strength and conditioning

Are these Exercises Part of Your Routine?

Do you think of yourself as an Athlete? Well in our opinion if you are a human, you are some sort of athlete and you should start thinking about yourself that way.

On your adventure to sculpting the body of your inner athlete, there are a variety of exercises and movements that can help or even delay your results. When it comes to training, you can easily confuse yourself with all the machines and special programs/plans during your journey. Movements such as the Deadlift, Squat, Pullup, and Overhead Press are tried and true exercises that athletes cycle through during the course of their lifetime of training. Once you master these movements, it will open the door for you in terms of more complex movements for your future. This will inevitably help you develop the body of an athlete, which is something that we all truly want, right?

Deadlift

The First exercise we will discuss is the deadlift. The art of picking something off the ground, possibly something extremely heavy. This movement elicits one of the greatest hormonal responses in our body when executed with intensity. In other words, the greater the hormonal response, the leaner and more muscular you will become. There are actually many benefits to incorporating this exercise into your training program, let’s discuss why.

It is a total body exercise which means it will build muscle mass and get you stronger at the same time. It work’s more muscle groups at one time than any other exercise-yes, even more than the squat. The deadlift focuses on stabilizing the core and all the muscles surrounding the hips and lower back. It easily improves your grip strength. When executed without the aid of wraps, the deadlift will by nature develop your forearms and overall grip strength. Your arms and shoulders will ultimately be affected by this miracle of a lift. They will grow bigger and stronger with every workout. Your shoulders will learn stability, which in turn directly affects your trapezius development. (those muscles by the neck, on your back) Guess what else you use to pick up weight? You probably guessed it, your legs. Your glutes and all muscles associated are completely activated at full contraction during the deadlift. Building mass and strength like an athlete will be the reason you must be obsessed with this lift. Furthermore, deadlifting will undoubtedly develop the back in its entirety.

Executing the deadlift correctly will build unrivaled mass while strengthening all the major muscles groups.

Squat

Known as the King of all Exercises. There is a reason many elite athletes consider this a staple exercise in their routine. There are many ways to squat and develop unparalleled mass and strength but for the sake of argument, we are just going to discuss the barbell back squat. Along with the deadlift, the squat creates an anabolic response in the body. You will see great mass and strength gains when you perform this exercise properly. This means that all the upper body movements that you probably already do will actually get better because of this lower body blast of an exercise.

Many, many athletes perform the squat to run faster, jump higher, even hit harder. There have been numerous studies that have proven this fact. This movement develops all the muscles in your legs and instead of listing them all here, just look down at your legs and look at someone else’s from behind (because you can’t see the back of yours) and then you’ll see what the squat will develop. My point is if you do the squat, you will look bigger, be more powerful, and gain more strength than if you didn’t.

Pullups

One of the most effective upper body strength builders anyone can do. It’s simple (but really not that simple). Just pull yourself up to a bar. Many elite athletes can easily do twenty or more in a single set. It easily strengthens and builds your arms and upper back. The lats, forearms, biceps, and middle and lower traps are all targeted while you execute the movement.  Athletes incorporate this exercise into their workout program to effectively train their muscles throughout the entire back which is bombarded with enough stress to make them grow stronger, more powerful, and overall larger.

Want the upper body of an elite athlete? Train your upper body like an elite athlete. Do Pullups.

Press

Want to forge the upper body of an athlete? Athletes usually train their shoulders depending on the demands of their sport. Many athletes also use the press as a diagnostic tool. Many athletes tend to have imbalances in their shoulders, including scapular instability, rotator cuff muscles, deltoids, and pectorals. They do the press to eliminate these problems and decrease the risk of injury.

The overhead press is the most efficient movement to train your shoulders, triceps, core (all muscles that stabilize your spine), and upper legs. Taking the time to incorporate this potent exercise into your program will allow you to increase your strength and mass in other pressing movements such as the bench press and dips. Isn’t getting stronger, more powerful, and larger muscles what we are ultimately after? Do the press and all your dreams will come true.