Squats, leg presses, leg curls, leg extensions…if you are like most people, these are probably the basic exercises that make up your leg workout. While squats are the all around best for building up strong legs, and the other exercises have benefits of their own, I’d like to talk about another excellent leg exercise that you probably aren’t doing. It is the basic lunge, or if you have already developed strong legs, the weighted lunge.

Lunges are a terrific exercise because they work your quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes, helping to build muscle and strength, improve your athletic ability as well as your balance. When you start out, you can do them with just your body weight as resistance. Even if you already have pretty intense leg workouts, you will likely be sore after your first day of lunges. They work some areas of your muscles that you will not be used to, meaning you will realize new gains in both size and strength. After you are used to the movement and you have built up your legs, you can hold a dumbbell in each hand to increase the resistance.

Lunges are a fairly easy exercise to perform. Begin with both legs together, standing straight up. Extend your left leg forward, bending at your left knee, so that your left foot is flat on the ground in front of you. Your right heel should come off the ground as your right knee moves downward so that it almost touches the floor. At this time, your left thigh should be parallel to the ground. Hold this position for 1 second, then return to the starting position. Repeat this movement, this time stepping forward with your right leg instead. This is one rep. Make sure to keep your back straight while performing the lunge. Start out by doing 3 sets of 8-10 reps. This should be enough for you to feel the work of the exercise both during your workout and for the next day or two.

Check out some videos of how to properly perform the squat on YouTube by clicking here.

Pull ups are one of the hardest bodyweight exercises in the gym, and this is one of the reasons that not many people include them in their workout routine. Another reason is that people think lifting weights is better than lifting your bodyweight. This is not always the case! In fact, pull ups are a much better back exercise than lat pull downs, and there are variations you can perform to target different areas of your back.

Proper Pull Up Form

To perform a pull up properly, start by hanging from the bar with your palms facing away from you about shoulder width apart (your palms facing toward you is called a chin up). Pull yourself upward so that your chest nearly touches the bar and your chin ends up over it. Hold this position for 1-2 seconds, and then let yourself slowly back down to the starting position. Avoid swinging your body or using your momentum to pull yourself back up, and try to keep your body as upright and perpendicular to the ground as possible. Crossing your legs at your ankles can help keep you from swinging them to gain momentum. Also, make sure you are using your back muscles and not your biceps. You can accomplish this by beginning the movement by flexing your lats and focusing on your back, not your arms.

It is an extremely difficult exercise; many people cannot perform even one repetition if they haven’t done them before. If you cannot do a single rep, you can do assisted pull ups by either standing on a chair or using the assisted pull up machine at your gym. Don’t be upset or discouraged if you have trouble with them because they are incredibly tough at first!

Grip Positions

Like most exercises, varying your grip position will target a different area of your muscles. A wider than shoulder width grip will work your upper lats more, and will take some of the stress off your biceps so you can really target your back. A narrower grip will work your lower lats and middle back, and it will give your biceps more of a workout as well. Depending on your goals and your weaknesses, you can decide which grip position you would like to use. I like to alternate every few back workouts so that I get the benefits of both.

Make pull ups a staple of your back workout and you will have wider lats and a stronger back in no time! If they start to get too easy, or if you can do more than 15 reps consecutively, add some resistance with a weighted belt.

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A lot of people think the key to a bigger chest lies in endless sets of flat bench press. A lot of people are dead wrong, too. You cannot treat your chest (or any muscle, for that matter) as one individual muscle that only requires one specific exercise per workout. Although the bench press is the greatest all around mass builder for your chest, it is not sufficient by itself to build you the pectoral muscle you are looking for.

Image credit: Usodesita

If you really want huge pecs, you have to target the different parts of your chest muscles. People often do various chest exercises without understanding why they are doing them or how they each offer unique benefits, and without this understanding you are likely missing out on some serious gains. If your whole routine revolves around a flat bench (flat bench press, flat bench dumbbell press, flat bench flys), although you are doing multiple exercises, you aren’t working out your entire chest and therefore you aren’t achieving your full potential.

To train your upper chest, an area that is pretty lacking on guys who only do flat bench press and pushups, you need to use an incline bench. Incline bench press, incline dumbbell press, and incline bench flys are all great exercises that will not only help to build chest muscle, but they will specifically emphasize your upper chest. If you haven’t done these before, get ready to beat on some new muscle fibers and feel sore for a couple days, because your upper chest probably isn’t used to this amount of work.

Logically, using a decline bench will help to target your chest from a different angle, and can help to bring out your lower chest. Decline bench press, decline dumbbell press, and decline bench flys are all excellent exercises for working the lower portion of your chest.

Your hand position on a barbell will also result in different target areas of your chest. If you use a narrow grip (with your hands about 12 inches apart), you will be focusing more on your inner chest and your triceps. Narrow grip bench press is actually as great a triceps mass builder as it is for chest. Conversely, a wider grip (outside of shoulder width) will target your outer chest, which can help you to widen your pecs.

Combining these different exercises and variations of grip placement can really help you to construct a solid chest routine and maximize your muscle gains. I normally do 3 chest exercises per chest workout, one of which will target either my upper or lower chest, depending on what I want to work that particular day. It all depends on your individual strengths and weaknesses. Of course, the exercises listed above are not the only chest exercises you should do, they are only meant to serve as examples.

I read a really interesting article about the safety of this very common muscle building supplement today, and I wanted to pass along the findings to you. Let me preface this by saying that this article is very one-sided; it is based on a single research study, so I would definitely recommend doing your own outside research as well because there are plenty of people who would disagree with these results.

The two questions commonly posed about creatine safety are:

• Does creatine dehydrate you?
• Does creatine cause kidney damage?

A common criticism of creatine is that while it increases the water concentration in your cells, it is believed to decrease the fluid levels outside of these cells. If this is true, it is dangerous for your body and can cause dehydration. However, according to this article, creatine actually helps to hydrate your body! Not only does it increase the fluid levels inside your cells, but it appears not to negatively impact the water outside of your cells (extracellular water). According to the study, creatine actually helps to keep you hydrated (as long as you are drinking enough water) rather than having a negative effect.

Another often heard concern with creatine is that it can damage your kidneys because the substance must pass through them after it is processed in the stomach and before it leaves your body. This article cites a research study in which participants were given either 10 grams of creatine or a placebo daily for three months, and the effects on the kidneys were measured. None of the measures of kidney functioning used in the study were negatively affected by creatine consumption, so they concluded that creatine is not dangerous to your kidney functions.

I would point out that the study only lasted three months, not nearly long enough to determine any long-term consequences. However, based on this information and everything else I have read, I would say the general consensus is that creatine is relatively safe if you take it in cycles. That is, if you take it for two consecutive months, then you should take two months off before your next cycle.

To read the original article, click here

This post was inspired by my trip to the gym yesterday when I saw a guy who was guilty of this mistake. I could see him wincing as he was doing lateral dumbbell raises with his arms locked straight out to his sides. It’s a brief tip, but it’s very important and it’s applicable to a variety of exercises.

Any time you are doing upper body exercises that involve moving your arms without flexing at the elbows (as in biceps curls or triceps extensions), you want to keep a slight bend at the elbows anyways. In other words, do not lock your arms straight out. Doing so places unnecessary strain on your joints and can cause injury as well as unwanted pain. By having a slight flex in your elbow joints, you spread out the stress of the weight throughout your arm and will be able to perform the exercise properly. This advice applies to several exercises, including: lateral dumbbell raises, front dumbbell raises, bench flys, and cable crossovers.

Everyone knows that military presses are one of the best exercises for packing on pounds of shoulder muscle, but many people have never heard of Arnold Presses. They are a great compound shoulder exercise that can help build mass, and the unique movement will hit your muscles in a different way, which can lead to new growth.

Arnold Presses

Sit on an inclined bench with two dumbbells. They should be moderately heavy, enough so you can perform 3 sets of 6-8 reps each. Begin with the dumbbells resting on your upper chest with your palms facing towards your body. As you press the weights into the air, rotate your arms so that at their peak your palms are facing outward, as they are in a normal dumbbell press. As you lower the weights back down, rotate your arms back to the starting position, with your palms facing inward again.

Here is a video demonstrating how to do them properly: