“Don’t skip leg day” has almost become a meme in the gym, warning dedicated lifters to give lower body training as much emphasis, intensity, and attention as their upper body. That’s all well and good, but even when it comes to “leg day,” many lifters still end up skipping a relatively large portion of their
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Whether you call them boulder shoulders, capped delts, or the start of a classic v-taper, a set of muscular shoulders is one the most common aesthetic goals for many lifters. Credit: Ihor Bulyhin / Shutterstock That’s not to mention the overall performance boost you get from strengthening one of the most important joints in the
Back in the day, your only weight training options in the gym were machines, barbells, or dumbbells. Sure, it got the job done well enough, but lifters were missing out on a versatile, effective, and truly old school piece of equipment for building muscle, strength, power, and conditioning. Kettlebells have a centuries-long history around the
Big biceps. For some lifters, that’s the ultimate weightlifting goal. Not winning gold medals in competition or hoisting hundreds of pounds overhead. Just building some eye-catching sleeve-stretchers. And, frankly, there’s not a thing wrong with that. Credit: charnsitr / Shutterstock Changing your physique to suit your own goals, and building muscle for muscle’s sake, is
There’s a reason Monday is often called “International bench day.” Training for a strong, muscular chest is awesome and it can be appreciated year-round. But the bench press isn’t the only way to get there. The humble push-up is often pushed aside in the quest for a strong and muscular chest because the latest flashy
Even if you skipped Latin class or missed boarding school altogether, most lifters in the gym are familiar with their lats — the large, fan-shaped muscle that occupies most of your back. This makes sense because “latissimus dorsi” translates to “broadest muscle of the back side.” Well-developed lats enhance the breadth of your physique by
For some lifters, nothing beats the upper-body pump they get from a high-intensity chest workout. Many of these gym-goers hope to build a bigger, stronger chest by focusing on the bench press, but mastering the simple and effective bodyweight dip often goes overlooked. Credit: Reshetnikov_art / Shuttertock This staple movement isn’t just for gymnasts or
If your body was a rock band, your triceps would be the bass player. Your legs would be on drums, biceps would be lead guitar, and calves would be the roadie, but that’s all beside the point. Few people seem to pay attention to the triceps, but they’re hard at work in nearly every lift,
There’s a right way and a wrong way to use every piece of equipment in the gym. You wouldn’t try to do biceps curls with the leg extension machine or use the pec-deck to work your inner thighs. And you wouldn’t wedge one end of a barbell in a corner and do exercises while holding