When I was young and absorbed the words of bodybuilding magazines, I continued to read about how awesome free weight squats are meant to create leg size. It was as if this bodybuilding exercise would almost guarantee big hips and not do it, it would doom my reinforcements to their then similarity to chicken legs. It was (and is) advertised as the holy grail of bodybuilding exercises. In order not to do squats on free weights, it’s like that you don’t really want to get bigger ... do you?
Well, I did these squats with free weights. I bowed to the altar and mastered this king of bodybuilding exercises. I performed my squats with heavy weight, deep form and weekly consistency, while at the same time pushing my body to my limits as a natural bodybuilder. And what did this dad almost wipe off all the bodybuilding exercises? do for me? Surprisingly, not so much; in fact, I would have done better without them. I'm still squatting, but with much better results on the Body Master machine. And, as if this is not enough for dogma, some of the bodybuilding exercises, traditionally referred to as “walking movements,” brought me some of my best achievements in size.
With my background squat experience, let me review what I considered to be the most overpriced bodybuilding exercise. Then I will name some that I think are undervalued. Keep in mind that this is an opinion. Probably, I should say that before you get a pile of readers in a heap to break these sacred cows.
1. Weight benches
Well, I can already hear the moans of protest. In the end, this is the king of all body building exercises. ... correctly? " If we are heavy on the benches "... we said: we will use a weight that will build the size in all of our upper body muscles “This is a big compound moving like a bench press that releases testosterone .. blah, blah, blah ... next.
Many graduate students who are trying to increase the size of their muscles do not have a genetic predisposition to respond positively to traditional weight presses — simple and simple. To build breast size, these people must isolate the muscles with heavy flies.
In addition, many bodybuilders should ask themselves this question before repeatedly throwing them on the bench press: Can I build a body or raise strength? "
Don't worry - do it with enough intensity, the flye movements will release a lot of testosterone. This should be taken as confirmation for those who believe that testosterone production during exercise is important. It's funny ... I always thought it was during recovery between workouts, where it would really matter ... yes.
2 Alternation
If someone could explain the logic of this bodybuilding exercise, I’ll be happy to listen. Moving between the left / right curl, the intern essentially takes a rest break between each curl. If this is really a value, a logical extension would do it for all the muscles: alternating leg presses - alternating tricep dumbbells - alternating dumbbells for table-top presses - alternating ejection lat ..., etc.
My advice: pull off alternating curls of dumbbells and replace them with an exercise that creates more constant tension on the biceps.
3 Raised Calf Rises
In this exercise, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with his ability to create caviar size. This is just extra stress on the lower back. This unnecessary tension in such a vulnerable area can be avoided all the more, given that the donkey calf lifts the same muscles as raising the standing calf, but without lumbar stress.
Interestingly, I got more caviar after completely replacing raising a standing calf with raising a donkey's calf.
4. Standing barbell
Like free squats, this is supposed to be a kind of cornerstone of bodybuilding exercises. However, I made my best gain in bicep sizes after I had long since dropped this exercise in favor of others. The standing bar eclipses the biceps. I just discovered that they do not provide constant tension on this muscle, which causes it to react optimally.
5. Free weight squats
Of course, I mentioned this at the beginning of the article. Yes ... it can be a great movement to create overall strength and balance. If you are a power lift, it is absolutely necessary. However, I found that a natural bodybuilder can easily train with this exercise and overcome the increase in muscle size by doing so.
In short, to say that the legs can not increase the size of the muscles, like squats, can be funny. If one bodybuilder randomly exercises squatting while inadvertently relearns, and the other bodybuilder makes a leg with more attention to the correct ratio of muscle mass / recovery - I put on bodybuilder legs to build large legs.
Now that I’ve given up what, in my opinion, is the most overvalued bodybuilding exercise, let me list some of them that I thought were undervalued. They are often called "formative movements." However, I combined them with intensity to get some of my best wins in size with them.
1. Runways
Any machine in which you are sitting upright with arms outstretched when performing flys for furnaces may allow incredible isolation and constant tension on these muscles. As unorthodox as it sounds, I built much more chest sizes with the Life Fitness Machine & # 39; deck than I ever built with endless sets of bench press.
2 Kulichnichnye biceps
Lying on the bench pulley, designed for separate rowing, as is done. With arms shoulder width across a straight bar, curling with biceps will create a constant strain on these muscles. This helped my biceps get out of the previous growth plateau.
3 Horizontal foot presses
Performed with intensity and attention to detail, they can fit on the hips. What do I like about all this? leg movements are very easy to use for different positions of the legs on these machines. This greatly facilitates targeting to different areas of the upper legs.
4. Seated rows of pulleys (bottom handle)
When it comes to bodybuilding exercises for a thicker back, the rows of T-bars seem to attract the most attention. However, the T-bar ranks are overly deceptive; imposing a “show poundage” and using impulse and other muscles to perform the movement.
Performing sealed rows of pulleys with a clamping grip, less weight, slower handling, and "rolling back" movement of the shoulders can work wonders for the upper back.
5. Split Reps for Delts and Arms
I personally broke the bodybuilding plateau by “splitting” the full movement of the exercise into as many as three partial repetition exercises with each partial movement, regarded as his own exercise. For example, if I am on a closed triceps expansion machine, I will have sets of the first third of the movement, followed by sets of movement of a medium radius, and then sets of the final third extension. This seems especially effective for biceps and triceps.
Performing a whole movement in the form of three separate partial bodywork bodybuilding exercises takes a little longer, but it is beneficial for investment; my hands exploded like never before.
