Bench presses and curls are two of the first exercises that are learned by new weight lifters. For men, the chest or “pecs” (short for pectorals) are second only to the biceps as the top show muscles in teenagers and young adults. This list of 5 of the best chest exercise will go a long way in building that initial base.
For women, the chest is even more important. Keeping well-built pecs can be useful in maintaining a solid, perky appearance of the breasts.
Serious fitness enthusiasts and athletes know that the pecs are involved in one of the main powerlifting exercises, the bench press. The bench press is one of three exercises, including squats and deadlifts, in a standard big 3 powerlifting competition. For this reason, it is always important for powerlifters to increase their chest strength.
Therefore it seems to me that everyone has a reason to train their chest, including men, women, athletes, bodybuilders, powerlifters, strongmen… everyone; and here are the top 5 best chest exercises you should use.
Serious fitness enthusiasts and athletes want to be bigger, stronger, and leaner. The number one way to make that happen? Train your legs with complex free-weight exercises such as those listed here as the best leg exercises.
Your legs are the largest group of muscles in your body. They are the foundation of your strength and power. Never will you be able to bench press 315 if you can’t squat 315 first. By training your legs hard, you will be setting yourself up to gain the most progress compared to every other muscle group.
Arnold loved squatting, and look what happened to him. If you want to be Mr. Olympia, a famous Hollywood actor, and the governor of California, you need to squat! This article will give you great direction on training the quad, while our best hamstring exercises will give you some great ideas for supersetting or dividing leg day into a push and pull split.
By training your legs, you will:
Lift the most weight of all muscle groups.
Burn the most calories of all muscle groups.
Build the foundation of your body’s strength chain.
Stimulate the highest growth hormone release through training.
Everyone has a different body type, but very few people have well-developed biceps, chiseled thighs, tight glutes, and rock-hard abs without putting in at least a bit of work. Having great genetics helps if you want to define muscle or become more muscular, but it truly doesn’t matter what body type you have if you are determined enough. Be realistic about just how ‘swole’ you want to become, but more importantly, be patient with yourself. Gaining muscle is much like losing fat – major changes are not noticeable overnight.
Let’s take things day by day, step by step, and discover these realistic ways to gain and define muscle mass.
Keeping the body fit is everyone’s goal, but not everyone works towards it efficiently. Those who do might still not do it optimally. Therefore, only a select few athletes attain the target of a healthy and fit body. Without using proper warm-up strategies and exercises, you risk injury and may not appropriately prepare the CNS for intense movements. Simply showing up at the gym may not be all required; doing it correctly is vital. Proper execution begins with warming up.
Let’s examine some warm-up strategies including a few important warm-up exercises as well as a few strategies to avoid.
CrossFit is a famous (infamous?) exercise program that people around the world have been using for years. Some people think both the pros and cons of CrossFit are all about working out until you can’t move. However, it’s actually about creating healthy exercise routines, picking up new dietary habits, and working with others to motivate each other to continue your progress.
To find out if CrossFit is right for you, check out the CrossFit pros and cons below.
Update 2025 – Looking back at this post about working out during lunch, I think it’s funny how our goals and preferences change over the years. There was a time when I would only train in the evening, generally after 4 pm. Then I tried and fell in love with lunch workouts. Then I finally started working out at 6 am and nowadays I have no desire to hit the gym after work, and prefer to workout early and not to exercise during lunch.
Many other aspects of my training and nutrition have changed over the years, but this is a big one. Take a read below to learn what a 20-year-old thought about getting exercise during lunch and working for an employer. Things sure do change.
Nothing feels more impressive than being able to bang out 30 pull-ups in a row or finishing a set of 10 with 90 lbs hanging from a belt. Nothing looks more impressive than being able to hit a front or rear lat spread with confidence like a cobra. Furthermore, how many women do you know who can finish a set of 10 pull-ups? The best back exercises can help you break through your back training plateaus.
Trust me, due to a lack of knowledge about back training, there aren’t many who have accomplished the above. The reality is that we can attain all of these things with intense back training using free weights to perform this list of the best back exercises. Here’s how.
If you have been reading weightlifting materials for any length of time, you have probably heard of 5×5 training. It has worked for many trainees. We folks at Project Swole even made excellent progress on a 5×5 program. But with all this 5×5 hype, has anyone stopped thinking there might be an even more efficient way to train? You might want to take a moment to learn about The Swole 3×5 workout.
In my experience, at least for trained athletes, there are benefits to a Swole 3×5 workout routine which include added volume for accessory movements, core training, and conditioning due to the slightly lower workload.
Here’s a throw back to the past. This post about lifting strategy is the second post ever written on Project Swole. The point of it is I was getting back into training seriously after some time off, and I was going to use this site as a training journal. After a short time I realized the site would be better used as a repository for the knowledge and experience I’d gained as a personal trainer, and through 14 years of research and training experience as I’d started my fitness journey around 1993.
This isn’t much more than an outline of my personal thoughts and strategies towards gearing up for a workout, training, and then post workout recovery. If this post has inspired or helped even one beginner athlete, then I can consider my goal accomplished.
Every serious lifter would love to have massive Popeye-level forearms. Forearm size adds to an already good physique, and forearm strength increases all of your pulling lifts and then some. The problem that most people have is that they aren’t sure how to attack their forearms – they lack the knowledge of the best forearm exercises for muscle growth. Either that or they are not as consistent as they need to be with their forearm training.
For strength, we need to train our forearms with heavy loads such as deadlifts, farmer carries, and heavy barbell shrugs. For size, we need to train with consistency and volume, leveraging the occasional isolation exercises like hammer curls and wrist curls.
Forearms should be trained just as often as any other muscle. It shouldn’t just be something you work on every couple of months whenever you are bored. Take your forearm training seriously, and you will be on the right path to adding some size and strength to them.
Here is our list of the second 5 of our favorite 10 ab exercises that you can use to get 6-pack abs. Perform these exercises on a regular basis, mix them up, use different speeds, tempos, angles, and positions to get a full workout. Always try to mix it up from workout to workout.
That is quite enough out of me for now. Go ahead and read about the 5 exercises and then figure out how to work them into your routine.
Box jumps are a great exercise for your legs, and can be performed on just about any variable flat surface. They hit your posterior chain – calves, quads, glutes, and hamstrings – pretty hard.
Box jumps can be used for cardio workouts, neural activation training (NAT), high-intensity resistance training (HIRT), and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) circuits. They are often used in CrossFit WODs (Workout of the Day) and are a staple exercise in plyometric training. Plyometrics have a wide range of athletic and real sporting applications; they are used, for example, to increase jumping ability, leg strength, hip drive, and explosiveness.
Box jumps are a simple movement. They require you only to jump from one flat surface up onto another flat surface, then either step or jump back down, depending on the purpose of the exercise. These are our tips for performing them safely and effectively.
Here is the long-awaited follow-up to the Top 10 Best Ab ExercisesPart 1 and the precursor to the Top 10 Best Abs Exercises Part 3. Let’s take a look at 5 of our favorite 10 best abdominal exercises, that you can use to get 6-pack abs look. Do these exercises regularly, mix them up, and use different speeds, tempos, angles, and positions to get a full workout. Always try to progress from workout to workout.
Here are 3 ways you can gauge progress with abdominal exercises:
Try to complete more reps in a given period. For example, do as many fold-ups as possible in 60 seconds. Try to break your personal record (PR) for each workout.
Try to complete more total reps each time you perform the exercise. For example, in week one do 3 sets of 10, week 2 do 3 sets of 12, week 3 do 4 sets of 10, week 4 do 3 sets of 15, etc…
If it applies, try to add weight to the exercise by holding a plate or dumbbell on your chest or behind your head, or use a weighted vest. You can also add weight to your legs with ankle weights. Try to use more weight, or complete more reps with the same weight, each time.
Let’s skip any additional small talk here and get on with the exercises.
With the prevalence of six-pack abs in the media by everyone from Hugh Jackman and Matthew McConaughey, to Janet Jackson and Beyonce Knowles, society as of late treasures that elusive flat-defined stomach look, and they must know the secrets of the best abdominal exercises, right? We can thank high resolution for our cultural transition from portly praise to abdominal admiration.
After all, before Hollywood got huge in the 1900s, as a culture we appreciated a little meat on our bones because it represented comfort, success, and good health. Now that we get to feast our eyes daily on tough-guy actors, beautiful actresses, rock stars, and supermodels, we’ve come full circle into the Washboard Era.
You could be wasting your time with a great workout routine and proper nutrition if you don’t know how to train and eat based on your body type. When I first started training and reading about body types my first question – what is my body type, was hard to answer. It seemed I was the combination of 2 of them so initially, I struggled to categorize myself. Honestly, your body type category doesn’t matter enough for anyone to be stressed out about categorizing the body type but knowing the details of how to eat and train for each type, at least gave me some direction as I set goals for fat loss and strength gains in my earlier years.
Hopefully, this guide will help you find some answers if you ask the question, ‘What is my body type?’
Dips are listed in a Swole post as one of the top 5 best triceps exercises. They can be useful for both chest and triceps training but to make them work for us we have to learn the ins and outs of how to do dips and how to do them properly to work with our personal goals.
Based on the principle that exercises in which you move your body through space are better than the exercises that keep you in a stationary position, dips are better than push ups. It is also easier for you to add weight to your dips than it is to add weight to a push-up.
Want thick, dense abs that stand out like a washboard? Want a ripped midsection with veins and shredded striations? No? How about this: Want to look good naked? If you answered yes to any of those, you’ll want to be sure you’re not making any common ab training mistakes.
You will never achieve any of the above goals or personal goals if you train your abs once a week with three sets of crunches for 100 reps, or if you eat like a horse. Avoid these 6 common abdominal training mistakes and your abs will dial in. Whether you are a bodybuilder, an athlete, or a novice, chances are you are making several of these ab training mistakes in your training right now. Take heed!
Why do we need to figure out what are the best hamstring exercises? Because serious fitness enthusiasts and athletes want to be able to lift maximum weight off the ground with minimal effort. It makes us feel good to be able to pick up virtually anything and to be able to perform necessary feats of strength in emergencies. Especially when most guys in the world struggle to pick up even 100 lbs off the floor.
The number one way to make all these things happen? Train your posterior chain – hamstrings, lower back, and glutes (your bum) with complex free-weight exercises. Let’s take a look at a few of the best hamstring exercises to focus on effective posterior chain development.
Pull-ups are very simple but very hard. Most people think they know how to do pull-ups but there are quite a few variations on the proper form that some hardos might frown on, but still count as legitimate pull-ups. To perform a pull-up, hang on to any bar, doorway, tree branch, etc… with your arms straight and your palms facing away from you, and pull yourself up until your chin passes the bar. That’s it.
Pull-ups can be performed on anything that allows you to hang with your arms straight and your knees not touching the floor. Beginners can’t typically do a single pull-up, so we need a proper tutorial for increasing pull-up strength.
This post will teach you how to increase your performance with pull-ups using the correct technique.
There are many different lifts that a weightlifter can do to increase their strength, speed, and power. All kind of weightlifting is great for your body, but I prefer to not waste time in the gym lifting with tunnel vision, going from machine to machine and seeing little results from my hard work. This is why it is important to learn how to squat!
Instead, I would rather do 3-4 exercises with maximal intensity to wipe out my whole body in order to reap a maximal anabolic effect. The most well known and most dreaded of these exercises is the squat.
Rules to Remember When Performing a Squat
Keep the lower back straight and mostly flat; do not round your back!
Keep knees pointing out slightly, do not let them creep inwards as you push yourself up.
The bar should rest on the upper trap muscles and the rear heads of the shoulders.
Push from your glutes (butt), not your knees; your hips should raise first and everything else should raise with them.
Fill your stomach with air before descending and keep it tight with your chest out while pushing up.
Push up with your eyes focused 30-45 degrees above normal eye level.
Try to keep your knees behind your toes to avoid injury.
