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Start in a push-up position with your shoulders directly above your hands. Lower your forearms and elbows toward the floor until your biceps make full contact with your forearms at the bottom. It’s tougher than it looks—most people struggle with it at first. A good way to learn the movement is to start from the…
Most lifters train their calves regularly, but the tibialis anterior, the major muscle on the front of the shin, is often neglected. This imbalance can limit lower leg development. Strengthening the tibialis anterior can not only enhance muscle balance but also help with ankle stability and injury prevention. While many people use a dynamic axial…
Want to take wrist curls to the next level? Try performing them while seated on a platform. An adjustable step unit, like the Atlantis Leg Platform, works well for this. Adjusting the platform height changes the overload: Whether you’re short or tall, you can fine-tune the height to match your needs!
You know the importance of varying your grip during chin-ups—to prevent stagnation, promote balanced strength and size development, and reduce the risk of recurring injuries. But what if you only have a straight chin-up bar? Supinated, pronated, and even mixed-grip chin-ups are no problem, but how do you perform neutral-grip chin-ups? Here are three simple…
Prescribing a rep number is not always beneficial in strength training. Take the wrist roller exercise, for example. I have people perform this on a high step to maximize the distance and we go for time — 60 seconds is a good number to achieve on this one. It doesn’t matter how many reps you’ve…
If your goal is to build “barn door” wide shoulders, try tube laterals where you overload the top range. Here’s an example of elastic resistance providing a greater overload where you want it. For fun, combine them with dumbbells and use a jettison technique where you release the tube once you reach failure and continue…
This exercise is named after Jerry Telle, an exercise scientist out of Colorado. Think of the regular side-lying dumbbell external rotation, but instead of moving the weight around your body, you move your body around the weight! By keeping the forearm parallel to the ground and rolling your body forward and backward, maximum overload can…
In some cases it’s best to count reps, and in other cases it’s best to regulate the time under tension. The prone lateral ball roll is an example of where it’s best to assign a time (like 30 seconds) rather than a rep number.
The reverse bench press is not mentioned often and I must admit, I don’t prescribe it too frequently either, but it can be a great triceps exercise. The big knock against it: comfort! It’s not a “wrist-friendly” movement, especially under a heavy load. But there’s a way to transform this into a winner, it’s called…