Weapons of Mass Construction

12 Exercises to Pack on Beef Fast!

By Ron Harris

In the USA and in most countries, this time of the year (for bodybuilders, at least) is a transition from the traditional “summer cut” back over to muscle-building mode. With that in mind, MD wants you to make the most of this off-season by focusing on the exercises that will deliver the most bang for the buck and help you pack on some serious beef as the weather gets chilly and the leaves begin to fall. These dozen exercises will be your best friend in your quest to get huge!

1. Squat

If you could only do one exercise for your entire lower body for the rest of your life, squats would be the best choice. Nothing forces your quads, glutes and hams to work as hard as heavy, rock-bottom squats for sets of 10-20 reps. You can go lower on the reps at times, but you’ll miss out on the astounding benefits of leg mass gains that higher reps will deliver if you forsake them for purely chasing bigger numbers. Can you build big legs without squatting? I suppose, but that’s like asking if you can drive from LA to New York City without using the highways. It’s going to take you a whole lot longer, and your progress will be meandering and fraught with frustration. All the men known for incredible leg development including Tom Platz, Paul “Quadzilla” DeMayo, Jay Cutler, Ronnie Coleman, Branch Warren and Kai Greene paid their dues at the squat rack for years. Guys avoid squats and find excuses not to do them because they are brutally difficult and demanding. If you have ever performed a set of 20 deep reps with 315-405 pounds, you know that it’s almost a near-death experience. Your lungs feel about to burst, and the lactic acid burn from your hips to your toes is excruciating. But tally up months and years of sets like that and there is no way you won’t have some wicked wheels to show for it.

2. Bench Press

Chances are, this was the first weight-training movement you ever did. For many men, the bench press is used as a marker of strength, and maximums are worn as badges of honor for those who can put up big numbers. This most basic of barbell exercises is also the best tool to develop thicker pecs, triceps and front delts. I’ve noted many times that the overall decline in chest development witnessed in pectoral development has directly followed the abandonment of the flat barbell bench press in favor of various machines. Certainly, machines like the Hammer Strength line have their merits, but as with squats, nothing can ever supplant the barbell bench press in terms of effectiveness. As with squats, rep ranges that keep the pecs under tension longer, in this case 8-10, will do a much better job at stimulating growth rather than going so heavy that you’re limited to six reps or less. It’s also critical to learn how to become a “chest presser” rather than engaging far more triceps and anterior deltoids. Try rolling your shoulders back and down toward your waist and pinching your shoulder blades together to force your chest to take on more of the workload. Put your ego aside and use a weight that allows you to feel the pecs contract and stretch, and the bench press will give you two slabs of pectoral beef.

3. Deadlift

It’s no coincidence that the first three exercises on this list happen to be the three lifts used in powerlifting competition. The trio, when combined, represents the best indicator of overall power. They also encompass all the major muscle groups of the body. The deadlift might just seem like picking a bar up off the floor, but in the process of doing so you will recruit the quads, hams, glutes, lower back, traps, rear delts and biceps – all in one exercise! This makes it the closest thing to a full-body exercise that exists. When you get strong on deads for sets of 8-12 reps, all the above-mentioned muscle groups will grow. There has been some debate as to whether bodybuilders are better off doing rack pulls, or deadlifts from just below the knee, rather than pulling full reps off the ground. Rack pulls take away much of the lower body engagement, making it more of a true back movement. Most trainers also find they’re able to handle much heavier loads with racks. I myself never pulled more than 405 off the floor for sets of 10-12, but I routinely did rack pulls with 585-675. The jury is still out on this, but one easy solution is to alternate them from workout to workout. Any way you look at it, deadlifts belong in your program if you want to become a larger, more muscular human being.

4. Barbell Row

Barbell rows are the perfect complement to deadlifts, because they hit the lats with maximum resistance in a horizontal pull toward the body (as opposed to a vertical pull as with chin-ups or lat pulldowns). All the greats known for monstrous lats, from Franco, Lee Haney, Dorian Yates and Ronnie Coleman, owed much of their development to barbell rows. Dorian, considered by many to have the greatest back of all time, popularized the reverse or underhand grip and touted its superiority, as it puts the biceps in a stronger pulling position. Old-school bodybuilders like Arnold, Franco and Haney did more of a true “bent barbell row,” keeping their torso parallel to the ground. Dorian and those who followed him opted for more of a 70-degree angle, which allows for heavier resistance to be used. Whichever version you opt for, use a full range of motion and strive to contract the lats at the top of every rep. Barbell rows are so effective that some pros, like Evan Centopani, were known at times to simply do 10 sets of them for back and call it a workout. Just be sure you don’t stand up too high and turn these into shrugs!

5. Dip

Arguments have been made that dips are equally effective as the bench press at working all the pushing muscles of the upper body, and it’s tough to dispute. Certainly, dips are the best movement to hit them that require no equipment aside from two parallel bars. One of the strongest bodybuilders of the pre-Arnold era was New York’s Marvin Eder, the first man under 200 pounds to bench press 500 pounds, long before bench shirts were invented. He also happened to have a chest that seemed to pop about a foot off his rib cage. Along with bench-pressing, Eder was an avid dipper, and was known to do reps with 400 pounds strapped around his waist. The dip is versatile. You can maintain an upright torso and use more triceps power or lean forward and let the larger pectorals bear the brunt of the load. It’s that style that allows the most weight to be used. If you can build up to being able to do sets of 8-10 with an additional 45, 90 or 135 pounds hanging from your waist, your chest, shoulders and triceps will all have greater thickness and density to show for it.

6. Military Press

So far, we have covered a couple of basic movements that provided indirect work for your shoulders. If you want to turn yours into boulders, you need to become stronger on the overhead press. Many find that dumbbells feel more natural, but it’s the standard seated barbell military press that’s put more mass atop more clavicles than anything else over the many decades men have been pushing and pulling iron. The bar is easier to balance, this allowing more total resistance to be used. For example, many of you will eventually be able to press as much as 275 overhead, but only an elite few among you will ever do that with a pair of 135-pound dumbbells. Military presses force the shoulders, especially the anterior aspect of the muscle, to work hard to get that resistance up and away from your body. Just be sure not to slide your butt forward on the seat, put an excessive arch in your back, and turn these into incline presses for the upper chest.

7. Leg Press

Squats may be the king of lower-body movements, but the leg press could also be considered royalty. It’s particularly useful in two situations: for when your lower back is injured and squats are out of the question, and as a second compound movement that follows squats in the workout. Granted, leg presses have come under fire because many guys avoid squats and do these because they’re technically easier – meaning they don’t require balance or technique as squats do. They are also a favorite of the ego lifters, who are wont to load up stacks of plates for brutal half-reps, bellowing like shot buffaloes all the while. But when done with a full range of motion, leg presses can be a great took for turning your legs into tree trunks. They allow you to target different areas of the thighs by shifting your foot position on the platform. Feet placed high and wide will work more glutes and hams, while setting them lower and closer together will selectively stress more quadriceps. If you have a training partner to help strip plates, drop sets here can be one of the toughest things you ever do for your legs. Because your back is fully supported, they are also an ideal way to finish off the legs after you’ve beaten them halfway to hell on squats. Try sets in rep ranges like 8-12, 12-15, 20-25 or even 50 at times to make those wheels cry out for mercy.

8. Romanian Deadlift

There are a few reasons most bodybuilders never build their hamstrings up to the same level of development as their quads, but one glaring error is that they rely purely on various types of leg curls and omit Romanian deadlifts from their routines. Romanian deadlifts differ slightly from stiff-leg deadlifts in that the knees are kept slightly bent, which is far safer for your knees in the long run. Leg curls fulfill the leg flexion function of the hamstrings, but they do nothing for the other main purpose of the hams, which is hip extension. The key points to remember in properly performing the Romanian deadlift are to keep a slight arch in your lower back and never let it round, and to bend forward only until your feel the hamstrings are fully stretched. Unless you’re doing them standing on a platform or block, you should use 25s instead of 45-pound plates or else the plates will probably hit the floor before your hams get that complete stretch. Unless you have short legs and long arms, it’s doubtful you will need to touch the plates to the floor. Avoid standing completely erect at the start of the rep, as you will lose tension on the hamstrings. Although you will see some very strong men handling as much as 405 pounds on the Romanian deadlift, never use a weight that forces you to either round your lower back or cut your range of motion short.

9. T-bar Row

One last lat-building gem that should be in your program is the T-bar row. Arnold and Franco thrived on these, as did Ronnie Coleman. Some gyms will have a bar on a hinge and a platform to stand on, but otherwise you can rig up T-bars yourself by jamming an Olympic bar into a corner and sliding a seated cable row attachment under the other end. Remember that trick we just went over about using 25s instead of 45s? I recommend you do the same thing here so that the plates don’t hit your body before you’ve reached a full contraction of the lats, with your elbows driven back behind you. Avoid the temptation to throw a few 45s on and bounce them off your chest in something that resembles a spasm or seizure, and pull smoothly back, feeling your lats contract forcefully on every rep.

10. Barbell Curl

I intentionally saved all the arm exercises for the end of this, because if you apply intense effort with good technique on compound movements for the upper body, your biceps and triceps will get more than their fair share of indirect work as you push and pull hundreds of pounds for your chest, back and shoulders. Still, you do want to do some direct work for those guns. Barbell curls are your best bet for bigger biceps. Barbells in general allow for the most weight to be loaded on the muscle group in question. You will see some guys doing their curls with strict form, while others perform what are accurately termed “cheat curls.” Which is better? Both serve their purpose, but the best way to combine them is to do as many strict reps as you can, and then employ some body English to heave up a few more. Your results will be better if you make an effort at all times to control the weight on the way down rather than dropping it. The standard shoulder-width grip will hit both heads of the biceps well, but you can use a wider grip at times to target the inner or short head of the biceps, or closer to the center to zone in on the outer or longer head of the muscle.

11. Close-grip Bench Press

We’ve been talking about overloading muscles with maximum resistance, so here’s a question that should seem rhetorical. Which do you think would stimulate more triceps growth: a single-arm overhead dumbbell extension with 30 pounds, or a close-grip bench press with 300 pounds? Close-grips have been a staple for titanic tri’s for decades. One key is to not take the term “close” too literally. I’ve seen some guys do these with their thumbs touching in the middle of the bar, which would destroy your wrists as well as drastically limit the amount of weight you could handle. Aim for a hand spacing that splits the difference between that and your standard grip on the bar for a bench press. Keep the elbows tucked in close to your body and drive the weight with your triceps. If you feel your chest doing most of the work, keep making adjustments until your triceps kick in. While the standard barbell version is the most popular, you can use a Smith machine here so balancing the weight is not an issue and you can focus purely on pushing with triceps power and feel those fibers strain.

12. Skull-crushers

Last but not least, we have skull-crushers, the most basic and most effective extension movement for the triceps. Compound exercises like dips and close-grip bench presses will pack a wallop and have your triceps on their way to ham hock status, but you should also work them with an isolation movement. Most trainers find that using an EZ-bar for lying triceps extensions aka skull-crushers is kinder on the wrists than a straight bar, and the cambered angle puts your hands into a semi-supinated position. I would also suggest doing these on a decline bench for greater range of motion. If you go heavy, as you should, I strongly encourage you to employ a spotter. There is a reason this movement has been named “skull-crushers” and has also been referred to as “nose breakers!” Stay safe, be sure to warm up gradually, and use these to blow up your triceps.

Ron Harris got his start in the bodybuilding industry during the eight years he worked in Los Angeles as Associate Producer for ESPN’s “American Muscle Magazine” show in the 1990s. Since 1992 he has published nearly 5,000 articles in bodybuilding and fitness magazines, making him the most prolific bodybuilding writer ever. Ron has been training since the age of 14 and competing as a bodybuilder since 1989. He lives with his wife and two children in the Boston area. Facebook Instagram

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