While small tweaks to exercises may help target specific weak areas, they often limit the weight and effort that can be applied overall. For those looking to build a strong foundation of muscle, focusing on heavy compound lifts using barbells, dumbbells, and machines is most effective, as it allows for greater overload and overall gains compared to unstable or modified exercises. Make sure to train the prime movers hard to maximize growth.
While small tweaks to exercises may help target specific weak areas, they often limit the weight and effort that can be applied overall. For those looking to build a strong foundation of muscle, focusing on heavy compound lifts using barbells, dumbbells, and machines is most effective, as it allows for greater overload and overall gains compared to unstable or modified exercises. Make sure to train the prime movers hard to maximize growth.
While small tweaks to exercises may help target specific weak areas, they often limit the weight and effort that can be applied overall. For those looking to build a strong foundation of muscle, focusing on heavy compound lifts using barbells, dumbbells, and machines is most effective, as it allows for greater overload and overall gains compared to unstable or modified exercises. Make sure to train the prime movers hard to maximize growth.
While small tweaks to exercises may help target specific weak areas, they often limit the weight and effort that can be applied overall. For those looking to build a strong foundation of muscle, focusing on heavy compound lifts using barbells, dumbbells, and machines is most effective, as it allows for greater overload and overall gains compared to unstable or modified exercises. Make sure to train the prime movers hard to maximize growth.
) Don’t do anything on a bosu ball or other unstable surfaces…
surfaces… forces barely high enough to cause any growth within a reasonable rep/set scheme or in long term.
5.) Some of the same people that advocate wearing belts to prevent excess ab growth also push stabilizer moves… ???
Focus on using barbells and machines for most moves, with dumbbells great for the lighter moves, and don’t get carried away with the promise of “stabilizer” work somehow having magical effects. Make sure your prime movers are hit and hit HARD, and growth will result.
Training Myths That Won’t Die #4: “Twists and Tweaks”
When we watch videos of of high level lifters (especially
(especially bodybuilders) training training or read articles written by them, there there is often mention mention of the modifications they make to conventional exercises to enhance their effects somehow. These twists and tweaks of regular moves are intended to make the move emphasize a certain small muscle or part of a muscle. Some examples:
- Using the hack squat sideways. This has been described as a way to enhance quad sweep.
- Leading with the pinkies on cable flyes, which has been described as emphasizing the inner chest more.
- Facing away from the stack on lat pulldowns, which has been described as a way to target the lower lats more than other parts of the lats.
Twists and tweaks (when they in fact execute their intended actions) can be effective in helping to grow very small muscles or grow particular small areas of larger muscles a bit more than the whole. This can come in handy handy for bringing up weak points in an already-strong already-strong physique and thus creating a more balanced and symmetrical look. That’s the upside.
The downside is that such tweaks almost always limit the amount of weight, reps, or effort (proximity to failure with good technique) that can be put into the exercise. Thus, the amount of overload that can be supplied is lowered, and the amount of OVERALL gains is limited. If you’re already super jacked and just looking to fine-tune your physique, this is no problem at all. But if you’re busy trying to grow the the foundation of your muscularity, this this kind of training can be a very
