't the flat bench and the incline bench almost exactly the same thing, you're just angled a little bit different, but because the way that muscle is shaped, it does make a major difference.

Yeah, it attaches all up along the sternum, and so you can work more lower, more mid, and more upper chest. Some muscles you can't. I can't take my bicep and work the lower on the upper right? That's why I wanted to point that out, because you'll get that kind of contradicts some of the theories with other muscle groups like the bicep, for example. That's right. Oh, this is the outer bicep. This is the peak of the bicep. It's like, no, that muscle doesn't work that way.

It's a great. Well, on plus you bring up a lot of times on the podcast. It brings you into an ideal position with your shoulders to retract. I know sometimes it's hard. That's something hard for a position to get into for some people that have issues with mobility with their shoulders. So this helps to kind of like place you in a proper position, get your chest more in that wide start position. That's an excellent point. That's another reason why I actually lean towards the incline press for my average client. It, it is easier to teach.

It is easier to teach because of the importance of retracting and depressing the shoulders, right? When you go to do a chest press, that's so important so that the shoulders and the triceps don't take over the movement. But when you're on a flat bench and you don't understand that, it just kind of naturally pushes the shoulders forward and people have, and this is why a lot of times people here clicking, you know, the clicking in their shoulder when they're doing a bench press, or they just doesn't feel right there.

That's tracking proper. Yeah, it's not tracking properly because you're not able to retract and depress very well. And of course, ideally, we know we would prime that person and that would really help that. But another thing that really helps somebody is just by putting them in an incline, that angle of about a 30 to 45 degree bench

naturally lets the shoulders want to sink down and back. It's easier to teach that. And so when I get my clients to understand that from the incline, it's easier then to bring them over to a barbell. Right. So every week when you work at your chest, you should be doing one or all of these exercises. All right. So back, let's move to back. Well, what about before we move from chest though, what about the argument though for an isolation type of movement like a chest fly though? Well, so here's the argument for that.

Now, if we are gonna pick another exercise, I would throw in an isolation movement and there's a couple different reasons why. First off, the muscle function. Now, the chest, the function of the chest, it's doing the same thing with the flies, it is with the bench press. So you could look at it and be like,

well, it's the same thing. Why would I- Standing your lever. Yeah, it's just, you know, I'm still getting my humorous, which is my upper arm is going from one position to coming more towards the center line of my body, whether I'm doing a fly or a press. But it's way more complicated than that.

There's a connection to between your chest and your triceps, which are both pressing, and then there's one that you can create between your chest and your biceps, which is what tends to happen with the fly. The lever also tends to be lengthened, because when I'm doing a fly, I have more of an open arm. It's just a different movement, and I think you're right, Adam,

I don't think a chest workout would be complete without some type of a fly. My favorite is a dumbbell fly. And obviously you're not gonna be able to load that quite substantially. Which is probably why I didn't make our top three. Yeah, that's the only reason I'm sure there's somebody who understands exercise and is going like,

how do they not pick a chest fly to go in there? Well, when we're talking about the biggest bang for your buck and we only have three that we can pick, it's hard to not include the three that we did put in there. Well, when we're talking about the biggest bang for your buck and we only have three that we can pick, it's hard to not include the three that we did put in there. But you could make a very good case for an isolation movement like the chest fly. Especially if you're doing like two of the top three and then you want to pick a third exercise and it's all in the same workout. Right. Then you could throw a fly in. But here's my argument, right? You could only ever do incline barbell presses and you could only ever do dumbbell flies, the person doing the presses

will have a more impressive looking chest and upper body. But if you have to throw it in, if you're gonna throw another one, of the dumbbell fly. Now I don't know if you wanna talk about it. I know there's some functional camps out there that avoid chest presses like entirely and just stick with overhead pressing

from a functional perspective. We don't need to get in the weeds with that, but when you're stacking up your priorities, if I'm super functionally driven and sports-specific, there's cases that you could try and argue in terms of which exercise you're bringing the most value. Yeah, that's a good point.

Depending on your sport, you may actually do none of those exercises. But in this case, we're talking about developing the body, in which case, those are great exercises. All right, so back. Now, we can move to back. Now, I'm going to, obviously, I'm going to try and pick the deadlift here. Now, the deadlift isn't a specific back exercise. In reality, the deadlift is a hip exercise.

It's a hip-hinging type of a movement. There's some knee flexion going on. But it still is one of the best back developing exercises I've ever done. And I've ever seen any client ever do. And if you look at anybody who has a well-developed back, oftentimes the deadlifts are part of it. Well, this also highlights the importance of the isolation. It's probably the heaviest you can load in an isolated, like an isolated exercise, right? It's not isolated in the rest of the body is moving, but the back is kind of isolated, right? You're keeping the back in this rigid position,

and some people are able to load that with three, four, five hundred pounds. What other exercise can you think of where you put a part of your body in an isolated position like that and load it that heavy into a movement. Well, you're looking at just the muscles that stabilize the spine or in that isolated

kind of tense position, but the lats are actually quite active. The rhomboids are actually quite, when you're coming out from a heavy deadlift and you're coming up to the top, your lats are quite active. Now it's not this full range of motions. Yes, just a short range of motion is the main thing. Yes, but you're loaded so much that, and so much weight is in its such a functional exercise, it just develops an incredible back.

It always, almost always does. And by itself, it has to be one of the most effective exercises you could do for your back. And I know even our head trainer, Danny, tends to argue with us on this But I'll say this I think Danny would probably put the deadlift in the top three I think you probably at least put it up on the top three. Well, I know for me It was it was a game changer because I wasn't a big deadlifter

But I love to train back. It was great at Cedar row. I love lap pull down I love rows like I love barbell rows T bar rows I loved all those exercises and love training back and had a pretty good back and just was not a big deadlifter. But boy, the biggest gains I'd ever seen was when I started deadlifting and when I started deadlifting, it took my back to a whole other,

and there's something to be said and this is why I brought up early on when we first started this conversation about CNS. And this was something that I remember firsthand, like it blew my fucking mind when I decided it. And this didn't happen until I was 30. I decided I'm going to go like on this deadlifting kick, okay? I'm not going to be the guy who's going around doing muscle confusion and all these different

exercises and a back workout consisted of six different movements. I'm just in a deadlift. I'm on it. And at that time, it was actually chasing Sal and where he was deadlifting. I'm like, you know what, I've never really tried to improve my deadlifting and really try and jump. It was like, it would intermittently make it into my workouts, but very rarely.

And so I decided, okay, I'm gonna really go after this. So I was training, I was deadlifting two to three times a week every week for well over a year and a half, two years straight. And I completely Eliminated a lot of the other isolation stuff that I was doing. I wasn't doing any more seated row, which I think is an incredible exercise still, But I didn't care. I was like all about the deadlift. And I'll never forget after a year of doing that, deciding, oh, let me, let me throw some seated row in there just to kind of, you know,

See where I'm at. I wonder how much strength I lost. I absolutely thought for sure because I knew I hadn't done. I know dummy. I know any movement that I haven't done for a year. And then I go back to doing it. Typically, I'm a lot weaker than what I was when I've been consistently doing it every my routine for a long time. And what freaked me out. I mean, you remember, I've been doing this for a really long time. And this had not happened freaked me out. I mean, you remember I've been doing this for a really

long time and I hadn't this had not happened to me before. I went back to this seated row and not only did I not lose a ton of strength, but I was stronger in the seated row more than I ever was in my entire life. A movement that I had watched myself since I was 18 years old, you know, progress up 10 or 15 pounds more, 10 or 15 pounds more, 10 or 15 pounds more every year, over year, over year, over year. All of a sudden, I don't do it for a year, and I come back to it, and I'm fucking stronger than I never, and significantly stronger.

Like, I'd made a leap that I'd never made in a year's time, and that was kind of the light bulb for me, like, holy shit, the value of the dead lift. And because it's not a major range of motion thing, and that's the argument that the bodybuilder type of community will go, like, oh, how can you say the dead lift is such a great exercise for the back when you're not even taking any of the muscles through its fullest range of motion, and you could load a part of the back and isolate it with other movements so much better. But I think it's such an overall back movement

and the heavy isolation part of it that I'm talking about, that you're spine having to be, in a neutral position while you load 400 plus pounds, that's where it came from. It's like you stretch the capacity a bit further for those natural governing systems in your body to limit the amount that you,

a force that you have forced that you can produce. And so, to be able to focus and hyper-focus on picking something really heavy off the ground, you can load a lot more substantially than a lot of these other isolated exercises. Now, of a sudden, your ability to produce more force, even on those isolated exercises increases.

Huge difference. I mean, pull-ups exercises increases. Well, a huge difference. I mean, pull-ups got easier. See the row got easier. Everything got easier. Isn't it wild? Like, if you, in here's a, if you're in the bodybuilding, look at bodybuilders who started out as power lifters. All of them have amazing backs.

Every single one. Ronnie Coleman, who's widely regarded as the greatest Mr. Olympia of all time, was a tremendous deadlifter. Tremendous that our friend who now just competed in... Ben Pollock. Ben Pollock. Now he would do in power lifters oftentimes do, you know, auxiliary what they would consider auxiliary back exercises like rows and pull downs.

But they're not like working them hard. That's like a very minimal amount of volume. Most of the volume on their back is done with through deadlifts. Look at his back. He has a almost pro level body builder. Forget physique or forget a classic. His back is a standout body part

and it came from those deadlifts. So the argument that, I think we made the case, right? Deadlifts have to be one of the top exercises in my opinion number one. All right, what else? What are so good back exercises? What are you gonna have? You gotta have a row in there.

So you have to have some sort, and a barbell or a T-bar, either one to me, has to be a staple. Absolutely, absolutely. I love the barbell row. You have to support yourself while you're bending over. So you still have to involve the hips and the low back muscles to stabilize.

It's great for your lats, it's great for the rhomboids and the traps. It develops amazing looking backs. And it's also very functional in the sense that, a lot of people have a lot of issues with their shoulders rolling forward. It's just a common issue, especially in modern times. A barbell row done properly counters that better

than a lot of other pull down type exercises, which there's nothing wrong with those movements either, but they don't really correct some of the bad problems that we tend to develop. Now do you prefer overhand grip or a supinated grip? I like over, if I have to pick, now they're both good. If I have to pick, it's gonna be overhand. It seems more functional to me.

We tend to grab things more with an overhand or neutral grip. Very rarely do we grab things with a really supinated grip, but I know a lot of bodybuilders like that. And honestly, I think we're splitting hairs. I think if you're just trying to highlight more of the function of the bicep and incorporate it. Yeah, and it changes the elbow positioning a little bit like a reverse grip, squeezes the elbows in at your side, so it changes the feel.

But honestly, they're all barbell rows. I would consider them all super effective. Gotta keep them up there. What about a pull-up? What about a good old-fashioned pull-up? That's gotta be one of the best bodyweight exercises ever. 100%. And it's one of those ones too

that we all tend to avoid, because most people suck that. It's hard. Yeah. I remember this in my career too. Another big leap that I made in my back was, I don't know where when I was reading, I read some article or magazine thing who knows what it was, but somebody talked about starting every back workout with pull ups.

And it was really, it was just 50 pull ups. It was like, you know, every- Do as many as you can. I read that also. I don't remember where it was, but I got on this kick for a year where it's like, okay, every back workout, like clockwork, I started it with 50 pull ups. And it started off where I was doing sets of eight to 10,

you know, and took me, but it got to the point where I was wrapping over 20 something pull ups straight and like strict, not fucking kipping CrossFit pull ups. Like real pull ups. Thank you for clarifying. Real pull ups, you know, all the way up, all the way down. And man, I tell you what, I saw huge, huge gains

in my back from doing that. And it's a different type of strength too, when you get really strong in a body weight type of movement like that. And I would feel great. So it's one of those, it was one of those things in my career, and honestly it was in my late 20s or so when I started to do this.

And that became something that I was like, okay, I'll never neglect pull ups before. And it was you, Sal, who was big on the loaded pull ups. And I used to never, I was always doing pull ups for reps. And when I met you, I started doing more weighted pull ups. And I actually saw huge gains in doing three to five reps of pull ups and did with reps. Yeah, would have never thought to do that with pull ups. I was always, it was always, whenever us trainers were doing pull ups, how many can you do?

It was always how many you could do. But remember how much weight you could look. Yeah, and we weren't really doing it to load and see how strong we can get or how much weight we could pull. And that was a big game changer too, was I started going, okay, I'm not really worried about getting 15, 20 reps of these pull ups. Let's see how heavy I can load it.

And even if I can only get two to five reps and started to implement that in my turn, man, great gains from that also. Now there needs to be an honorable mention here, and mainly because I learned how to do this, the following exercise as a kid, and I fell in love with it. And I don't know of any other exercise

that really trains this kind of movement, which is a natural, in fact, I would even argue, is close to one of the most fundamental movements that humans are good at, which is throwing, which is this kind of overhead movement from behind the body to the front of the body. That's a pullover. I love pullovers, dumbbell pullovers, machine pullovers,

barbell pullovers, more of an isolation movement, can't compare with a barbell row or a deadlift or a pullup, but if you're gonna throw in an isolation movement for your back, make it some kind of a pullover. If you say that, I feel like you can't leave out then a one arm row and you talk about things that are functional and so important for the rotational reason.

Yes, because that's walking. I mean, you to be able to control Adderall's stability. Yes, and also for overall protecting you in that, that's such a compromising position. I don't know how many clients have you guys had, it's always a client rotating to pick the soap up or they're out gardening and they rotate to the right. And it's such a basic movement. That's like, it's got to be the most common way people hurt their back on accident.

Right. It's twisting. It's twisting and bending. Yeah, twisting, twisting and just being a little, and it's rarely ever is like, they, oh, they were lifting 500 pounds and they hurt their through their back out. That's more rare. It's more common. Yeah, reaching for the Cheerios behind the seat. Yeah. Or reaching back to do something with their kid and they tweak something. It's like, this is such a functional movement that you should be able to do. And I think the single dumbbell row is one of the best movements that you can to protect

the spot, can protect the back. And you can do it as a strength rotational movement, so where you actually throw some rotation in it when you do it, and it can be an anti-rotational movement where you stay in a very fixed position and you roll, both are incredible,

and if you're gonna drop in something like a pullover for like shoulder health and the importance of throwing, I feel like I have to give an honorable mention then to something like that because that exercise carries so much work. Yeah, I'm not gonna debate that. I agree 100%. All right, shoulders, let's move to shoulders.

The best exercise if you have to pick one for me, and this was a tough one because there's a couple exercises and it was hard for me to kind of pick, but I would say overall, paying for your buck, muscle strength, development, good old fashioned standing, not seated, standing, barbell overhead press. Done properly, not the barbell overhead press I see in the gym where people bring the bar down

to like their nose or eye level. I mean a full barbell press, barbell comes down to the upper chest, elbows under the hands, press it all the way up, head comes through so it's full extension. I would argue that an overhead press is one of the, if not the most functional upper body exercise, I would even outrank, that would even outrank the bench press, in my opinion. I think an overhead press is a better overall measure of your upper body strength.

And some people say that bench press is a squat for the upper body, I disagree. I think it's the overhead press, the bar to overhead press. So my, not my challenge to that, but where I would go first with a client is a Z press. And this was not something that was introduced to me till way later. I learned this like four years ago. Yeah. And it has become a staple movement in my own programming, a staple movement in a shoulder exercise that I teach every client.

It's the great equalizer. It really is. And yes, I know that you can definitely do a lot. You can load more of a standing overhead press because you have your legs, right? Your legs are grounded and you can use a little bit of momentum. You have leg drive that you can get out of that to get.

So you can definitely build more muscle with a standing or butt. That is one also one of the most compromising exercises. That's like can be dangerous for somebody who has bad mechanics. And the Z press really, I think, it forces you to do it. Yes, it lays the foundation for a client on how to do it.

So I personally, like I talked about the incline press, I would teach before I taught a barbell press with a client on how to do it. So I personally, like I talked about the incline press, I would teach before I taught a barbell press with a client. I would also now teach a Z press first before I taught an overhead press because you get a client to do a Z press really well. Not only will they build great shoulders from that and teach them to learn how to press correctly, but man, when they learn that first

and then you take them to an overhead press, I've just, I've seen so many more better. Oh, you really have to nail down the bracing mechanism part of that lift. Like with the Z press, it really emphasizes the importance of being able to brace your spine and press this weight overhead, which is everything in an overhead press. If you don't master that, don't even bother pressing something over your head. So I can agree with that in terms of, you know, importance functionally, but in terms of like overall, muscle development and strength, I would definitely highlight the overhead press. But one thing that the shoulder is, is, is, this is a joint that has a lot of different functions. This has, you know, many different directions, many different options in the body. So that rotation is a joint that has a lot of different functions. This has many different directions, many different oblong joints in the body.

So that rotation is a humongous part of that entire process. I have to include a kettlebell rotational press in there where the loading of it is nice because it actually loads on the outside of your arm and it gives you a different feel than say your dumbbells, which comparable to that is like an Arnold press. So I could say like, equivalent-wise, like, those two exercises, like, I have to incorporate those in basically whatever I'm doing in order to maintain shoulder health and stability.

Yeah, yeah, it's that whole full range of motion, it's that rotation, and you know, the shoulder is made up of many of a few different joints. And a lot of people don't realize that part of the beauty of a good overhead press is that full extension at the top. You'll see a lot of people press up above their head and they'll look at their hands and they'll arch their back to look up. That's not full extension. Full extension, your arms come up next to your head. You're getting that full extension, the scapula is coming down and back a little bit, you're getting this huge range of motion. I think that's where a lot of the benefit

kind of comes from when you're doing over a head press, but the Arnold press or the kettlebell press, and it really exemplifies that rotation, exemplifies that extension. It's just a full range of motion. No, I think that we would all agree on that with the shoulders. I also have to, I love sharing the things that were just big game changes for myself because that you know, it's, when we've been training and been training clients for a long period

time, you would think some of these things I would have figured out a lot earlier. And sometimes this, it took eight years, 10 years before something like got peace together for me and like this light ball went off. I was like, holy shit. So I love sharing those things because I feel like there's gotta be, there's gotta be, if I have this issue and I didn't piece this together to lay, there's gotta be people that are listening right now that consider themselves advanced lifters or understand exercise really well,

that might be missing this. And that was rear delt flies. And the reason why this movement was such a game changer for me were two major ones. One, most people perform it incorrectly. Most people do a, like a rear fly on a peck deck or they do the dumbbells and they get a lot of their traps and wrong. It's a back exercise.

Right. They end up letting the bigger muscles take over because of poor mechanics. Now we have a, I know our mod addresses this. I know that we have a YouTube video on this to show the mechanics, the importance of the shoulder staying rolled forward. But when you're talking about building shoulders, part of building and sculpting the shoulder is understanding that there's three parts to the shoulder.

And maybe one of the most neglected is the rear delt. We do everything in the front of us. So the anterior is pretty basic. The lateral you can only load that so much and that's a smaller part of the shoulder. And it's pretty active on overhead presence. Right. But the rear delt doesn't get as much attention.

And when I started to piece this together, and I did, I went on, and there's another one of these things where once the light ball went off, I said, okay, now every shoulder, every shoulder day, I would start with rear delt stuff. With rear delt and man, it just brought that spade look to my shoulder. It gave me this full developed shoulder,

and it made my upper body look so much more massive. This was to me a staple in my success in competing on stage, because it really gives that illusion of a big, wide back and broad shoulders and just really brings a shoulder out. So, even though the rear delt fly is an isolation movement and a small movement, I feel like if you're listening and you're into sculpting the body, and this is another one for my ladies, man.

This gives their whole arm. Oh, that's amazing. When I started coaching Melissa, which is the last client that I coached in women's bikini category, our major focus was hamstrings and rear delts. Two areas of focus that I think makes a huge difference, especially on my women clients, and bringing the shoulder out and shaping it really well like that. It makes the whole arm look amazing. Yeah, aesthetically speaking, I would agree with you. I think the rear fly dumbbell or peck deck, but I prefer dumbbell.

I would say that that has to be one of the top exercise just from an aesthetic perspective, because all overhead presses is effective as they are. They don't really work the rear deltoids at all. So all you ever did was an overhead press. Although you would definitely build overall better looking shoulders, you would be neglecting an integral part of the shoulder. And so aesthetically speaking, I would agree,

you have to be pretty sure. That's a for longevity to function. Now you mentioned the mods, I think our shoulder mod is already out if I'm not mistaken. That's where we actually design an entire workout that's just four shoulders. And I think there's a few other ones on there as well. I'll make sure to mention that at the end of this episode.

All right, let's talk about traps. I know we weren't gonna initially talk about traps but Doug made a good point that there's a lot of people out there that really wanna develop nice traps. Now a lot of people think, oh, you just do shrugs. Just do shrugs, that's all you gotta do for traps. I would agree. Shrugs has to be up there for traps,

but I actually learned a very interesting lesson recently. This is when we released Maps Strong, which we wrote with World Strongest Man competitor, Robert Obersd. He was a huge fan of wide grip, high pulls. He liked this because it helped him with his competition. And Maps Strong is really an overall kind of functional type of program.

It's not aesthetic based. But the side effect I got from following that program was my traps really got developed from those high pulls. So I would have to say high pulls for me. It's got to be one of the best exercises I've ever done for traps. I love that. Or it's right there to me with cleans. Those two movements are two movements. Again, most of my training career, all I was doing was the different shrugs. It was, you know, pronated shrugs, supinated shrugs, neutral grip shrugs.

Double bells, barbells, machine. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's all I did. It was a bunch of different types of shrugs. It's all I knew to really do for traps. And I would never thought that high pulls or cleans would really develop that. And when I got into that high pulls or cleans would really develop that. And when I got into doing high pulls and cleans,

man, it blew my upper back and my traps up. And that was for sure one of the best movements I could do. Oh yeah, once you start focusing more on that fast twitch that like I need to move this weight fast and it's about accelerations, a different exercise completely at that point. So, the focus of it, it tells the muscle to do something totally different,

which is gonna shock that muscle into growth in a different direction. So, it's definitely an effective exercise for the traps. Now, what about farmer walks? There's one that I never did before. I'm actually doing them and I'm like, wow, look at this. I'm actually developing. You can load farmer walks? There's one that I never did before. I'm actually doing them and I'm like, wow, look at this, I'm actually developing. You can load farmer walks really heavy

and that isometric contraction of just stabilizing the weight as you're walking. I mean, again, this is another one that's gonna isolate and totally obliterate the tracks. Game changer too. This reminds me the argument or the point I was trying to make with the dead lifts. And I don't know if I argued it very well or explained it very well, but this is what I'm trying to explain is that

that heavy loaded kind of isolation, you know, a process in an exercise, man, it's crazy what that does, you know, and I don't know if it's because of the CNS or the ability to load it so heavy or what are the combination of the two, but making sure that you have a movement or an exercise like that. Farmer walks were one that I also neglected to do, started doing those and man, I tell you what, you put, and I bet there's a lot of people in here that are doing traps, so I'm glad Doug did make us do this because I'm sure there's a lot of people that are doing traps and they're probably focusing a lot on shrubs. Just doing shrubs, just nothing else.

And if you really want to work and develop your traps, you gotta get cleansed high pull and farmer walks, those three are probably three of the best things that you could add in there. Totally. All right, let's move to the show muscle. I refer to the bicep. Yeah, the bicep is the show muscle because...

Girls for the girls. If you're out in public and someone says, show me your muscle, you're not flexing your quad or your hamstring or your pecs, you show them your bicep. So that's the muscle that everybody refers to when they say show me your muscle, you're not flexing your quad or your hamstring or your pecs, you show them your bicep. So that's the muscle that everybody refers to when they say show me your muscle. So I have a controversial one. And I don't know why it's controversial,

I actually I do know why it's controversial because nobody ever really said this. But this is something I learned early on about biceps and that's that the biceps develop really, really well with compound movements, just like any other muscle does. And yet every exercise we ever do for our biceps are isolation. They're all single joint. If you do a supinated grip, chin up, and really focus on using the biceps to pull yourself

up, you will develop better, bigger biceps and faster than any other curl combination you can think of. I love that you brought that up because for me, it's always been a supporting cast muscle. And the bodybuilding community, and the aesthetic community, it's always been the muscle that we're always training and trying to get size and get that to really be pronounced. But for me, it's like,

and as a side effect, doing all those exercises like a supinated pull-up, like it really does build and develop, even deadlifts. I was building and developing my biceps substantially. Yeah, I learned this from a trainer that worked for me who was a gymnast. And if you're ever seen a gymnast who's high level and been training for a long time,

they don't do a lot of body building exercise, but they have amazing bodies, and especially biceps. Male gymnasts in particular have these really, really well-developed biceps from all the chin-ups and pull-ups and ring-warping. Yeah, and I remember asking, what do you do for your biceps? And he goes, I don't know, chin-ups, pull-ups. And I'm like, those are back exercises. And I go, those are back exercises.

What do you do for your biceps? And he goes, no, when I do, I'm like a crazy pump on my biceps. And I think to myself, I thought to myself, like, well, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Because when we talk about other body parts, compound movement seemed to work best. Why not try that for the biceps? Sure enough, yeah, it makes perfect sense. Because when we talk about other body parts, compound movements seem to work best. Why not try that for the biceps? Sure enough, I applied it.

I used a supinated grip. I focused on curling the biceps on the way up, and it was just, it was a game changer. It blew my arms up, it got lost. So with that argument, I have the other end of the spectrum that I always like to include in any of these small muscle groups that we talk about. And that is something where it kind of fixes the body

in a locked position so you really can isolate and focus on the muscle, which is why I love to teach a preacher curl here. One of the most common mistakes that I see, I did a video a long time ago on the YouTube channel about the split stance bicep curl thing that I teach. And the reason why I teach that, and that was such a staple

exercise for me was because I found really early on when I would teach bicep curls, which was so weird to me that it's such a simple movement, but how many people cheat that exercise by rocking their shoulders or swinging their elbows when they do a movement. And when you do something like the supinated chin up, I think if you really understand how to connect

to the right muscle, it could be a huge, huge exercise. You have to be strong too. Yeah, and you have to understand, and because naturally the back will want to kick in and really do a lot of the work as it's the bigger, stronger muscle, and that's what you're used to doing when you do pull-ups. So when you do chin ups in the supinated grip

for your biceps, you have to also be able to make that mental switch of what you're trying to accomplish and doing that, or else it could turn into still a majority of a back exercise and the secondary muscle is a bicep. So because of that, I find a preacher curl a very important exercise

when teaching someone or helping someone develop their bicep, because what it does is it locks that shoulder in that position. It doesn't allow them to cheat the elbows pinned down on a pad. And so you can't help but only really work the bicep where it's really easy to include this shoulder when you are actually standing or doing any other type of a bicep movement. So the preacher curl statement. And the preacher curl was, they used to call those Scott curls. And if you guys need this, Larry Scott, the first Mr. Olympia, he had amazing arms and

everybody always asked them, how did you get such amazing arms? And he said, oh, I do these curls on this bench. And at the time, you know, it wasn't popular. They weren't everywhere. Nobody knew what they were. And they called them the Scott curls. And Scott curls were literally preacher curls. So just a little, little history for you.

Barbell curls gotta be up there. You have to have barbell curls. It's a basic bicep exercise. You're standing very functional, develops the arms really well. But I'm gonna load it the most too. You can load it the most. But I'm gonna mention one other exercise

that a lot of people don't think is a phenomenal bicep exercise. And that's a hammer curl. I love neutral grip curling. I think it's more functional than supernated grip curling. I like the way it develops the forearm as well. And if you train it and you do it right, you talk about load, you actually can load more

on a hammer curl than you can on a supernated curl. And I learned this, the importance of this exercise by watching arm wrestlers. And when you watch arm wrestlers and they work their biceps at a lot, a importance of this exercise by watching arm wrestlers. And when you watch arm wrestlers and they work their biceps at a lot, a lot of them do hammer curls. And mainly it's because of the position of your other hand. And if you see arm wrestlers arm,

they always have very well developed forms and biceps. And that's kind of where I got that from. Love the hammer curls, one of my favorite exercises. Okay, triceps, let's go to triceps. You know, a lot of people don't realize that the triceps makes up two thirds to triceps. You know a lot of people don't realize that the tricep makes up two thirds of the upper arm size and mass. If you're somebody trying to build nice looking arms

and all you're focusing on is your biceps, which a lot of people do. You are missing out big time. You develop nice looking, in fact, when you're standing relaxed with your arms at your side and you're not actually flexing for people, it's the tricep that stands out. It's the tricep that makes the arm look sculpted and shaped.

And this is an exercise, this is also a muscle that's very important in aesthetic terms for women, especially female competitors, is that back of that arm. What are your some of your favorite tricep exercises? Close grip bench press for me. And particularly I like incline,

although if you do it on a flat bench fine, both of those, they're pretty equal, but another one of these movements that came later on in my career didn't really piece it together what a game changer that it could be for my triceps and just blew my triceps up. And it's a compound movement, you know, it's a compound movement that I was able to load. And it just, it made a huge difference on my triceps. That has become something that wasn't in my routine, that now, if I was telling somebody

is a must or something that you have to include in your triceps training, I would say close grip bench press. I prefer incline, but incline or flat bench, I think is great. Yeah. For functional, just like the pull-up for the b Yeah, for functional, just like the pull it for the biceps, for me, it's always been dips for the triceps. Just different. You can't really beat the dips to really hammer out

for the triceps now, to add weight to that and do the less rep approach to that as well was a game changer for me, but even more so if I was to talk functionally, I fell in love with ring dips. And I know this is like outside of a lot of people's thought process, because this is a very skill type exercise where you have to,

you have to, a lot of moving parts have to work all simultaneously to pull this off. And so there's a lot of moving parts have to work all simultaneously for to pull this off. And so there's a lot of stabilization elements to that that have great crossover functionally for all kinds of things with a shoulder joint and for the elbows, wrists, everything else. Like to make sure that this exercise all goes the way you want.

It's one of my favorites. Yeah, yeah, the parallel bar dips or your ring dips both phenomenal exercises for your triceps and range motion. Here's why I like the ring dips though. Here's what happens with parallel bar dips. When you watch someone do dips on bars, they tend to not focus too hard on the lockout and the squeeze at the top. You can't do that with the ring dips. With the ring dips, you got to come up and you have to squeeze hard the top. You can't do that with the ring dips. With the ring dips, you gotta come up and you have to squeeze hard and stabilize. And it's that extra squeeze at the top that causes the triceps to develop really well.

Skull crutches have to be up there, right? Classic trisip extension exercise, lying on a bench, bringing the bar down to your forehead or just behind the forehead. I actually like to bring the bar down behind my head for greater range of motion. That's a favorite exercise and people do those. People do those a lot and they should,

because they're super effective. And along the lines of the, you mentioned with the neutral grip with hammer curls for curls. I also prefer the skull crushers with dumbbells. Yeah, same with. I just, the range of motion I can get, you can't cheat one side or the other.

It's easier to keep the elbow in a fixed position. So I love school crushers done with dumbbells and a neutral grip. My favorite way to do those, I think it's a great muscle builder for the try. All right, let's talk about super popular muscle these days. Let's talk about the glutes. Oh, yeah.

But there is some controversies to what the best exercises are. Here's a muscle that more often than not, I see people recommending stupid, silly, ineffective exercises. More often than not. Okay. So you're not going to hear us say our donkey kickbacks or dog peas or a hip abduction or all these other little small locks. Yeah. No. Yes, you'll feel your glutes working on those.'ll they're good priming movements So if you've heard of us talking about priming you can prime the glutes well, but they're not big glute

Developing exercises for me the king barbell squat done properly barbell squats hands down Gotta be the best but developing exercise ever and it's funny when I would have clients now Not everybody can squat well so oftentimes I'd get a client and I'd have to get to increase their mobility, improve the range of motion. But then once we could get to the point we could load the squat, it was funny. You'd watch their butt just change from week to week. And they would tell me, too, they'd come in and be like,

you know, my jeans aren't fitting as well. And I'd say, well, is your waist smaller? And they'd say, well, my waist is still small. Actually, it's a little leaner. So it gets your butt, your butt's growing. Yeah. That's why your jeans aren't fitting. Now, the only exercise that I think that we would argue, still small, actually, it's a little leaner, so it gets your butt, your butt's growing. Yeah. That's why your jeans aren't fitting.

Now, the only exercise that I think that we would argue that is right there with it, because I would agree to that the squat is king, although you could make a very good argument for hip thrust. Sure. You could definitely, and there's, I think it's more of a straight glute, right? Yeah, like isolating the glutes. Right. And I think that there's definitely a camp that would

would say that it's superior than the squat. I don't know if I would argue that it's superior. I definitely would argue that it is right up there. There's no doubt it's one and two. We could argue all day long, which one's one, which one's two? The for sure one of, if not both of those have to be in your routine, if glutes are the primary thing that's happening. Which is interesting, because this wasn't really that popular a while ago. This had like a major resurgence. A Breckin Charis.

Yeah, Breckin Charis like popularized it. And yeah, this became almost now like, you'll see this even more often times in the gym than you'll see people squatting. I know, right? Yeah, these days, which is really fascinating, but it's definitely a valuable exercise to include for the glutes.

It is, you can load them both really well too. You get good at them, you can load them with a lot of weight. I've seen women hip thrust as much as 250 and 300 pounds in the gym, so because you can load it so much, it's a functional foundational movement, you get a lot of development out of it. Now I have one that is unique and it was an exercise that another one of these ones that later on in my career kind of piece this together. And what I found was that a lot of people that don't

have a good mind muscle connection to their glute meat, right? That's the glute part on the outside. Right. Yeah. And that's what gives you kind of that heart shaped look, or the ability for you to see a butt from the front, right? Somebody who's got good developed side. From the front. That's right. Good side butt developed. And what happens is, you know,

and this, it probably stems all the way from their feet. They pronate a little bit. That pronation, it causes the femur to internally rotate, which kind of shuts off the glute meat, because the glute meat is responsible for external rotation of the femur to internally rotate, which kind of shuts off the glute me because the glute me is responsible for external rotation of the femur. And because most people are kind of internally rotated there, they don't have a good connection there. So then when they go squat or hip thrust or do any of these other movements, sure they get they get they connect to the other two parts of your butt really well, but not so well on the glute me. So when I would teach a wide stance sumo deadlift, man,

did I see almost all the butts that I trained blow up from that and I think the technique is so important, like drive the knees out one right, and I think that's why I think when you do a wide stance sumo, you're supposed to get real wide, you're supposed to externally rotate the feet, right? And you're supposed to keep the knees lined up with your feet. So if you're opened up like that, that is forcing that glute meat already to be activated. And then you're doing a heavy compound lift, like a deadlift, which allows you to load

it really heavy. And a lot of people can actually do more weight with a sumo deadlift and they can squat and sometimes hip thrust. So this becomes one of my favorite and even though we were saying and we I think we'd agree that one and two would be the squat and hip thrust, this sometimes I lean towards this even more to show progress in someone's body. Depends on the person right? You got to really focus on keeping the knees apart while you're doing this because if you

let the knees come in a little bit while you're doing this exercise, not gonna be an issue. This is also one of the top videos that I did on YouTube, and I think it's titled something about sidebutt, but it's one of our top videos on our Mind Pump TV, where I'm talking about developing the sidebutt, and this is the exercise that I go in, and I explain in detail the importance of how you do it.

So this is a must. All right, so quads, let's go to quads. For me, front squats, good old fashioned barbell, front squats, barbell across the front of my shoulders. I can use a cross grip like body builder style or the clean grip that a lot of lifters will use. Really, it doesn't matter, whichever one's more comfortable for you.

But the front loaded front squat really focuses, forces the body to be a little bit more upright. You're gonna get more knee flexion and extension, meaning you're gonna put more load on the knee area, which is where you're gonna get more of that quad activation. This exercise for me has been a staple for decades. I learned how to squat early on and as part of my squatting, my traditional barbell squat, I did a lot of front squats. And those front squats, man, they made my

quads develop incredibly. So I got to have it up there. I actually teach the front squat sometimes before I teach people how to do a back squat. Now with really lightweight, oftentimes I'll start them out with like a broomstick just to keep their posture, but it helps them stay upright, right? Yeah, the grip is interesting because I definitely agree, you know, you can do multiple forms of that and the body builder cross arm form. However, I like to keep that sort of a cleaned position, that racked position because you know, if I'm to work on any other sort of movement like a power clean or anything where that's a transitional part of the exercise, I'm trying to make sure that I maintain that type of mobility my wrists.

So, I do want to make sure that I can do that and load it heavy and go through that same exercise with that form. The only reason why the front squat would not be number one for me is only because the other limiting factors, because not a lot of people can load it as heavy. They're rarely ever do I see a front squat, the quads being the limiting factor for people. Normally people, just the limiting factor is the shoulder strength or shoulder mobility, the ability for them to hold that much weight up in front of them. So otherwise, I would agree that it's number one.

So if you don't have those limiting factors and you can actually load it, and it isn't the shoulders that give before the quads do, then I think it is. But in my experience, it's not the quads that give. It's the shoulder strength of the upper body strength to hold the weight that causes the person to not be able to load more.

So because of that, I love something like a Bulgarian split squat for a quad developer because you can either do a barbell on your back or you could hold dumbbells and do the Bulgarian split squat. And now because you're doing single leg, it's like you can load it with half the weight and it's exactly what you would be doing with double the weight with both feet and breath.

And that's an exercise that I used to never do. I used to never do Bulgarian split-stand squats, and then I started, well, I did them here and there, but I never really did them. This isn't something that I did until relatively recently, and I would agree, Bulgarian split-stand squats are one of the best exercises for overall leg development, but definitely for the squats.

And by the way, there's a lot of crossover here. So, you know, we mentioned the barbell back squat for the glutes. Barbell back squat is also a phenomenal quad exercise. Yeah. Now, I'm not thinking purely quad when I think barbell back squat, like I am with a front squat,

but it's still a phenomenal quad exercise. That's great. Then there's the heel elevated squat varieties or versions. Like a hax squat. Like a hax squat. Now, elevating the heels a little bit. Now, I remember back in the day, if you look at the like 70s, remember back in the day, if you look at

the like 70s, 80s, and 90s, if you had issues with squatting where your heels came off the floor, they would always put something underneath your heels and that was okay. And then later on we said, that's not okay. You got to learn how to have better ankle mobility. Well, now we're learning that they're both okay. Yes, you want to have good ankle mobility. But when you do elevate your heels a little bit, because it's placing your weight forward a little bit more, you're going to hit your quads more.

So heel elevated type squats, especially a hack squat, that will light your quads on fire. So my favorite exercise. Great movement. I know Ben Pakowski's a big fan of doing those types of exercise. In fact, I saw him do a workout with Jordan Schallow, where they had their heels elevated.

I was actually just reading a post that the guy Eugene, I think was Eugene Tao, is his name that we brought up the other day who we talked to, and talked about one of his posts. He brought up the hacks, he would argue the hacks quad is the best quad exercise. And I wouldn't argue too much with him. I think it's right up there for sure. So yeah, I know two, a couple of strength conditioning coaches that prefer not just like a front loaded squat, but also a heel elevated front loaded squat in terms of like translation of field play. So I mean, if I was out on on the grass,

like I'm a lot on my forefoot, I want to strengthen my feet, my ankle mobility as well. And so to, you know, to be able to load that and have that more strength in that movement, like that translates the best. Yes, all right, hamstrings. Let's talk about hamstrings. Hamstrings are very functional. It's a very functional part of the body.

Ethetically speaking, extremely important, especially for women. And extremely overlooked. A totally overlooked one. When you, if you talk, I don't think you can overdevelop them either. And the competitive world, it's like a secret, not as, I mean, if you're in the competitive world,

you know this, but a lot of people don't, if you're not in it, is that the number one, like go to look spot for judges is hamstrings, because they get neglected. And it's such a big muscle and it brings the shape of the legs all together I mean, and it's really easy because there's just it's hard to find a lot of really good exercises for your hamstrings So we tend to neglect them. It's just like I just don't really know a lot to do for them And so I don't really do them that much they're in the back of your body So we tend to do that with all muscles on the back side

We just we don't look at them as much but man, what a neglected body part that really can bring your legs together. Totally. Stifflega deadlifts, my favorite. My favorite exercise, Romanian deadlift, Stifflega deadlift, best exercise for hamstrings, hands down. When I first started working out, I did none of that. I did traditional deadlifts, but in every to the Stifflega variety, I did leg curls.

And remember one day looking in the magazine, and I saw one of my favorite bodybuilders doing like a Romanian deadlift. And I thought, let me give that a shot. And I felt it for days. And ever since then, it's been my go to hamstring exercise. And for years, in fact, after that, I did zero leg curls. Not saying leg curls don't have their place, but I did none. And I've only ever done stiff-legate type deadlifts,

and my hamstrings arguably are one of the better parts of my legs. That's like a direct shot to the hamstrings. Oh, yeah. Well, I also love a good morning. Yeah. I'm loaded on my back and fold. I mean, this is a more technical skill

kind of exercise to master, but when you get perfect mechanics with that, oh man, my hamstrings. And that exercise fell out of favor for a while. Well, it just looks sketchy. It does, you got a bar in your back, but if you do it right, it's safe, but you're bar in the back and you're bending over

with a bar in your back. It looks bad, in fact, 15 years ago, when I was training people, if anybody did an exercise like that, I'm sure the gym would have, employees would have told them, stop doing that. Oh, I would have. I mean, I was so unfamiliar with the movement as a young trainer, if I saw exercise like that, I'm sure the gym would have, you know, employees would have told him, stop doing that. Oh, I would have.

I mean, I was so unfamiliar with the movement as a young trainer, if I saw someone doing that, I would think they were fucking up a squad or something. Oh man, that's what really- So how you do it? Right, but what a great exercise. We have in one of our programs. I mean, I think this is an incredible staple movement

for the hamstrings. And then I think you just have, this is one that you have to do. I think lying leg curls, this is where an isolation exercise makes a lot of a leg bicep is a part of the hamstring that that's specifically what it does is curls The leg right if you don't have a leg curl machine Physioball curls get a fizzial ball put your heels on it elevate your hips curl your legs I actually like that better than leg curls about many times

I do too because it forces you to elevate the hips. Yes. That's the key right there. And that's really clutch to really getting that full range of motion on the hamstrings. And there's not a lot of positions where you are in there. And you'll see a lot of people that do lying leg curls and they kind of cheat it up. And they arch their back when they do that.

Where if you're lying on the ground and you're doing the lying leg curls on a ball and you have to keep your hips up, it doesn't allow you to cheat the same way you could on a machine. In fact, if you're doing lying leg curls on a machine, one of the greatest ways to feel your hamstring squeeze really hard is to activate your glutes and bring your, like you're emulating that hip forward position. But the leg curls on the fizzall, automatically puts you in that position. All right, let's talk about calves,

the not so popular calves. Well, I think calf raises, you gotta at least do standing and seated, right? Any kind of standing calf raise is going to work the bulk of the calf muscle, but when you're seated, you work a smaller part of the calf muscle known as the soleus. So in my opinion, it doesn't make a big difference how you do your standing and seated calf raises

so long as your form is good, you have full range of motion, but you should probably do at least one standing and one seated variety. Would you guys agree? I would agree. And then the only other one that I feel like has to be in there, and I think it's because it puts the calf in a really good stretch position. Oh yeah. Ben Pekolsky talks about this a lot.

Like normally the one of the limiting factors for people is the training and the strength and the muscles end range of motion, right? And so, and you can see sometimes you see people on seated, they kind of bounce, you know, they bounce their calves or even on standing, they kind of bounce in this little shortened range of motion,

where I love a donkey calf raise. A donkey calf raise. Yeah, you I love a donkey calf raise, a donkey calf raise. Yeah, you're bent over and it really, it straightens out the leg, it stretches the calf. And so it takes to that calf, that fullest range of motion, really tough to cheat the same way you could cheat a seated and a standard standing calf raise. So for me, if I were to pick a third because I agree, seated and standing have to be there and the variations, there's all types of different machines,

you can do that in body weight ways to do that, totally fine, I would include the donkey calf raise if your gym hasn't. I don't have a lot of inclusions with this, but you know, you have to figure it out. In terms of like function, I love jump ropes for the power element there. So just to get that explosive type of response

out of your calves. That's why my calves suck. I suck a jump rope. I suck a jump rope. Get better at jumping. I have a help. I've actually never met anybody that jump rope, that did a lot of jump rope that didn't have relatively

to keep them looking calves. Serious, it's a true story. And the calves, I mean, that's what they do. They jump, they make you jump. So it makes a lot of sense. We also used to do, I mean, we do front loaded carries where we do marches. And I know that's like really uber functional

for a lot of bodybuilders. Definitely is a great exercise. Abs, let's talk about abs now. That's another show muscle. Although people don't necessarily say, show me your muscle and we show them our abs. If somebody has a nice pair of looking abs, people tend to generally believe that they're fit,

and they look good. And I read a statistic the other day, I talked about this on another episode. It's like the standard. There's less people in America with a nice six pad. The millionaire. Then there are millionaires. I love the millionaire.

That's how rare it is to have a nice show. You gotta be fully committed. It is. I like reverse crunches. Here's why I like reverse crunches. I think it takes the abs through a full range of motion and it's harder to cheat on a reverse crunch than it is on a forward crunch. In fact, it's one of the first exercises that I would teach clients and it's also one that I have the most advanced people do. I just put them on an incline

so that there's some resistance. It's that rotating the hips up position. I love that movement for the abs. Love, love that exercise. You know, long lever crunches for me. So, or like your like full lever is what I call them, full lever sit-ups where you're completely lengthened on the ground, arms out. So, a lot of resistance if you do it. Yeah, no, I love that exercise. Now, I think in all of the exercises for the abs,

I think the one important piece that I always try and coach to is pressing the low back flat before you do any of these movements, whether it be a reverse crunch, the long lever, a regular crunch, anything that we're talking about right now. And that's just because we all tend to kind of be in this anterior pelvic tilt, which then naturally kicks the hip flexors in to take over the movement. So even though all these movements we can argue, which this is better, the one that will be the best is the one that you have the ability to do that before you do the crunch or the movement.

Otherwise, it's really tough to not allow the hip flexors because most people have hip flexor dominance. And so it's tough to not incorporate or use them a lot in the movement. So whichever exercise of these that we're talking about, that you have the ability to rotate the hips first before you do the crunch or the movement, I think is very important. Now to one popular one, which is definitely good exercise of the plank, but specifically active plank.

So the way that, too, that on our YouTube and sell describes this rotating of the hip to really emphasize like that abdominal contraction, I think, is a very valuable exercise for the abs and to make wraps out of it instead of just holding it for an isometric. It wasn't until I met Sal, did I teach the plank like that. I mean, we were taught the plank neutral spine neutral spine. spine and you know, when you back to the point that I'm talking about with everybody having any anterior pelvic tilt, what tends to happen in a plank is that's still there and that puts direct stress on the low back and the hip flexors carry carry the load. They're the ones really holding

it's not really abs, but just simply queuing the client or the person that's doing this exercise to engage their glutes, so squeeze their butt, rotate their pelvis, and keep it active while they're in that plank position. Now the core and the abs are really working, and that becomes an incredible exercise. And I also, I mean, I have to bring up rotation. I mean, there's multiple functions. The abs are responsible for stabilizing the spine. And one is through rotation. And so to be able to load with like a cable machine and to be able to do side chops and be able to stabilize. So to be able to keep your hips in a fixed position. So now, you know, maintaining that fixed position, my ground forces, and to be able to rotate and then squeeze and contract, you know, the

abs to be able to produce that movement is great. And then that's about core, right? That's about the bleak, that overall core, the overall look of the midsection. Yeah, I think that plank video that we did a long time ago has to be one of the more controversial ones because of that forward, you know, that pelvic tilt to position that we, which is so we talk about. It's one of our more popular videos on YouTube. So also look, we have lots of new programs

that were coming out called Mods. We're, they're just focused on one body part. Now, we've only released three so far. We have a shoulder mod, we have a butt mod, and I believe we have a back mod. So one for back, one for shoulders, one for butt, we have more coming out. So if you want to work on those body parts

and specifically just those body parts, you can buy those programs and just work on those body parts and throw them into your current routine. You can also find a lot of free resources on our free resource page, mindpumpfree.com. And you can find us all on Instagram. You can find us on Instagram. You can find Justin at MindPump Justin, me at MindPumpSal and Adam at MindPumpAddle.

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