“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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In growing numbers, most commercial gyms are adding at least one trap bar to their arsenal of available equipment. As a gym member, you should be counting your blessings. With all of the unique benefits a trap bar can provide for almost every serious lifter, there’s a good case to make for it to become
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
Most lifters in the gym have performed the classic flat bench press to build chest size and upper body pressing strength. When it comes to variations of this time-honored exercise, most lifters adjust the angle to target the “upper chest” using an incline press or focus on the “lower pecs” with a decline bench. Credit:
Few exercises can be as daunting as the pull-up. Having the strength necessary to perform one single repetition is a challenge for many. Yet, it is a milestone everyone should strive for. It’s frustrating to struggle performing pull-ups, but it’s even worse to leave them out of your program entirely. Credit: tsyhun / Shutterstock This
“Good things come after failure. You just have to keep working.” In any other context, this statement reads as banal self-help advice. But relative to lifting, it’s sage wisdom gleaned from bodybuilders and the ever-growing science of muscle hypertrophy. Forced reps, also known as “assisted reps,” are a popular intensification technique performed by lifters to
Picking up two dumbbells and walking around might not appear to be anything special. It looks too easy. No challenge at all, maybe some cardio and working your grip a little bit. But once you start taking the farmer’s walk seriously, you’ll realize there’s so much more to carrying weights than meets the eye. Credit:
Pull-ups are often called the king of upper body lifts — but do you know what is even more worthy of the crown? Adding resistance and doing more pull-ups. There will come a point when bodyweight pull-ups won’t provide you the gains they used to. When that happens, simply doing more reps will be less
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
It’s difficult to walk into a gym and not run into someone trying to develop their posterior chain with set after set of hip thrusts. The exercise has actually been around for a long time, but it’s gotten a surge of popularity in the last 10 years or so, possibly fueled by social media trends
You’ve heard about being “down to your last dime,” but how about being “down to your last dumbbell?” Maybe a hard economy forced the fire sale of your once epic home gym. Maybe you’re making do at a poorly equipped hotel gym. Or maybe you’re on a road trip with limited space for strength equipment.
Bodyweight exercises are often shunned by “hardcore” gym-goers who only deem worthy exercises when you lift heaps of hard-cast iron. Yet they forget that bodyweight movements can be very beneficial, and even humbling. Some would argue that being able to lift a proverbial ton isn’t very worthy if you can’t lift yourself and master your
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
When leg day rolls around, many lifters prioritize barbell exercises like squats and Romanian deadlifts. That’s a generally reliable approach for building size and strength, but an aversion to machine exercises can make lower body workouts less effective and it can make gains harder to come by. If lifters do incorporate machine-based movements, it’s often
Modern air bikes are far from the creaky machines your parents had at the local Y decades ago. Today’s machines are overbuilt and imposing. With bigger fans, heavier components, and electronic performance monitors, these machines are designed to take, and deliver, a beating. Credit: Jacob Lund / Shutterstock The Assault Bike® is one of a
It’s time for a quick lesson in physics. Don’t be scared; the training talk will begin soon. The definition of Work is “Force x Distance.” This is one of the most important concepts to understand when you’re a tall lifter in the gym. Your arms and legs travel through a longer range of motion in
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