Weight Lifting Exercises

It's important to choose the right weight lifting exercises for your workouts. If you want the best muscle gains possible you must include the main compound exercises such as Squats, Deadlifts, Pull-ups etc

A common mistake made by a lot of people in the gym looking to build muscle is choosing the wrong exercises. Don't become a statistic, and learn the proper lifts even if they are hard to perform at first and make you look silly!
Let's take a look at the most effective weight lifting exercises out there to build muscle, sorted into the main different muscle groups. You should work all of these muscle groups to build an all-round great figure.

Legs

Many people try to avoid working their legs, or they don't work them as hard as their arms or chest for example. That type of thinking is not good, you should train your legs just as hard as any other part of your body.
The reason why is simple. If you just build up your upper body and avoid working your legs, your figure would look odd. Think about it, a strong muscly upper body with weak "twig" legs would just look plain silly. But there is another important reason that is explained in our article on leg workouts.
The most effective leg exercises are:

• Squats
• Stiff-legged Deadlifts
• Dumbbell Lunges
• Leg Press (machine)
• Leg Curl (machine)
• Calf Raises (machine, standing or sitting)

Squats are definitely the most important leg exercise, and some even say the most important exercise for your whole body. Read more about squats with our articles:

The Importance of Barbell Squats
Proper Squat Technique

Back

Along with your legs, a lot of people avoid working their back. If you want to pack on as much muscle mass as possible, avoiding your back is a big mistake. The muscles in your back make up a lot of the overall muscle mass in your body, and a large, well-defined muscular back makes your figure look very powerful and looks great.
Including these exercises in your back workout will go a long way:

• Deadlifts
• Pull-ups
• Barbell Rows
• Seated Cable Row
• Barbell/Dumbell Shrugs

You can learn how to perform a solid back workout routine here. Also, check out our article on deadlifts to learn about their huge importance and how to perform them correctly.

Chest

For the best gains in your chest you should include the bench press as the main weight lifting exercise. There are different ways to perform the bench press, either with a barbell or dumbbells.
You can do a basic flat bench press, or you can do it on an incline or decline bench. These different variations will work different types of chest muscle. These are the chest exercises you should concentrate on:

• Barbell Bench Press (flat, incline, or decline)
• Dumbbell Bench Press (flat, incline, or decline)
• Bar Dips
• Dumbbell Flyes (standing or sitting, incline or flat bench)

Learn more by reading how to structure a solid chest muscle workout.

Shoulders

Big strong shoulders are a must for a powerful physique. The best exercises for building up your shoulders fast are:

• Shoulder Press (standing or sitting, dumbbells)
• Standing Flyes/Lateral Raises

Read about structuring a great shoulder workout here.

Arms

The arms (biceps, triceps and forearms) are the most "showy" muscles and so many people focus too much on working their arms, and other muscle groups are ignored. Sure, work your arms very hard! But don't neglect the other muscle groups. But building arm muscle is only one part of building your overall body.
Biceps

• Standing Bicep Curl (barbell or dumbbells)
• Sitting Bicep Curl (barbell or dumbbells)

Triceps

• Cable Pulldowns
• Bench Dips
• EZ Bar Skull-Crushers

Forearms

• Wrist Curls (barbell or dumbbells)

Check out our page on arm workouts to build large and strong biceps and triceps.

Abdominals

Everyone dreams about having those rock solid, sexy-looking 6 pack abs. Although many people are misguided about how to go about getting those great abs.
Most people believe that if you train your abs very hard and at frequent times, your 6 pack will magically appear. That's far from the truth. You see, for your muscles to show in your abdominal region, you need to get your overall body fat under a certain level. No matter how hard you train your abs, unless you have a low-ish bodyfat percentage, they won't show all that much.
I'm not saying you shouldn't train your abs, just understand that you won't neccessarily see amazing abs until you start lowering your overall body fat percentage.

• Basic Crunches
• Weighted Crunches
• Rope Crunches
• Swiss Ball Crunches

There we go, the most effective weight lifting exercises for all the major muscle groups. Like I said before, don't slack off on any of the muscle groups. If you want a step-by-step guide on how to perform your workouts, including what exact weight lifting exercises to do, how many sets and reps, how often you should train, and everything in-between, look no further than the Muscle Gain Truth No-Fail System.