Embrace the mundane, with variety for spice: key exercises for building muscle and strength

Do you struggle to create exercise programs?

Do you go to the gym—or worse—not go at all because you don’t know what to do?

Have you wondered if there is an easier way?

Well, there is. And like in a lot of areas of life, constraints are a good thing. Limitations.

What is it going to take to really make you strong and powerful?

A barbell.

Tried and true. No doubts about it.

And what about the exercises you should do? Squats and presses wouldn’t hurt. If you dramatically increase your strength in these exercises, you’ll be stronger everywhere.

Here’s an idea:

Routine A

Presses
Chins
Squats

Routine B

Bench Press
Deadlift
Rows

Just alternate those two programs in a two week cycle and you’ll do each program a total of three times. Repeat a few times, taking the fifth week off to do 1/2 of the weight you’ve using.

Then start it over. Do that a couple times at least. Then shake it up a bit. Here are some examples:

  • Replace the rows with Kroc Rows (super high rep rows).
  • Change the press to a dumbbell press, or a clean and press, or a behind the neck press.
  • Pick one or two exercises, say the squat and the deadlift, and just go great guns at them, and dial back on the other exercises. Example, change them to Death Sets where you do 20 reps.
  • Change the rep/set patterns. Do 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 on the chin then switch to 1×10, 1×6, and 1×4 to allow yourself to alter the loading pattern.

You’ll be amazed at how many different ways you can change the program yet still keep it basically the same.

After some time, you’ll go down to your home gym and be like “ugh, this again.” You can either suck it up and go even deeper (sometimes that works) or pick a different program.

The key is that in the different programs that exercises are training the same movements, basically. So you’re always moving along the line of improving the movement, but you’re getting variety.

If you’re looking for more ideas, check out The Home Gym Self-Improvement Plan.


Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *