The shoulder press machine gets dismissed in most serious training environments. The reasoning is consistent: it is a machine, which means it does the stability work for you, which means it produces inferior results compared to free weights. This reasoning is correct in one dimension and wrong in another. The machine shoulder press does trade…
The barbell curl builds overall bicep mass. The concentration curl develops the short head peak. The incline dumbbell curl does something neither can: it places the bicep in its maximally stretched position at the beginning of each rep, with the shoulder extended behind the body and the arm hanging behind the torso, then performs the…
Most trainees who train their triceps consistently still have underdeveloped long heads. The side view reveals it: the arm looks defined from the front but lacks the depth and thickness that separates a well-developed tricep from a merely trained one. The reason is almost always the same. The programme includes pushdowns, close-grip bench press, and…
The pullover is one of the oldest exercises in strength training. Arnold Schwarzenegger credited it with expanding his ribcage. Arthur Jones built the Nautilus pullover machine around it. Then it largely disappeared from modern programming. What replaced it were rows, pulldowns, and pressing variations, all excellent exercises. But every one of them trains the lat…
Bent-over rows are one of the best back exercises in existence. They are also one of the most commonly cheated exercises in existence. Watch the average trainee perform a set of heavy bent-over rows. The torso rises with each rep. The legs drive at the bottom. The lower back extends to swing the weight through…