by Phil Guarino
Flex Appeal Fitness Center
Customers always ask for my favorite exercises. Without any hesitation, I answer squats, chin ups and cable french presses. The squat is the best total-body exercise. It trains your legs and your entire core and promotes the greatest release of growth hormone, which in turn, stimulates muscular gain and fat loss. And you don’t have to squat with massive amounts of weight to see and feel the results. Chin ups are another great exercise for training multiple body parts. Doing supinated — or underhand — chin ups train your back, shoulders and bicep muscles and promotes core stability. Chin ups will help give you a bigger back and shoulders which will give the appearance of a smaller waist. In fact, if you’re looking just to build your bicep muscles, skip the curls and work on chin ups. Finally, seated cable french presses isolate the tricep muscles better than any other tricep exercise. Strong tricep muscles not only give the appearance of a bigger arm, but will translate to stronger and more efficient chest and shoulder exercises that require tricep movements.
Now, what about exercises you’ll never see me do? Easy: dumbbell side raises for abdominals, front dumbbell raises for shoulders, and high reps of any exercise without the appropriate force and speed. Dumbbell side raises are more the effort of gravity than work and effort; front barbell raises are overkill as so many of the exercises we do already include front shoulder work; and the purpose of anyone’s weight training regime should be maximal force and/or maximal effort. For instance, 10 difficult sets of three reps is far more beneficial than three easy sets of 10 reps. Want to know more? Feel free to ask me for training advice at Flex Appeal Fitness Center.
