Training / Strength & Speed 2
LEGITIMATE HARDCORE EXERCISES:
DEADLIFTS
Deadlifts – the word itself carries with it a lot of weight. But just because it sounds imposing, doesn’t mean this exercise is meant for powerlifters alone. The deadlift is a fundamental exercise that works more muscles than any other – when done the right way, the lower back, upper back, leg, and glute muscles all share in lifting the workload.
Unfortunately, many bodybuilders and strength-trainers are avoiding deadlifts these days, probably because they are often associated with injury. The exercise itself isn’t dangerous; but without the correct balance, you can end up in a world of pain. The proper deadlift is done in 3 steps:
1. Place a barbell on the floor in front of you, and stand, feet shoulder-width apart, with the bar over your feet, closer to your ankles than your toes. Bending your knees, squat down and lean forward so that your shoulders are either directly above or slightly in front of the bar. Take the bar in a half-prone, half-supine (one hand overhand, the other underhand) grip. Keep your head up, your back straight, and your arms fully extended – your forearms positioned just outside the knees.
2. Drive your legs up, keeping your back and arms straight, and raise the bar straight up off the floor until you are standing upright, bringing the chest out and the shoulders back. During the lift, keep the bar close against your legs. When you are totally upright, the bar should be roughly two-thirds of the way up your thighs, and your knees should remain unlocked.
3. After you’ve held the upright position for a beat, bend the knees and lean forward from the waist, again keeping the bar close to your legs, your back straight, and your head up. Touch the weight to the floor.
It’s no joke: no matter the poundage, the proper form will either make or break you. But don’t fear the deadlift – make it work for you by staying out of the dangerous, injury-causing pitfalls that all too often claim the strength of lifters everywhere. There are a number of things you need to watch for as you deadlift:
| DO | DON’T |
| Keep your back straight – this protects your spine from a huge amount of stress and keeps the weight on the muscles | Curve your back – you will injure the spinal discs and lower back muscles, because you force your lower back to do all the work. |
| Keep your head up with a rigid, straight back | Put your head down – this compresses the spinal column |
| Practice the right form and balance, standing in-line with the weight | Lean far over the weight or “bounce” a rep off the floor |
| Keep your knees unlocked at the top of the lift | Overload the barbell with so much weight that you cannot maintain balance and form |
| Lower the weight slowly to prevent injury | Allow gravity or momentum to do the work |
We have to admit, it’s very impressive to see a world-class powerlifter pull 600-plus pounds for a bar-bending deadlift, but it’s important to remember that they started small. In other words, concentrating on the right form means you’ll probably have to back off the weight some until you’re sure you’ve got the movement down. This not only prepares the back and leg muscles for more eye-popping poundage, but also prevents injury. Believe us, the last thing we want to see is a gym rat like yourself get hurt. Do it right, and your spine will thank you for it.
THE BENCH PRESS
(FLAT-BENCH)
“How much ya bench?” You’ve probably heard it asked a thousand times. You’ve even been asked yourself. It’s the question everyone wants to know. And even though you might be proud of your own poundage, that number doesn’t really count for anything. What does count is knowing how to perform the various types of presses correctly to build pecs of steel. Besides, the next time you’re asked that question, wouldn’t it be great to let your chest do the talking?
Don’t get us wrong: a bench press is a bench press, is a bench press. The favorite exercise of pro bodybuilders and weekend warriors alike, bench presses build strength in the pectorals, deltoids, and triceps. But by varying grip width, you can bring about a number of different results from just one fundamental compound exercise. The basic bench press, however, involves 3 steps:
1. Lie on a flat bench, back straight against the bench. At this point, the bar should be above your chest, closer to your neck than your nipples.
2. Grasp the bar with a medium grip, so that your hands are in-line with your shoulders. Your palms should be down, facing away from you. Wrap your thumbs around the bar for a solid grip.
3. Raise the bar off the rack, positioning it so that it’s directly above your chest. Use a precise and balanced lowering movement to bring the bar to the top of your chest, keeping your elbows in vertical alignment with your hands. At this point, you can either do a “touch and go” with the bar, or you can pause for a beat in this position. Then fire the bar back up, locking your arms out in a full range of motion.
THE CLASSIC BENCH PRESS
Primary Muscle Worked: Lower Pecs
Secondary Muscles Worked: Upper Pecs, Front Deltoids, Triceps
While the flat bench press is a fairly straightforward movement, there are some parts of the exercise that shouldn’t be overlooked. Here are a few tips you can use to ensure maximum efficiency and isolate the pectoral (chest) muscles:
| DO | DON’T |
| Keep your feet flat on the floor and push down slightly to create stability | Put your feet up on the bench; this can have negative effects on balance |
| Concentrate on balance and developing the proper form | Lose control and/or let the bar sway from side to side |
| Use a free Olympic bar to guarantee even development | Stick to Smith Machines; they won’t let you carve the motor pathway yourself |
| Use a strong, rigid bench that adequately supports your weight | Bounce or heave the bar off your chest; this can cause injury |
| Lower the weight slowly to prevent injury | Allow gravity or momentum to do the work |
| Keep your back flat against the bench | Arch your back or lift off the bench |
| Inhale when bringing the weight down | Inhale as you push the bar up |
| Exhale when pushing the bar back up | Exhale as you bring the weight down |
After you’ve mastered the basic bench press, you can vary your grip to work the muscles from a variety of angles. The narrower your grip on the bar, the more the weight workload is shared by the front deltoids and triceps. When performing the narrow-grip bench press, keep your elbows out at the bottom of the movement; this helps you get a better contraction of the pecs in the inner chest when you thrust the bar up.
THE NARROW-GRIP BENCH PRESS
Primary Muscles Worked: Upper Pecs, Front Deltoids, Triceps
Secondary Muscle Worked: Lower Pecs
By the same token, a wider grip will stimulate the pectorals even more and require less work from the triceps and front deltoids. Wide-grip presses give you a huge pec stretch as the weight is lowered, and seriously develops the outer pectorals in particular. (Outer-pec development is known to give the pecs a “full” look.)
THE WIDE-GRIP BENCH PRESS
Primary Muscle Worked: Lower Pecs
Secondary Muscle Worked: Upper Pecs
No chest routine would be complete, however, without working these muscles from numerous angles. Work various exercises into your routine to hit the chest hard. If you stick with it, that well-chiseled, big-and-broad look you’ve been looking for will start to grow, and somebody else is probably going to ask you, “How much ya bench?”
THE MILITARY PRESS
(SHOULDER PRESS)
Whether you’re tossing a sixty-yard touchdown pass, knocking a long-ball past 500, or pulverizing a punching bag with a tight uppercut, deltoids – the muscles of the shoulder – are crucial to delivering the necessary force. No matter the physical activity, the shoulder muscles determine your intensity; working these muscles in the gym increases the likelihood that the strength will be there when you need it. The military press is to the shoulders as the bench press is to the chest – a very effective, classic compound exercise you shouldn’t go without.
As you probably already know, anything beginning with the word “military” is not necessarily easy. However, a straightforward approach to this lift that incorporates the proper form will get you the boulder-sized shoulders you’ve been missing out on. There are 2 steps to the military press:
1. Standing feet shoulder-width apart, take a barbell in your hands using an overhand grip, so that your palms face upward. Hold the bar above your chest, at about shoulder level, in-line with your collarbone. Your hands should be outside your shoulders, elbows tucked in and directly under the bar. Keep your back straight, shoulders back, and chest out.
2. Lift the bar above your head, extending your arms fully, but not to the point that your elbows lock out. The bar should be centered directly above your ears. Slowly lower the weight to the starting position.
THE MILITARY PRESS
Primary Muscle Worked: Front Delts
Secondary Muscles Worked: Side Delts, Triceps
It seems easy enough, but the military press is actually a deceptively tricky exercise. You must have a very good sense of balance to effectively lift large amounts of weight, but in lighter amounts, it may be hard to feel whether or not the weight is leaning too far forward or backward. Some tips:
| DO | DON’T |
| Keep the weight balanced, your head and torso in a straight line | Lean back or lean forward – this probably means your poundage is too heavy |
| maintain a slow, steady press, keeping tension in the muscles at all times | Relax your abs or lower back – they help to stabilize the movement |
| Exhale as you push the barbell overhead | Sway or rock your body to gain momentum |
| Inhale as you bring the bar back down | Don’t lock your elbows out – you risk injury |
One more important tip: you may wish to grip the bar from a rack, especially when the poundage is heavy. If not, it’s probably best to clean the weight to the starting position, so that you avoid the risk of injuring your back. A weight belt might also be helpful in this regard, since the military press naturally puts tension on the lower back as well.
If you’re looking for some variation, military presses can also be done from a seated position; while this adds additional balance to the movement, it also makes the military press “more strict” than it is in the standing position.
SQUATS
Muscular calves. Big quads. Strong, mean looking legs are a testament to hard work in the gym, which without a doubt includes a lot of squats. In terms of popularity, the squat is right up there with the bench press, and for good reason: squats work numerous muscles in large muscle groups, and builds strength in all four heads of the quadriceps. But popularity doesn’t count for anything in the gym. What does count is making the most of this compound exercise by using the right form. Make that a priority, and strength will follow naturally.
You can complete the squat in 3 steps:
1. Place a barbell at or just below shoulder level on a squat rack. Grab the bar with your palms facing forward, hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Maintain your grip and center yourself under the bar, positioning the bar across your upper back and shoulders.
2. Lift the bar off the rack by standing erect and carefully step back, so as to avoid the rack’s supports. Your feet should be at about hip width, toes pointing slightly outward, and legs locked. Lean slightly forward, just enough so that the barbell is directly above your feet.
3. Slowly lower the weight by bending your knees and pushing your hips back. Keep your head up, your back straight, your feet flat, and descend until the tops of your thighs are completely parallel to the floor. Push yourself back up to the starting position.
THE SQUAT
Primary Muscle Worked: Quads
Secondary Muscles Worked: Erectors, Glutes, Hamstrings
Once you’ve got a good feel for the squat, you can also perform the exercise while standing with your toes on a low block, as if you were going to do standing calf raises. This requires a great deal of balance, though, and a smaller amount of weight. Either way, there are a few things you need to know to squat like a pro:
| DO | DON’T |
| Keep your feet flat – this distributes the weight so that you feel it more in your heels than in your toes | Lean your head forward too far – this takes the pressure off of the thighs and puts too much on your lower back |
| Keep your head level and your eyes straight ahead | Drop the weight down too fast or without resistance |
| Control the weight by moving in a steady motion | Arch your back – it throws your spine out of regular alignment |
| Keep your knees back and your shins as close to vertical as possible | Let your shins get close to level with the floor – this takes pressure off the muscles |
| Inhale as you descend, exhale as you arise | Let the weight become imbalanced |
You can also use the squat to work your quads, glutes, and hamstrings from multiple angles and increase strength. Varying the position of your feet during a squat will have a direct effect on which area of the thighs is worked the hardest. In the basic stance, your feet are about shoulder-width apart, your toes turned slightly outward. A wider stance with the toes pointed further out requires more of the inside of the thighs; at the same time, a narrow stance, toes turned just slightly outward, will develop the outer thigh with greater intensity.
In any case, strong quads and hams aren’t developed overnight; there’s a lot of leg work involved. But, attacking the quads at the squat rack on a regular basis will add considerable strength to your lower body. Got squat? Rack ‘em up.