By Jeffrey Bradley
Most people are looking to gain muscle from their workouts. They want more definition, less bodyfat, tighter peaks. Yet, they’re getting further away from the basics. You can see them in almost any gym lifting weights while balanced on balls, boards or bungees. As if. The best way still to get results is by staying with tried-and-true compound exercises like legs, chest and back. Leave the fru-fru to the aerobicists and dance instructors. Use these twists instead on a few old standards to help hit your goals quicker.
Meet the squat, your most basic of exercises. If this muscle builder isn’t in your workout portfolio it ought to be. It engages so many muscles that you can’t help getting tight and lean—if you perform it right. Unfortunately, most people don't go low enough to emphasize their glutes. Their heels will ride up, or they use heavy weights and can’t get to parallel. If you’re not engaging your glutes—your strongest muscles—you’re not maximizing your power.
Here’s a good way to gauge your depth: perform a couple of reps minus the weight bar while watching sideways in a mirror. If your thighs don’t go parallel to the floor then you’re not getting the full benefit. Some people use a bench to guide ‘em, but I wouldn’t. Bouncing off it even a little—and it’s awfully tempting— crunches your backbone. Forget that. Just use the sideways mirror to get the feel of your thighs being parallel. Now, get back under that squat rack and do ‘em right!
Remember to always use the “mind-to-muscle” connection. It’s absolutely essential in isolating your muscles, which, by the way, is the whole point. Let’s take chest. Start by lying on a bench and contracting your pec muscles. Keep them under tension through the full range of motion. Especially during the negative. Do reps like this: While you move the bar keep your muscles tight on the way down, tighter on the way up, tightest at the top. Focus and squeeze your muscle at the top for a peak contraction. When performing the set keep your chest up by arching your back and pulling your shoulders down and away. Now your pecs and not your shoulders will do the exercise. Feel the full stretch to push out of the negative. That’s where your power lies. Absent this concentration you’re just moving weights, which is great—if you’re a powerlifter. Perform all your exercises this way. Isolate the muscle you’re working on, keep it tight and use the weight for a focused pump.
The sit-up is another real basic, the all-time hate or great, depending on your point of view. But lately they’ve been superseded by crunches. Too bad. Crunches involve at most a 30-degree range of motion, this side of building muscle. For a rock-hard 6-pack do yourself a passel of “old school” sit-ups. They keep your abs under dynamic tension and make them bigger and stronger. They also strengthen your hip flexors, something crunches don’t. (If you insist on your crunches vary things up by performing them on a bar or Swiss ball for that all-important stretch; even holding a plate to your chest helps.)
Sit-ups are easy. Just lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor, knees bent and hands clasped lightly behind your head. “Lightly” means fingers not interlocked. A pain in the neck while performing this exercise is a red flag saying you’re lifting your neck and head with your hands. That’s a trap-up, not a sit-up. Do them like this: With your elbows out to the sides contract your abs, tuck your chin, and roll up till your cheeks touch your knees. Slowly roll back. (Key word is roll.) Think of a caterpillar curling up in a ball, segment by segment. That’s you doing abs. Leaf munching optional.
Another back-to-basic strategy for bigger muscles is trading weight for volume. You might think that benching 400 pounds is sure to get you ripped. Maybe. But any good power lifter can lift twice that and still look schlubby. What most people want is a tight, lean look. And a good way to get it is through volume, not heavy weights. Ask yourself this: Do I want to look like an Olympic power lifter or do I want to look ripped? Lifting heavy does not necessarily mean you'll look good. In fact, getting that perfectly ripped body often means doing a lot more total work with the weights—150 push-ups most certainly will get you a lot more definition than 10. Volume simply gives better size and shape than going heavy.
Boost it up another notch by redefining your sweet spot, usually between 12 and 15 reps. Do 18 to 20 instead and you’ll find yourself pushing a lot more weight during your workout. For instance, instead of three sets of ten curls with a fifty pound bar, try three sets of twenty curls with a forty pound bar. That's a huge increase. But keep the weight heavy enough to be challenging or you’ll finish your set looking for more reps. Always feel the fatigue!
