In Part 1 of The Top 10 Muscle Building Exercises I laid out a list of heavy duty exercises you can and should be married to, literally. They can be done anywhere, in a lame ass globo gym or in your dungeon garage / basement / backyard gym.
In Part 2, I'm going to detail how to include variations in those lifts to make the program more advanced. That being said, if you NEVER varied those exercises described in part 1, fear not, the boys in the pen rock those heavy lifts and bodyweight exercises and they are jacked and strong.
If you've been following me for a while, you know I spent several hours in NJ's most dangerous prison and chatted with some of the inmates. The biggest, strongest inmate told me to NEVER vary those lifts. NEVER.
Back squats rule, he said. Zercher Squats and the like, no need for them he said. Regardless, I've added some tweaks so check em' out below:
[youtube width="640" height="360"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwCxQ33rMdM[/youtube]
Below is The Advanced List of Top 10 Muscle Building Exercises (Note The Added Exercise Variations):
1) Back Squat / Front Squat / Zercher Squat
2) Bench Press / Floor Press / Low Incline Press
3) Deadlift / Deficit Deadlift / Snatch Grip Deadlift / Clean Pulls
4) Overhead Press / Clean & Press / Snatch
5) Farmer Walks
6 & 7) Weighted Chins / Weighted Pull Ups / Weighted Dips / Muscle Ups
10) Bent Over Barbell Row / 1 Arm Row
You hopefully noticed that the exercises didn't truly change, some of them didn't change at all. So, how do you build muscle? It's not a news flash here, my brothas and ladies, it's the same and it always will be the same.
To build muscle you're gonna live and die by the basics, eat a ton of high quality food and attack your workouts. Nothing fancy, very simple, NOT easy.
If you're new here, make sure you subscribe to The Underground Strength Insider and USE the FREE Training Courses I hook you up with. Follow those FREE workouts and follow my advice and you WILL become a strong, jacked MoFo! Period.
Live The Code
--Z--
16 Responses
Most of these exercises I am very familiar with as my personal coach back in my highschool and college days (late 70’s/early 80’s) preached strength, agility and fitness to those of us whom he took under his wing. Everything was done with free weights or lift-able “heavy object” to get us to “move with strength”. Carrying sandbags, running up high sand dunes, flipping large truck tires and endless variation of core exercises. All this before fitness was big industry.
The sport: tennis! Primarily clay court tennis which required long topspin rallies from the base line; therefore you needed to be fit, very fit and strong, to compete with the international players who grew up on the clay.
Very interesting article. Enjoyed it very much!
Chris
Chris, that sounds AWESOME!! I love when I hear about this stuff waaaaay before it was “cool” or “functional”.
Thanks for sharing!!!
I do these exercises almost exclusively. My favourites are deadlifts, snatch grip high pulls, cleans and bent rows. I add heavy dumbbell snatches and lots of farmers walks. I compete as an armwrestler so heavy explosive movements are at the heart of every session I do. Rep ranges are always low but I’m gaining muscle whilst dropping body fat. (Started at 255/ 27% in january, now 244/ 17.5% and I’ve put 66lb on my deadlift since then.) No drop sets, no isolation movements just heavy weights and a ton of aggression in the weight room.
Dan, LOVE your list, brotha and LOVE what arm wrestlers do.
Pulling John was very inspirational!!!
Taking a study break from the USA weightlifting level 1 cert. I like the list!
I have so many BS programs and books. I have read those magazines and articles. I even signed and paid for a lot of certs. Only two have lived up to the hype-Underground Strength Cert (NJ a must) and the USA weightlifting.
Crazy awesome!
Keep up the good work!
The basics always win. Helped out at a local wrestling camp this weekend. First thing they went over was stance. You can apply this logic to many things. Great stuff
-Gags
Gags so true, watch an Iowa practice, Coach Brands has them working on stance first!
Great list!!!! Your making me feel old because I know who all the lifters are in the photos accompanying the articles. 😉
Rich, that’s where and when the truth was out, the men who had NO fads or gimmicks!
I have shoulder issues…I can no longer put a bar on my back…My right shoulder has impingement….putting of surgery till the first of the year…I already had the left one done…anyway…I can only do Zercher squats, KB squats etc…I work around it but it is getting harder and harder everyday….I used to be able to do 15pullups…I can barely get 5 without pain…So with that being said what can I do for shoulders that does not require lifting overhead, or lateral…my arm does not straighten out overhead…I can do partial lateral raises…not sure if that’s ok….and I have incorporated farmer walks with dumbells around the gym…I use 35s and walk till they drop…I am getting frustrated but still determined…I came across this saying the other day and immediately thought of you..
Unless a man undertakes more than he possibly
can do, he will never do all he can.
Henry Drummond
Keep shining your light for those of us
in the tunnel we need your guidance and inspiration..
Maureen
The not so good skipper at Sorinex 6
My suggestion is… Indian club style/type of workouts. Start out using body weight(just arms) with shoulder rolls, arm circles (arm fully extended or as straight as possible,circles frontwards and back wards), figure eights etc, bear hugs, even just holding your arms out for time with no weight or very light weight. I had shoulder issuses and this helped me out a lot. I did this 5 days a week, when I first woke up and it worked well. Just listen to your body and know when to stop, I’m sure you know but if it’s not a normal workout pain, stop! Start out using no weights with a small range of motion and progress from there. If you already tried this or think it’s a dumb idea, my apologies in advance. (: GOOD luck.
Maureen
great to hear from you!
I am NOT a physical therapist but when pain is evident you want to work around it and NOT aggravate the injured area more
I would test drive light bands that you can pull / push in various directions and find the pain free shoulder motions and stick w/them
Also see mike robertson and eric cressey web sites for shoulder rehab they are great!
Thanks again Z’
The Tried and True basics. Always inspirational.
That is one of the reasons why I love lookin at the ollllllllddd school photos. Almost always you’ll see them executing the same lifts: the power clean, snatch, deadlift, overhead press, and sometimes the bench press. Always rarely did you see a photo venture out of these staple lifts. Almost guaranteed to see all of them Jacked! Like the guys in the photos on this post. They’re huge. Yet the barbell always started on the ground. Base your staple lifts off what you can do from the ground—you’ll be set.
Just the other day I came across this monster. I had the opportunity to speak with him on his training. He was a lumberjack. He said, the only things he did as far as training was cleaning a log to his shoulder and carrying them. Every now and then if he actually lifted with a barbell—all he did was power cleans and bench presses. By looking at him, you’d think he was a world class powerlifter—and a jacked one at that.
The basics crush the pretenders, but serious athletes crush the basics! Great stuff, Z!
I am familiar with most of these exercises. I used to wrestle back in the day and our coach made us squats, benchpress, and dead lifts like crazy. Great post!