lower

Many exercises strengthen your glutes, hamstrings, and lower back as a unit, but one exercise often gets overlooked: the glutestring ham raise. The beauty of the glute hamstring raise, aka glute ham raise or GHR, lies in isometric glute contraction and the controlled eccentric muscle...

Sometimes we get too comfortable with our regular gym routine, and that includes our gym. One of the biggest drawbacks of being away from your go-to gym is our dependency on more fancy equipment. You don’t have to worry about being creative because of your access to all the gym toys. However...

There’s a movement term that Tim Anderson of Original Strength came up with: good, better, and best. Even when a movement is performed poorly, it is still “good” because all movement beats sitting on the couch. But the amount of times I’ve seen lifters make back extension mistakes throughout the...

The inverted row isn’t a complicated move but there are still plenty of room to make inverted row mistakes. It is easily progressed and regressed depending on the lifter’s experience. That and being an excellent movement for the forearms, biceps, upper back, and lats is why it should be in...

One of the best pieces of muscle-building is that you must row to grow. You may have heard this before, but it bears repeating because too many lifters still focus on the mirror muscles. Training the posterior delts, upper back, and lats must be a priority when muscle and strength are your...

When the bird dog is performed correctly, it checks off many important health and mobility boxes. Improved core strength: Check Better balance & coordination: Check Improved shoulder stability: Check Lower back saver: Check You’re probably getting bored now because the benefits are many and...

Have you heard the term out of sight, out of mind? This can be applied in many gym settings where some beginner and intermediate lifters train the mirror muscles—you know, abs, pecs and biceps—and forget those all-important posterior muscles. That’s where the inverted row comes in. One muscle...

Former M&F cover models Frank Sepe and Don Saladino may be known for their “Sleeveless” workouts, but they are about much more than arm training. They push themselves hard on leg day too. As they do with their other workouts, Sepe and Saladino find ways to make lower body exercises more...

When back pain strikes, you think you’re the only person suffering, but that’s not the case with back pain. In the U.S., many people will suffer from chronic or acute low back pain at some point in their lives. And about 2% to 10% of people who experience low back pain develop chronic low back...

The Romanian deadlift exercise was named after the Romanian weightlifter Nicu Vlad, an Olympic medalist in the ’80s and ’90s. Vlad performed this deadlift variation after finishing his Olympic lifting, and some fellow lifters asked him what he was doing. He said he did them to make his entire...

The most popular movements to build absolute strength are the barbell squat, deadlift, bench, and overhead press. With these exercises, the barbell moves in a relatively straight line for you to build more size and strength. But these are not the only exercises you should be doing in fact there...

Have you seen lifters turn a barbell squat into a good morning by losing upper back tightness? Now the problem isn’t that the good morning exercise isn’t a great exercise, but the issue here is placing the lower back in a risky position. A squat is a squat, and good mornings are good mornings...

The dead bug exercise is a silly name for any exercise, there’s no getting around that. The movement doesn’t appear to do anything that beneficial, which is why many lifter may shrug it off and ignore incorporating it into their routine. That’s a real shame because when the dead bug is...

Body part splits, movement based training, or upper/lower splits? Which of the three main ways to train is going to be most beneficial to you & your goals? I’m probably going to be one of the very few people you hear say this over the course of your training journey: There’s NO “best method” to...

Here is a ranking of the best exercises for building a thicker and wider back based on personal experience and the training articles of top IFBB pro bodybuilders. This is not necessarily a determination of exercise order, but the exercises that are most effective for muscle fiber recruitment and...

Has your progress stalled while on your quest to put on lean muscle mass? Check out these 4 tips to bust through those plateaus and put on more muscle mass! Head over to the mirror, strip down to your “skivvies,” and take a good, long and critical look at yourself. Meticulously analyze your...

This High Volume Training Upper/Lower workout program combines high volume training with high frequency training to help you build lean muscle mass! WORKOUT SUMMARY Main Goal Build Muscle Workout Type Split Training Level Advanced Program Duration12 weeks Days Per Week 4 Time Per Workout90-120...

Are you stuck without a squat rack and bench? This 4-day upper/lower split will show you exactly how to get strong, and add muscle with only a barbell at your disposal. WORKOUT SUMMARY Main Goal Build Muscle Workout Type Split Training Level Intermediate Program Duration8 weeks Days Per Week 4...

Reach your muscle building goals with this balanced 4 day training split that mixes heavy compound exercises, machines, cables and incorporates 3 second negatives. WORKOUT SUMMARY Main Goal Build Muscle Workout Type Split Training Level Beginner Program Duration10 weeks Days Per Week 4 Time Per...

Get your bench press moving in the right direction with this 2 phase program. Lifters spend 8 weeks building muscle, and 8 weeks peaking towards a new one rep max. WORKOUT SUMMARY Main Goal Increase Strength Workout Type Split Training Level Intermediate Program Duration16 weeks Days Per Week 4...