Research

What are some of the best basic exercises to do in order to build muscle?

There are thousands of lifts, body weight exercises, and machines out there that are all designed to do the same thing, build muscle. However some are more effective than others, others are for specific body parts, and some are for toning or gaining striations. While all of these exercises are good there are three lifts that are in a class of their own and truly deserve all the hype they get.

The first of these grade A lifts is the bench press. This is the most popular and widely preformed free weight exercise out there and for good reason. The bench press this the best way to work almost every muscle in your upper body. When done correctly the bench press uses the pectorials, triceps, and deltoids in order to move the bar. All three of these groups are worked at throughout the lift, the deltiods and pecs are first targeted when you lift up the weight and lower it to your chest, once you start to push all three groups are activated and used to move the weight away from you. the reason is is so effective is because you are using some many different areas that when they all work together you are able to move heavier weight which leads to building bigger muscles.

The second lift of the three is the deadlift. The deadlift is one of the ultimate lower body exercises because it incorporates your hamstrings, quads, glutes, and spineus ecrectus. You start with a barbell at your feet your legs shoulder width apart, however that can vary depending on what kind of deadlift you are doing but for simplicity this is just a basic deadlift. You grab the bar with your hand a bit wider than your feet, make sure to keep your back straight, and stand up.



 The final and best lift out there is the squat. Squats are truly the king of bodybuilding. The squat is not just a lower body lift in fact if you regularly squat it will increase almost all of your other lifts! To do a proper squat you start with your feet a little over shoulder width apart or more depending on preference, I like to have my feet touching the outside of the rack I feel like I get better hamstring and glute activation this way. Once you get your feet set you simply sit down until your legs are parallel to the ground. This is very important because if you fail to go to low you are not engaging all of the muscles and are leaving out a huge part of the range of motion. Once you are at 90 degrees you push through your heels and stand up sounds easy right? Wrong. The squat is as physically taxing as weightlifting get there is only one other lift I have ever done that even comes close, on squat day you better be ready to bring it.

These three lifts are all so good for one huge reason, they require several groups in order to be preformed. If done properly these lifts will works every single muscle in your body because they are the best of the best.