Weight Lifting
Workouts
Here you’ll find a collection of weight lifting workouts to suit all
needs. Before you get started, read on to find out about the different
types of workout available. Otherwise, you can jump straight in to the
workouts at the bottom of the page.
Split Bodypart Workouts
The “split” weight lifting workouts are designed
to be pieced together to form a weight lifting routine. For example, if
you have an “arms” day in your split, you’ll probably want to combine
bicep, tricep and forearm workouts in to one session.
Workouts that target one or two muscles groups (as
part of a split) usually go something like this. You do the heavy
compounds first, because they are the hardest and the most effective.
Then you throw in one or two isolation exercises to really exhaust the
muscle you’re targeting, and stimulate maximum growth (either muscle or
strength).
For larger muscles, your weight lifting workout
might include couple of exercises that hit the muscle from different
angles, to make sure all the fibres get a good workout. For example,
your leg workout might include back squats, front squats and hack
squats, all of which target different parts of the quadriceps.
More exotic mass-building workouts are based on
drop-sets, super-sets, and sets with forced reps or negatives. All of
these techniques can be effective for shocking the body once in a while
and stimulating new growth.
A word of warning though, regular use of these
super-intensive weight lifting workouts can quickly lead to neural
burnout, and set your training backwards.
As a general rule, you want to make use of these
techniques infrequently, and lean towards using them as an occasional
change from the basics, rather than as part of your regular program.
Full Body Workouts
Some people may prefer a full body workout. If
time is an issue, and you can only afford to train two or three times a
week, full-body workouts are a good solution.
Instead of training 2 or 3 muscles with 3-4
exercises, the aim of the full body workout is to train most or all of
the body in a session, using 1-2 exercises per muscle group.
Compound movements like the squat and bench press
are especially useful as they often target multiple muscle groups, and
allow you to work your whole body in a shorter period of time.
A full-body workout shouldn’t leave any one muscle
group feeling exhausted, but your whole body should feel moderately
taxed.
Full body workouts are an excellent choice for
anyone new to weight lifting, or anyone who can only afford to work out
twice or even once a week.
Weight Lifting Workouts for
Strength, Power or Sports
In order to develop a particular component of
fitness, your workouts must be tailored accordingly. In this case a
classic bodybuilding split probably isn’t for you.
Powerlifters for example, often utilise a
“strength” workout and a “power” workout on different days, where they
work the same muscles, but with different weights, reps, lifting speed
and possibly with different exercises.
If you’re training for strength, power or sporting
performance, your best bet is to check out the routine section, where
you’ll find complete weight lifting routines tailored to your goals.
The Workouts
The
Best Shoulder Workout for Size and Strength
What’s the best shoulder workout for cannon-ball-like size and width,
and serious overhead pressing strength? This one!
The
Best Chest Workout for Mass
Simple, Intense, effective - build solid chest mass with this free
weights workout.
The
Best Bicep workout for Arm Size
Much is made of the bicep, possibly the most well known muscle of all
time - and there have probably been more exercises invented for the
bicep alone than for the rest of the entire upper body. This workout
cuts through the fluff and brings you three core exercises for bicep
development.
Free
Ab Workout
Looking to develop 6 pack abs and sculpt your abdominals? This free ab
workout is simple, effective and delivers measurable results.
How
to Build Chest Muscles
Learn how to build chest muscles with compound exercises in this basic
article for beginners.
Shoulder
Workout
Information on shoulder training, and a basic and advanced shoulder
workout involving free weights.
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