The ONLY Exercises You Need to Be Jacked (EVERY MUSCLE!)

If you could only do one exercise for your chest what would it be? What about your back? Biceps? In this video I’m going to cover the only exercise you need for every muscle group so that you can select those that will hit your muscles the best and help them grow the fastest, especially if you’re short on time.

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We start off with the chest.

The exercise of choice for Jesse and myself is the same, the bench press. The difference lies in the equipment being used to do it. I prefer to use dumbbells due to rotator cuff and labrum issues in my shoulder while Jesse tends to prefer the barbell bench press where he can handle more weight and more easily progressive overload.

For the upper chest, it comes down to the low to high cable crossover for Jesse which allows him to more easily target the upper chest fibers. I like cables as well, but here I prefer to do an incline cable press. By setting the arms out wide a bit you can train the adduction function of the pecs while at the same time not abandoning the pressing benefits.

For the lower chest, we are both in agreement on liking weighted dips. I do like to perform them in one and a half rep style however to accentuate the stretch position of the pecs and increase the time under tension on the chest muscles.

Moving onto the back, I go with the one arm high cable row. This allows me to be on my feet while at the same time focus the efforts onto the lats by driving the arm tight to my side and back behind my body. I also can get a great stretch here. Jesse prefers the straight arm pushdown over the barbell row that I predicted he would.

For the biceps, it has to be a curl. Jesse likes the focused biceps contraction that he gets from doing a standing alternating dumbbell curl while I prefer the heavier weight that I can use on a strict barbell curl into a cheat curl. The drop set on bicep exercises is one of the most effective combinations you can use to build bigger biceps.

For triceps, Jesse likes to push heavy weight again with the close grip bench press. I prefer the long head growing capabilities of the lying triceps extension. This is an example of where you may want to pick the exercise for triceps that best develops the underdeveloped part of your triceps muscle. The long head is best built with lying extensions and the lateral head with close grip bench.

For the shoulders, the shoulder exercise of choice for building the middle delts is the lateral raise. Jesse prefers the stretch benefits of the cable lateral raise while I prefer the overloading capabilities of the cheat lateral raise. Front delts are best targeted by me with a dumbbell front raise (even better if done seated on an incline bench to pre-stretch the front delts on every rep) and by the overhead press for Jesse.

The rear delts are best hit with heavier weights on an exercise like the seated cable row. Jesse likes to do the reverse pec deck machine at his gym if he has access to it. Either way, if you want to build rounded delts you have to make sure you never skip the rear delt.

For the forearms, it comes down to either the carries if you want to build hand and grip strength at the same time or the wrist rollers that allow you to train the front and back of your forearm muscles by simply switching the direction that you roll the bar.

The brachialis muscle allows you to get wider arms and wider looking biceps. This muscle is preferred to be worked by cross body hammer curls by both of us. The ability to keep the forearm more pronated allows you to decrease the contribution of the biceps while increasing the work of the brachialis to better build it up.

To hit the upper back muscles, I think it’s pretty obvious that the exercise of choice here should be the face pull. This is not just a small exercise that should be reserved for a corrective exercise spot in your workouts. You can grow bigger upper back muscles by including this every time you train your back (and sometimes even every day). Jesse prefers the power shrug exercise for a more powerful exercise alternative.

There are more muscle groups covered here in the video that you’re going to want to check out.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for a science based workout plan that incorporates the best exercise choices to help you build muscle and burn body fat be sure to head to athleanx.com via the link above.

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