Exercise Selection Is Everything

When I was away on vacation, I saw some of the most interesting exercise selection by people in the gym. You could tell these people had very little gym experience. I don’t know where they got their information from, but it seems very counterproductive for beginners to be doing some of the things they were doing. It most likely stems from fitness mags and internet searches, but since I made a lot of those mistakes when I was younger, I thought I would share what are better options to what people are doing in the gym these days.

Exercise Selection

Cable cross overs: I think people do these to target the middle of the chest. But you don’t need to target the middle of the chest if you just build muscle over all. Do heavy Incline dumbbell flies instead as your only iso movement late in your workout and exercise selection.

Tricep kick backs: These are not a good exercise overall as the movement relies too much on the last, and your weight needs to be small. Stick with skull crushers and heavy weight instead.

Cable curls with a rope attachment: cable curls seem to be used because people think tension equals gains. But all these do is build lactic acid and make your joints tired. Instead stick with heavy barbell curls for mass.

Decline bench: Decline bench falls under a complete myth of working the “lower pec” – the angle has no range of motion and people do it because they can “ lift heavier”. You can lift heavier because your range of motion is lacking. Do weighted dips instead.

Squats on uneven surfaces: This is just a disaster waiting to happened. Do squats on the floor. Better yet, do pistol squats and build up to weighted. They won’t ruin your knees.

Machine Pull Downs: Pull downs on the machine are always used because people use terrible swinging form to do more weight than they should, and because pull ups are actually hard and they don’t want to do them instead. Do real pull ups. And if you can’t yet, get our program to learn how to progress to them. Skip the cheater machine. Pull ups build a huge back.

Machine bench presses: with zero stability people like these because you can load more weight. But all you’re doing is cheating yourself out of stabilizer muscle recruitment and proper form. Use barbells and dumbbells for bench.

Leg Presses: I can’t believe people still do this and consider it a good lower body movement. Range of motion is limited, you load up tonnes of weight because of it, most people lock out which is terrible at the top and it’s not even close to a true strength movement like a full range ass to grass squat. Do weight lunges instead.

Cable anything: Put down the cables. Cable upright rows, shoulder flies, curls, presses whatever. Save these for body builders who are looking to drive up muscle tear down and tension after hours in the gym on the muscle. When you are starting out, stick with big compound moves where you can add weight and build your foundation. Leave the cable rack alone.

Building your workout regime is a bit confusing sometimes, but see where you are in your training to construct a routine that better suits how much experience, muscle, and strength you have. There is just no need for doing squats on a bosu ball or front cable shoulder raises when you don’t have any shoulder development yet.