How to Find YOUR Top 10 Muscle Building Exercises

Stop using someone else’s top-10 muscle-building exercises! The popular trend is to have bodybuilders and fitness influencers share their top-10 exercises. As with most things fitness, this is interesting, but rarely helpful. Instead of trying to use someone else’s best exercises, here is how you can find YOUR top-10 exercises for building more muscle.

The Best Preacher Curl for Building Bigger Biceps

If you want to build bigger biceps, preacher curls might be your ticket to the gun show. Preacher curls were popularized by the first Mr. Olympia Larry Scott back in the 1960s. Scott's hard work at the preacher bench built him an amazing set of arms. They were also a favorite of the late strength coach Charles Poliquin who also had great biceps. Early EMG research by Tudor O. Bompa and Lorenzo Cornacchia in their book “Serious Strength Training” showed that preacher curls caused the most electrical activity in the biceps. Now, recent research shows how to get the most out of this powerful biceps builder. 

The Truth About “Dangerous” Exercises

You want to get strong, lean and jacked. You train hard and read everything you can to help you reach your goals. Along your journey, you find varying opinions on the safety of certain exercises. Some tell you to just shut up and train. Others claim that there are certain exercises you should never do. Then there are those who have a problem with every productive exercise ever invented. So who is right? Who cares! Here is what YOU need to know so you can reach your goals without destroying your body. 

Photo by Edgar Chaparro on Unsplash

Best of the Blog 2017

I can’t believe it is almost time to wrap-up 2017. As usual, I’m going to end year of blogging with a top-10 best of the blog list. If you missed any posts or you want a refresher, here are my most popular posts of 2017. 

Your Complete Guide to Building a Stronger Grip

Grip strength rocks! Whether you want to build a bone-crushing handshake for the business boardroom, improve sports performance, build functional, real-life strength, lift more weight in the gym, be ready for emergencies or never have to ask for help to open the pickle jar again, this post is for you!

The Best Way to Load Push-Ups

Push-ups are a fantastic exercise. However, like most body weight exercises, you run into a problem – you are working with your body, which is a fixed weight. As a result, many people abandon push-ups as they get stronger and miss the tremendous benefits this exercise has to offer. However, this does not have to be the case. Here are six effective ways to load push-ups so you can continue to use this fantastic exercise to build upper body size, strength, and performance.

The Best Grip for Deadlifts

Deadlifts are an amazing exercise to improve performance, pack on muscle, burn fat and build real-life functional strength. Effective deadlifting begins with your grip. This brings up a very important question: what is the best grip for deadlifts? 

Your Complete Step-By Step Guide to Doing Single Leg Squats

If you want to hammer your legs while sparing your low back, try single leg squats. Last time I gave you 10 fantastic benefits of this exercise, but I left you hanging. I didn’t explain how to get to the more advanced progressions. Well, today, it’s time to look at those progressions. Here is a step-by step guide to rocking a single leg squat.

10 Compelling Reasons to Squat on One Leg

Let’s be honest. When it comes to training, we all want it all. We want to look great, perform great and feel great. However, while our training might deliver some of these benefits, it rarely gives us all three of these benefits. You don’t have to choose between strong and beat-up or healthy and weak. You can improve how you look AND how you perform. That’s what this whole blog is about: helping you improve your health, performance and aesthetics. Today, let’s look at an exercise that can deliver all three of those benefits in one powerful package – the single leg squat.

Your Core Training Blueprint

Core training is overrated, over-emphasized and grossly misunderstood. Also, most core exercises suck. After my post 7 Superior Alternatives to 7 Popular Core Exercises, I got an excellent question: “How do you program core exercises?” I started to answer the question, but soon realized it was a big answer. So instead, I knew it was time to lay out exactly how to program core-training exercises. Here is your core training blueprint. 

The Best Upper Back Exercise You Have Never Tried

Which of the following do you want: healthy shoulders, stronger upper body, improved posture, better upper body structural balance, a way to train your upper back while sparing your lower back or a thicker, more powerful-looking upper back? If you answered yes to any of the previous benefit, I have just the thing for you. Here is a new spin-off on a classic upper back exercise that delivers fantastic results!

23 Combo Exercises to Switch Up a Bored Client’s Routine

Need to spice up your training? Do you want to burn some fat or have a fun way to get some conditioning before the weather gets nice? If so, combination exercises may be just what you need. Combination exercises are done by picking two exercises and alternating back and forth between the two doing one rep at a time. The trick is pairing exercises that work well together. Recently, I teamed up with my friend and colleague Shane McLean (aka The Balance Guy) to write an article for the The PTDC (Personal Trainer Development Center) on combination exercises. This is your complete guide on combination exercises with instructions on how and when to use them as well as 23 examples (with videos) of combination exercises. Check out the full article and a link to download a PDF version HERE. 

Also, here is a video of me coaching a front/squat with L-sit chin-up combination.

The Truth About the Bench Press

What is the most popular exercise in the gym? The answer (if we are taking about guys) is, of course the bench press. In today’s gyms the bench press is the measure of manliness, the standard of studliness and the obsession of guys trying to build big, massive pecs. The exercise is so popular that Mondays are officially known as “International Chest Day” as men all over the world folk to the bench press stations to pump up their pecs. Conversations about lifting almost always include the famous question, “What do ya bench?” But, is the bench press really worthy of such fame and attention? Will it really pack slabs of muscle on your chest? Will it really build you a big, strong upper body or will it lead to a lifetime of cranky shoulders and a lack of gains? Let’s put opinion and bias aside. Its time you learned the truth about the bench press.

Best of the Blog 2016

Well, that wraps up another year! To finish up 2016, here is a list of the 10 most popular posts on my blog over this last year. Whether you missed one or want a quick refresher read, here you go!

The Refresh & Rejuvenate Program

Ever wonder why they call Christmas time the holidays? For many people this is a very busy time of year. Also after a year of hard training, it may be time to take a break. If your body is honestly asking for a break, I've got just the program for you!

The Gravity Factor: 10 Common Ways People Settle for Inferior Results

While life is full of uncertainties, there are certain guarantees such as death and taxes (I know, such an encouraging start to this post). There are also laws that always apply as the law of thermodynamics and today’s topic – the law of gravity. While it may sound simple, you would be amazed at how many times people set foot in the gym and try lifting free weights while failing to realize how gravity works and what that means for effective, results-producing strength training. Are you one of them?

5 Superior Alternatives to 5 Popular Performance Exercises

Great results start with picking great exercises. While there are countless exercises on the internet, there is a limited number of amazing exercises. Too often athletic exercises are chosen based on tradition, popular training fads or what people see some pro athlete do on Instagram. If you want to reach your athletic potential, you have to move beyond this and focus on what gives you most results with the least risk. To help you with these, here are 5 superior alternatives to 5 popular performance exercises. 

The Top 10 Exercises with Human Names

Some exercises such as squats are so common that everyone who has ever set foot in a gym knows what they are (even if they don’t know how to do them correctly). Other exercises have names that just make sense. Two great examples are Band Pull Aparts and Face Pulls. Even if you had never seen or heard of these exercises, the name just makes sense. Then, you have this odd category of exercises with really weird names like Cook Hip Lift, Zottman Curls and Pallof presses. Throughout the history of the iron game, there are several exercises that have been named after lifters, coaches and trainers. While some of them sound cool and look different, they just aren’t worth your time (which is why I’m stopping at 10). However, here are ten unique exercises with human names that will turn heads in your gym AND give you some fantastic results. 

6 Exercise Hacks for Superior Results

Are your workouts delivering everything you hoped they would? Are you are investing your valuable time in the weight room AND really getting the best possible return on your investment? In the same amount of time, you could have harder, more effective and safer training sessions by putting yourself into the best possible situations for success. Here are 6 lifting hacks that will take your training to the next level! 

The Bottom Line on Squat Depth

“Squats are the king of all exercises!” While classic muscle magazine cliché may be a bit of a stretch, squats can be a great exercise. However, to get the most out of them, you have to do them right. A big part of squat form is your depth. How low should you go? If you start asking around, you will get a different answer depending on who you ask. Powerlifter: “Thighs parallel!” Olympic-Style Weightlifter: “To the bottom.” Sport coach: “Half or quarter squats because that is as low as we go in our sport”. My answer: “It depends.” (Helpful, I know, but hang in there – I’ll elaborate). To make things more confusing, some of the latest research seems to contradict what we previously thought about squat depth. It’s time we get to the bottom of this issue of squat depth (I’m so proud of myself for that pun).