Follow my advice, and you won't have to worry about your
choices for exercises in your weight lifting program. You'll know you
are using only the best exercises.
You don't need every exercise in the
encyclopedia to
build quality muscle!
If you stick with mainly compound exercises, every
muscle in your body will get worked hard and will grow. Trust me on
that! That's why I am only going to give you the best compound
weight lifting
exercises for all the major muscle groups.
I trust in the compound
exercises for each body part because they are the ones that allow you
to lift the most amount of weight. I will include some other weight
lifting exercises, but you will get my opinion and exercise rating on
each and every one of them.
Compound
Exercises are
the only way to go!
To skip ahead to the
Exercises...
Scroll
to the bottom of this page!
Be smart about choosing your Exercises
I want to give you the
knowledge you need about picking your weight lifting exercises.
I want you to be smart about your weight lifting because the exercises
you choose do make a difference in the muscle you gain and where you
gain that muscle. I want you to always be able to come back to this
page for information on exercises! If you're looking for different
exercises for a new program cycle of WLC, you'll be able to come here
to find the best.
For beginners, there
won't be many choices to choose from as outlined in Beginner
WLC. I want all beginners to only choose between the compound
exercises. Some intermediates may also only want to do the compound
exercises if they are developing evenly throughout their bodies. You
can find exercise selection for intermediates at the Intermediate
WLC page. Let me give you an example of what I mean for
intermediate selection of exercises.
I've always had
smaller lower legs or calves. If you are an intermediate and have the
same problem that I always had, then I will want you to add some
specific calf exercises to your exercise list. I know the best weight
lifting exercises to fix your problems.
I also have a special method of doing calves, so I would want you to
perform your calf exercises with this special method. I will discuss
all of this in the WLC Program section of the website. I can help you
fix any weaknesses in your physique!
I only want you doing
these extra exercises if you truly need them. For the guys, I don't
want you doing extra chest exercises because you think the chest is the
most important muscle in the body that all women worship! For women, I
don't want you doing horrible leg lift exercises because the women on
TV say you need to shape and tone your buttocks! And I definitely don't
want you doing extra exercises
to tone your abs!
Advanced weight
lifters may want to add in some isolation exercises that they know will
work for them. For example, and advanced weight lifter may add in bent
over laterals to work on their rear delts slightly more if they have a
weakness there. Check out the Advanced
WLC Program here.
Get
the most bang for your buck!
When I say I want you
to be smart about the weight lifting exercises you choose, I am trying
to get you to choose the exercises that give you the most bang for your
buck.
I want you to do the minimum number of exercises and still cover every
major muscle group. Choosing a minimum number will help us prevent
overtraining and will get us out of the gym and building muscle sooner!
Follow my post
workout to get the muscle building process started.
Advanced trainers will
know what they need to work on. An advanced weight lifter should know
what exercises work well for them. If not, then the lifter is probably
not advanced. An advanced weight lifter should also know the number of
exercises they can get away with without overtraining. Some advanced
lifters might be here looking for new weightlifting exercises, so have
fun because I've got a few you may have never seen before.
I want the advanced
weight lifter to continue progression with the basic compound
exercises, but I want them adding some exercises and techniques to help
further development in lagging muscle groups. All of this is discussed
in the WLC Program for beginners, intermediates, and advanced weight
lifters. Some of this is also discussed throughout the exercise pages.
If you're looking for
very detailed discussion on how to perform the basic weight lifting
exercises like the squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, power
clean, and more, you need to take a look at the books on the left by
Mark Rippetoe. Starting Strength
discusses, in detail, all of the basic compound exercises you should
include in your weight lifting programs. Practical Programming goes
into weight lifting programs for novice, intermediate, and advanced
lifters. At least read the reviews on them at Amazon!
Included
is my Experience with each Exercise
Please take the time
to read through the exercises. This is not just a list of exercises
with some graphics showing you how to do them!
FREE
Weight Lifting
Guide
Download your free weight lifting guide
using the link above! Learn how to schedule your success, build muscle,
lose fat, and more. |
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I've included my thoughts on each exercise and whether I personally
like each one. You can hear about my first hand experience with each
exercise.
You can always come back here if you're looking for a new
weightlifting exercise to fit your needs.
I want to mention that
I don't like to do many exercises that work one side of the body at a
time due to the extra time it takes to work out. I don't like to waste
time and unless you have a huge difference between left and right
muscle size I would not waste the extra time doing one-sided exercises.
I do love dumbbell exercises such as incline dumbbell bench press,
though. They provide great results and work each side of the body
independently. If you haven't tried some of the dumbbell variations of
certain exercises, you should definitely give them a try!
For example, I see
1-legged calf raises as a waste even though I think they are a good
exercise if you want to spend the time. I would rather do both legs at
the same time and be done in half the time. A few more examples are
1-arm dumbbell preacher curls ans 1-arm dumbbell rows. I'm not saying
these aren't great exercises for building muscle; I'm just saying that
they extend your workout time!
Weight
Lifting Exercises
Finally, this is the
section where you will find links to all the best exercises for each
major muscle group. Click on the Links to take you to the exercise
pages for each muscle group...
Quads
Squats, squats, and more squats for your quads.
You want the best quad building exercises out there? Well, here they
are!
Hamstrings
Stiff Legged Deadlifts and all the variations
will be the focus of this section.
Calves
You need some help building your calves? Calf
exercises are my specialty. Check them out here.
Chest
The best chest builders are going to be your big
compound exercises like bench press and dips. Learn all the variations
here.
Back
Your back will need a variety of exercises and
this is the place to get them. Build the back you want with these
exercises.
Shoulders
Overhead Press should be the exercise you focus
on for your shoulders. Out of all the weight lifting exercises for your
shoulders, the overhead press works the most amount of muscle. Find all
the good shoulder exercises right here.
Triceps
There's no need for all those isolation exercises
for your triceps. Find out the real deal tricep exercises.
Biceps
Exercises that allow the use of heavy weights
will build those biceps. Choose the right exercises for your biceps.
|
Forearm
Exercises
What's the most seen muscle in your entire body? That's right. The
forearms are always out for the public to see. Unless you live in
Antartica. Find out the best weight lifting exercises for your
forearms! |
Here's what good
forearm exercises do for your forearms. That's me holding my little
nephew. Do you see how small my wrists are yet I've developed pretty
nice forearms!
Traps
I've got the one exercise right here that you'll
ever need to do for your traps. Find out what that exercise is right
here on WLC.
Abs
I've got a breakthrough in ab training for you in
this section. Stop wasting your time! Find out how.
Use
the Free WLC Space!
If you've got any
weight lifting exercise videos or you'd like to ask me for help with
any exercises, join WLC Space
and get free help from me! I'll help you get your form right, and we
can share new exercises. WLC Space can be used to keep your weight
lifting logs, you can have your own blog, post pictures, and more! All
of this is provided to you for free.
If you really liked
this weight lifting exercises page, please help me out by adding it to
your favorite bookmarks using the easy links below that I've provided
for you. I would appreciate it very much.
It's very important
that you get your form correct on exercises. When you have your form
correct, that's when you can start adding weight to the bar and muscle
to your body! Remember, I will hep you on WLC Space or with my online
personal training. Contact me of you need help with anything!