exercise

For decades one of the popular upper body exercises to perform in the weight room has been the bench press exercise. One common question many high school athletes or any athlete may ask their peer is “How much can you bench”? With regard to upper body strength and power when was the last time...

We know a lot about the physiological part of training, nutrition and recovery. You may think that if you optimize these factors you will have optimal progression and gains. People don’t often think as much about sleep, circadian rhythm, life outside the gym, and especially about stress. A...

The Problem You’re captured by hostile terrorists and held captive in a large jail cell with just a bunk bed in the corner, a barbell, and plenty of plates. The commander informs you that you’re free to lift weights during your captivity, but you can only perform ten barbell exercises. If...

Bret_ContrerasElite Coach First, I apologize if I left out one of your favorite exercises. Don’t take it personally. I performed these experiments in my garage, and while I have one of the baddest garage gyms in Arizona, I don’t have a lot of machines. Furthermore, there are probably 200...

Every guy has his own theory about which exercises are the best and which exercises suck. Whether we’re analyzing the biomechanics of an exercise (not very likely), “feeling the burn” (more likely), or simply doing a ton of sets and seeing how sore we get over the next few days (ding, ding...

Most people tend to view exercise through the lens of the ‘additive’ energy model: More exercise = more calories burned. But back in 2016, Herman Pontzer and colleagues published a study that put forth the ‘constrained’ energy model: Energy expenditure does increase with added activity, but...

Now and again, when scrolling through your social media feed, you see an exercise that makes you stand up and take notice. The Swole Press is one of those exercises. How can you not with a movement called the Swole Press? This exercise is a hybrid clean and press performed with a dumbbell and...

If you want glutes that look good and make you stronger on and off the field, barbell hip thrusts are your go-to exercise, but you better make sure your hip thrust form is on point. Since Bret Contreras, Ph.D., C.S.C.S., aka “The Glute Guy,” popularized this and invented equipment to do it on...

What is Dynamic Stretching? The short definition of dynamic stretching is “stretching as you are moving”. The opposite of dynamic stretching is static stretching, which is the stretching you are probably used to such as reaching down to touch your toes. Static stretching, as the name implies...

The deadlift is the best pound-for-pound movement across the board for building a resilient frame equipped with full-body strength and power. A primary staple exercise in every training program through various forms and progressions/regressions, the deadlift is a key component to human movement...

What Is the Trap-Bar Deadlift? The trap-bar deadlift, also known as the hex-bar deadlift, is the same as the conventional deadlift except it’s performed with a trap bar. Here’s what it looks like: The most obvious difference between deadlifting with a trap bar versus a conventional barbell...

What Is a Superset? To understand what a superset is, it’s helpful to first understand how to perform a traditional strength training workout. In most strength training programs like Bigger Leaner Stronger or Thinner Leaner Stronger, you perform straight sets. This means you perform a set of an...

Chest: Barbell Bench Press Ok, I predict one of two scenarios happening after reading the bench press listed as my favorite chest exercise. Be honest…it either completely pissed you off or you are saying to yourself “of course the bench press is the best chest builder”. In my opinion...

This is an exercise I like to use in a lot of my training programs. One of the best things about this exercise sequence is that you can hit all 3 heads of the shoulder muscle in fairly quick time. Check out the video below to learn how to do the Hunt Fitness Shoulder Complex

We’ve all experienced the agony. The pain of trying to get out of your car, wobble up the stairs, or move normally after a hard workout. This soreness is called delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). If you’ve been exercising long enough, you’ve probably felt it. Some lifters relish this pain as...

The dumbbell pullover may be the best old-school exercise you are not doing. It was a favorite of the bodybuilding greats, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronnie Coleman, and Dorian Yates. This exercise helped get their massive chests and backs that were the envy of the bodybuilding world. If...

Using mechanical drop sets while training at home means you can build muscle with minimal equipment. They work particularly well for blasting your chest. Traditional drop sets allow you to continue training past failure by lowering the weight and doing another set of the same exercise. With...

Step into a commercial gym around 5 PM any day of the week. Sure you'll come across some "strong" people who can lift heavy weights, but if you take a closer look, it'll become painfully obvious that most meatheads have simply lost the ability to move with any semblance of fluidity. Poor daily...

The inverted row is a fantastic exercise to build upper-back strength and size. It offers a fresh alternative to cable, barbell, and dumbbell row. And the inverted row is fast and easy to set up with suspension straps, Smith machine, or a bar in the rack. The inverted row is also a great way...

The stability ball hip extension hamstring curl is unlike any hamstring exercise you’ve ever done. Training the hamstrings is often an afterthought because the glutes and quads get most of the attention. And when the hamstrings are trained, it is usually on the hamstring curl machine where some...