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Squatting is the best way you can build overall muscle mass. Period.
There are a lot of people out there who fear the squat. They think that doing the leg press machines or squats on a smith machine will somehow be safer. Using these machines is just like using any other machine in the gym.
The advantage of using a machine is that you really don’t have to know what you are doing. The machine forces you to do an exercise in a certain way and along the machine’s motion path.
While machines might be easier to use, you simply get less benefit out of them. Using free weights is the key to building your base of muscle, no matter what muscles you’re working. The bench press is better than a bench press machine, and doing real squats beats the squat machine or the leg press machine. That’s all there is to it.
Doing squats properly will work about 75% of the muscles on your body either directly or indirectly. And regardless of what others will tell you, squats are a safe exercise as long as you do them right.
In fact, squatting correctly will strengthen your knees and back muscles in a way that makes future injuries less likely. Let’s walk through the squatting movement in detail:
1. Start with the bar: Yes, just the bar. Practice for a while and get a feeling for how this movement should work. Pay special attention to your squat stance, keeping your knees out, keeping the back alignment, (more…)
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I hate the basics.
It doesn’t matter what it is, we simply don’t want basic things in life. Nobody wants to go out and buy a basic car if they could afford something nicer. We don’t like to have basic computers or basic cameras either… we want the fast computers or the cameras will all the hi-tech features.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting more than the basics. We don’t want to live basic lives, we don’t want to buy things that are the bare-bones basics, and we naturally want something more than a basic workout that gives basic results.
In addition, no matter how important it can be to learn the basics rules about whatever you are doing, learning the basics can be a real pain.
I remember taking a basic golf course in college. The teacher made us learn the basics of each golf swing by having us practice every day without a golf club in our hands. I became so frustrated by pretending to play golf each day that I wish I had a real club just so I could smash something with it.
Everybody in my golf class felt that way. We all wanted to learn how to play golf, and just sitting around all day looking at the most basic movements was a real frustration. It’s the same thing with anything we pursue; we naturally want to move beyond the basic level as quickly as possible.
Going to the gym isn’t much different either. You don’t want to have a basic body — you want an amazing body, right? So why would you do the basic exercises if having a basic body isn’t what you want?
That’s why I don’t like using the word “basic” to describe the most useful exercises… it’s very misleading.
The Accelerated Course
It’s just too easy to get caught up in all the details of what we’re trying to do in life. We often waste our time doing all the little things when there’s something big that needs to be done first.
It’s like trying to sweep the floor in your house when there’s a big elephant in the living room that won’t stop crapping on the floor. Take care of the big things first, and then the small details will be easy.
I get the feeling that a lot of us are doing the same thing in the gym. We’re trying to focus on the little details of our workouts like putting some little line on our biceps or a little “cut” in our shoulders. These types of exercises do have their place, but focusing on the details doesn’t get you very far in the beginning.
So why not take the accelerated course when you’re in the gym? You’ll get where you’re trying to go much faster, and you’ll even pick up a lot of the details along the way.
The strange thing is, everybody is calling the best exercises the “basics”. They are the exercises that work the most muscle groups together, and they are usually the most difficult to do. Don’t be fooled though, because these exercises also are the most rewarding.
But maybe we really need to get away from calling these the basics, since nobody wants to have a basic body. Some people will call these exercise “compound movements”, which actually sounds better to me (click here to see which exercises are “basic” or compound movements).
After all, compound interest is a really good thing when you make an investment, but then again, you can get a compound headache and compound stress in your life.
So I thought long and hard about a better name for these movements. I’m looking for a name that truly expresses how important these compound movements are in our workouts – so at length I finally decided that I will now call them Your-Workouts-Will-Always-Suck-Without-These (YWWASWT) exercises.
Darrin lists the specific exercises and calls them The Big 7.
Sure, there might be some situations where you can get a decent workout without the YWWASWT exercises, but this name helps people to understand the importance of these types of exercises.
And so going forward, I’ll refer to these exercises in this way. It helps beginners to understand how important they are instead of just calling them the “basics”. YWWASWT exercises will work many muscle groups together, and by doing these exercises that are so tough to do, you’re actually taking the accelerated path to obtaining your goals. Besides, if it isn’t difficult at first, it’s probably not that great for you anyways.
So stop trying to sweep up little bits of elephant crap — take the accelerated course and get yourself a better workout. And remember: YWWASWT!
Continue reading about Your Workouts Will Always Suck Without These
Which type of exercise is better? Basic or Isolation?
That all depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Are you trying to build strength or size, or are you trying to refine the musculature that you already have?
Basic exercises, also referred to as compound movements, are the exercises that work several groups of muscle together with a single movement. The best example of a basic movement is the squat.
Each time you squat down and then press your body back up, you are working muscles in your quadriceps, hamstrings, buttocks, lower back, and other back muscles. Many muscles throughout the body are also actively involved in stabilization during this lift.
Isolation exercises are the movements that stress only one muscle group at a time. An example of an isolation exercise is cable chest flyes. With each repetition you do, the weight is moved almost completely by your chest muscles.
Building the Right Foundation
If you are trying to build a base of strength or muscle size, basic exercises are key to your success, and for most people out there, basic exercises should compose a majority of their workouts.
This is because basic movements will give you the best gains for the amount of effort you put in. It’s true that working more muscles with a single workout is clearly more time efficient than working each muscle separately, but there’s more to it than that. (more…)
Continue reading about Basic Vs. Isolation Exercises, Chisels or Dynamite?
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