8 Exercises You Should Be Doing
What are the 8 Exercises You Should Be Doing? As you’ll soon see, they are fundamental compound exercises that allow you to build your size and strength foundation. In this article, I’ll cover these exercises, and provide tips on using them in your routine, cover rep performance, and look at nutrition and supplements. If you’re serious about lifting, if you’re chasing mass, and if you want more strength, these are the exercises for you!
8 Exercises – # 1: Squats
There’s no exercise quite like squats. They are the ultimate compound exercise mainly because they work most of the muscles in your body. Squats also improve flexibility, overall body strength, and are beneficial for your metabolism.
However, there’s still a lot of misinformation about them, such as they will ruin your knees or make your butt too big. Yet there’s nothing that can compare to the feeling of a heavy bar on your back as you get ready to perform a serious set of squats.
The key is to understand how to do the exercise correctly. Sure, you can watch a video or two, but I would suggest getting the guidance of a qualified personal trainer. They can check your form in real time and instantly correct any mistakes. If I could only do one exercise, it would be squats, hands down. Never mind the machines, get under a bar and knock out some sets! (1)
8 Exercises – # 2: Deadlifts
A very close second to squats is deadlifts. This is another compound exercise that also works most of the body. As with squats, proper form is essential. Also as with squats, I strongly suggest using the services of a qualified personal trainer to ensure your form is correct.
In this instance, I will caution anyone who has had lumbar fusion surgery to be careful with deads (I had lower back lumbar fusion in 2016). You’ll most likely want to switch to Top Deadlifts, with the lower pins of a Power Rack set to about knee height. Whether you go just below or right at the knees depends on how your back feels as you do the exercise. The reason for this switch is that you really can’t do heavy deads safely with rods and screws in your lower back. (2)
8 Exercises – # 3: Bench Press
If any exercise gets a bad rap, it’s the bench press. There’s a lot of “guru’s” out there who claim the bench is “useless”. I couldn’t disagree more. The bench press builds the chest, front delts, and triceps. It’s an essential exercise that should be the first chest movement you do. While I prefer a bar, many lifters like dumbbells. You can’t use as much weight, but you can manipulate the movement path more to your advantage with dumbbells.
Sure, inclines and flys are important, and are part of a complete chest routine. But, you should always start your routine with a compound movement you can use some real weight on, and that’s the bench press. (3)
I will say, however, if your upper chest is lagging, you will want to put extra work in on incline bench presses and incline dumbbell flys. You don’t have to do these exercises first, but they should make up the bulk of your chest program.
8 Exercises – # 4: Overhead Press
Also called the Military Press, you can do this exercise standing or seated, with a bar or with dumbbells. This is a power exercise that works your side delts, traps, upper chest and triceps. (4)
Of course, you’ll want to do some direct work for all 3 deltoid heads, as well as traps, but there’s no better movement to start your shoulder routine with than the overhead press.
8 Exercises – # 5: Hammer Curls
There’s a lot of good exercises you can do for biceps. The thing with hammer curls is that they directly work the brachioradialis, that small muscle in between the two heads of the biceps. When fully developed, this muscle adds a lot to biceps thickness. Hammer curls also hit the rest of the biceps for a complete biceps-building exercise. (5)
8 Exercises – # 6: Close Grip Bench Press
Just like biceps exercises, there’s a lot of great exercises for the triceps. However, close grip bench presses allow to use decent weight, and most importantly hit all 3 triceps heads.They also hit the chest and the front delts. (6)
You’re using a close grip on these, and grip width is really an individual thing. For example, I bring my hands close enough to touch, whereas some lifters use a grip with the hands 2 or even 3 inches apart. Find what works best for you, and use this exercise to blow up those tris!
8 Exercises – # 7: Calf Raises
Calf raises? Yep. These are not really a compound exercise but they directly hit the calves, which is commonly overlooked and the reason this exercise is here. I suggest both standing and seated calf raises, and I suggest doing these last on Leg Day. You’ll need a machine for both exercises, and you can load them up with weight. Be sure you get a full range of motion, and be sure you perform these under complete control. (7)
8 Exercises – # 8: Crunch
I have crunches on here for the same reason as calf raises. It’s easy to overlook the abs. In this case, the type of crunch I’m talking about is the Seated Leg Raise Crunch. This is performed on a lever machine, and you crunch your upper body down while you pull your lower body up. It’s without a doubt a great ab movement that should be a cornerstone of your ab program. (8)
Build Your Routine Around These 8 Exercises
As mentioned in many of the exercise descriptions, you should start your routine with a compound exercise for each muscle. These are the exercises that allow you to use heavier weights. Regardless of where you are in your training journey, if size and strength are your goals, you should never stray from a core program of foundational exercises using progressive overload, as with these 8 exercises.
Sure, from there you can and should build your routine to include other exercises. This is especially important for those lifters that are competition bodybuilders, or who just want a complete physique. That said, some lifters rarely use exercises beyond the ones listed here.
Rep Performance
Tied directly into the last point is the concept of rep performance. This is something that’s all over the place. Walk into any gym and you will see people doing reps like it’s a NASCAR race, or people doing little quarter reps, or people stopping long before they actually work the muscles.
Once in a while you will see someone doing effective reps. What’s an effective rep? Well, I’m glad you asked! It’s a rep performed with a 2 second concentric phase, a 4-5 second eccentric phase, and a 3-4 second pause in the fully stretched position. It’s also a rep that brings you to a point of momentary muscle failure, or that point there you can’t complete the rep.
I know the current trend is to stop with “1 or 2 reps in the tank”, but for me, I want to take it all the way to momentary failure, and sometimes past failure. At the very least, your last rep should be difficult to complete.
Nutritional Guidelines
For me, no article on training is complete without a look at nutrition and supplements, especially an article covering these 8 exercises. Good nutrition should start with protein. First off, how much protein per day? I suggest at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. In addition, it should be evenly spaced throughout the day (3 main meals and 2-3 protein shakes/bars).
What about carbohydrates? Focus on complex carbs, and keep your total daily intake to 1 gram per pound of bodyweight. I also recommend eating roughly 50% of the day’s carbs (and all of the day’s simple carbs) in the hours around your workout. Of course, you should be eating a clean, low sugar diet, and keeping fat in check, focusing on healthy fats.
Supplement Suggestions
These are the supplements that should make up your cornerstone program. First up is a pre-workout. A great choice is Gorilla Mind Gorilla Mode. This is the upstart Pre that took the market by storm and remains one of the top pre-workouts on the market. It’s the pre-workout that forced the industry to its knees by using an ultra-high dose of citrulline – much higher than all the established “big boys”.. This started the citrulline dosing wars, and it’s why you now commonly see pre-workouts with up to 10 grams of citrulline. But there is much more to this Pre than pumps. It’s a complete, well-balanced formula that is effectively dosed and features full disclosure labeling.
In the current economy, you may be on a budget. Therefore, a good pre-workout option for you is NutraBio Base. This is one of the best “core” or “basic” value pre-workouts currently available. It’s an excellent Pre featuring a streamlined yet effective formula at a very fair price. And since it is a NutraBio product, it features an extreme fully open label. If you do not know, NutraBio pretty much invented the concept of full transparency, much to my delight. You can see everything that goes into their products, right down to the flavoring and sweeteners. Cool, right?
Next, be sure you’re using a quality protein powder. I always suggest Hi-Tech Precision Protein. Why, you might ask? Simple. This is a whey protein powder that is superior to any other protein powder on the market because it is formulated to release the amino acid leucine (the most anabolic of any amino) in the first phases of protein synthesis. As you might know, protein synthesis is a direct trigger of muscle growth, and leucine is one of the more effective compounds that stimulate protein synthesis.
From there, I always advise adding creatine monohydrate powder to your supplement program. I suggest AllMax Nutrition Creatine Monohydrate. Finally, I recommend using a good multivitamin – think of it as health insurance. Probably the best multi on the market is AllMax VITASTACK with 70 nutrients!
Summary
Well, that’s an impressive list of 8 exercises, right? These are the exercises that you should be doing. Mass and strength does not happen using light weight cable exercises, or all isolation movements. Isolation has its place, but these are the core of any effective program. Also as noted, just like the 8 exercises are your foundation, all of the supplements mentioned above are your foundational products. So make sure you stop by illpumpyouup.com today and stock up, then hit the gym and train!
References:
- https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/citation/1991/10000/n_s_c_a__position_paper__the_squat_exercise_in.11.aspx
- https://www.physio-pedia.com/Deadlift_Exercise#:
- https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/PectoralSternal/BBBenchPress
- https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/DeltoidAnterior/BBMilitaryPress
- https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/Brachioradialis/DBHammerCurl
- https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/Triceps/BBCloseGripBenchPress
- https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/Gastrocnemius/LVStandingCalfRaisePL
- https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/RectusAbdominis/LVSeatedLegRaiseCrunchPL