A Moving Experience
I recently made a cross country move from Utah to Ohio with my wife and 2 young children in a Trailblazer towing a Chevy Impala. It definitely qualified as an experience – especially the parts in Colorado where we crossed the Snowy Rocky Mountains at night and later had to deal with a car that had a dead battery by the time we arrived. But that has nothing to do with this, I'm just rambling to help me get my thoughts in order.
This piece is about movements in the weight room. Most people call them exercises but they are a lot more than that. There are compound exercises and isolation exercises, although you may find I never recommend the latter. That's just my style, roll with it.
Since I don't care for them or recommend them, I'll start with isolation exercises. The intent behind these is to isolate a specific muscle and only train it in the hopes of improving strength and size. Have you ever seen a tree that only grew one limb or a giraffe with massive and out-of-proportion front legs? Think maybe there's a reason for that? It's not only natural, it's also how genetic code is written – people (and animals and trees) can grow but they most do so within a set of parameters. Trying to isolate just one area creates temporary gains at best in that area and at worst can cause injuries.
The alternative is compound exercises. Simply put, a compound exercise uses two or more muscles to complete a movement. A bench press, for example, uses the pectorals and triceps primarily, but it also activates the lats, forearms, traps, deltoids, and even the hamstrings, glutes, calves, and a few other muscles I haven't mentioned yet. You may doubt me, but some day you'll have to deal with a cramp in your hamstring when benching and then you'll know I spoke the truth – you just had to figure out the proper form to activate the available muscles in your body.
One important thing to point out in this discussion is using a Smith machine to squat, bench, overhead press, or anything else. Don't. Do. It. The Smith machine prevents assistance muscle work, which not only inhibits your muscle building / fat burning potential but it also considerably increases your risk of injury. The Smith Machine also increases the risk for repetitive motion injuries (similar to carpal tunnel). A Smith Machine turns a perfectly good complex exercise into pseudo-isolation exercise but for some strange reason people think it's safer for them. I don't get it.
For other exercises it's a no brainer. A deadlift uses damn near everything your body has, even the muscles in your forehead and cheeks. Don't believe me? Watch somebody — even yourself in the mirror — the next time you do a deadlift. Those facial express don't just happen on their own! Of course different compound exercises really target different areas but the important thing is that they use multiple muscles and joints, which helps make the body stronger, not just the muscle.
So what are the benefits to have a stronger body versus a stronger muscle? Happier joints, stronger tendons and ligaments, stronger bones, improved flexibility, and an ability to be functionally stronger. Of course the drawbacks are that doing compound exercises take a higher toll on the CNS and can leave you feeling wiped out a lot quicker. The results speak for themselves though.
Combining timing and style of exercising with the movements is where the real strategy of weight lifting comes in to play. Need better shoulders? Want to focus on more of an hourglass look? Want bigger legs? Trying to develop an ass worth kissing? Well read on my friends…
Shoulder or Military Presses – This exercise involves pushing a weight (or weights) in a vertical pressing motion. It can be done with a barbell, dumbbells, kettle bells, or even a couple of jugs of water or sand. I've also been known to use small children used as weights in this fashion. Come to think of it, I've used adult women in this regard too… moving right along. Another way of performing this exercise would be with the body perpendicular to the ground, in effect doing a push-up with the floor directly "above" your head.
What does it do for you? It causes growth in the shoulders and triceps primarily, then additionally into the traps, rhomboid, and pecs. Odds are you're going to get some activation out of your spinal erectors (the muscles running up and down beside your spine) glutes, quads, and hamstrings as well – especially if you're doing them standing. What's this mean? It works the shoulders and traps, as well as a stronger back.
Pull-Ups and Chin-Ups — This is a vertical pulling exercise. We all know what they are, even if most of us can't do them. Don't feel bad, ounce I was out of junior high school I couldn't do them either. At least not until I'd spent time using an alternative exercise – Lat Pulldowns. This is an exercise done on a cable machine where the bar is pulled from overhead down to your chest. Pull it in front of your head, not behind. This prevent shoulder impingement and it stops you from giving yourself a concussion in case your head is too far back. This overhead pulling exercise works the lats and biceps, as well as the abs and pecs. This particular exercise is notorious for helping people develop wider lats, and wider lats combined with good shoulders help give guys the tapered look and to give girls the hourglass figure.
Rowing exercises (cable, bentover, t-bar, dumbbell, Kroc, etc.) — This is known as a horizontal pulling movement. You'll get some shoulder action here too, but this hits the rhomboids, lats, biceps, and deltoids, as well as lower back, glutes, and even the legs. Consider the overall coverage the back muscles have and you're referring to some major landscape. That translates into major potential for calorie burning and growth. Even more importantly, without a strong back you don't have much chance of making anything else strong without ending up in a hospital bed.
Bench Press — This is perhaps the most famous and revered exercise in all of weight lifting. From the farcical NFL bench pressing test to a powerlifting bench only meet. Bench pressing comes in many angles and variations, but they all develop the pecs, lats, and triceps primarily. Inclined benching does a lot for the shoulders and declined benching increases the focus on the lats. It also utilizes the glutes, legs, spinal erectors, traps, and abs. Or, for the layman, doing this exercise will help build a bigger and stronger chest and arms.
Squat — The squat is underrated by most people, and not talked about enough by the people who know. It's a miserable exercise if you're not accustomed to it, and that's one of the reasons why it's so damn good to do! The squat works primarily on the quads, hamstrings, calves, spinal erectors, abs, rhomboids, and traps. It also uses everything else you're body has to offer it, potentially even including your first born child (yes, this exercise can be that difficult to do if you really load it up and dig deep). Squats are the reason so many Hollywood starlets have butts that you imagine could crack a walnut. Yeah, I went there. One thing that must be mentioned is a squat means dropping until your thighs are parallel to the ground or lower. Anything higher than that is a waste of your time, look it up in some peer reviewed research papers, not what your buddy told you.
In terms of muscle activation, there may only be one exercise that uses more of the body, and thus only one potential exercise that can burn more fat and build more LBM. And that exercise is…
The Deadlift — The squat is hard to do properly, now imagine it being harder. The bar doesn't end up a couple of feet of the ground, no, it starts and stops on the ground. What happens in between is the Herculean effort of which legends are made. I said it earlier, but it bears saying again: the deadlift will use every muscle your body has a few you didn't know you have. I have had my pecs cramp and calluses tear off my hands doing this exercise. All from a simple bar resting some 6 inches off the ground that has to be picked up until the knees are straight and shoulders are back, then lowered back down. This exercise puts hair on your chest, separates the men from the boys, and proves that a woman has a bigger set of balls than the men watching her muscle that bar up. The fat may as well be dripping off you if you go at these aggressively. Not to mention the world of good you will be doing to your back if you can do these with proper form.
But all of those? Those are for beginners. When you want a real challenge toss a few Olympic lifts into the mix. Some of these I don't even do – and that's because public gyms won't allow them or my common sense and lack of grace won't allow me to do them.
Power Clean – I'm linking to a YouTube video for this one both because it's hard to explain and because this chick is impressing me. This is like a deadlift only it's an explosive movement that activates even more of the upper body. I do these from time to time and enjoy them quite a bit. And by enjoy them I mean they make me hurt (in a good way) but the feelings of accomplishment are more than worth it! And for those seeking to be shocked and astonished, here's another youtube video. One word of advice though – never drop the weights when you're done with them (or while doing it!) My own power clean record I set in Utah last year at 255, I haven't tried them since but will be next month (I change exercises every month – but more on that in another post).
Clean and Jerk — This takes the power clean to a new level, more or less. The movements are a little different but by and large the point is taking a weight that's on the floor and ending with it directly overhead.
There are some other compound exercises – lots of them really, but they get into advanced lifting techniques. Hang cleans, Arnold curls / presses, reverse hypers, reverse woodchoppers, etc.. All great stuff focused on building muscle in multiple areas to strengthen joints, muscles, and entire regions. And most importantly, they build balance in those regions. Without balancing out your chest with your back (or horizontal pushing versus horizontal pulling) your growth will plateau. These exercises allow that and they allow for the specific goals to be most efficiently met, whether that be muscle / strength growth or fat loss.
Or think of it this way, if you can work out in 45 minutes and target the same amount of muscles to the same degree that you could in a three hour workout, which one are you going to be more likely to choose? With compound movements I target 3 – 4 exercises per workout and leave with the happy feeling of having won a match against a sumo wrestler. Two – Three times a week works for me, beginner and even intermediate trainees can get away with three – six times a week spent in the gym. Another reason to go at it and stick with it — you can get in better touch with your body in a way that doesn't require any hand lotion or tissues.
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