There are optional exercises and then there are exercises that everyone should have in their program. In this video, I’m going to go over the 12 Exercises that EVERYONE Should Have in Their Program to build the most muscle and a strong body that is resilient to injury. You may find that you are doing many of these exercises, but are you doing them all? Unless there is a physical limitation preventing you from performing them, I believe they are must-do movements that need to be in your workout plan.
Even in the instance of a nagging pain getting in the way of you performing the exercise, I’m going to show you a variation that should help you to overcome this issue and put you back on track to doing every one of these dozen best exercises.
When putting together an exercise list like this it is important to not only select the movements that are most effective for building bigger stronger bodies, but to make sure that these exercises are complimenting each other as well. There is no need to select five different versions of a bench press since doing so will only lead to major muscle imbalances and an unbalanced muscular development. Here we hit all three planes of motion as well as the all important corrective exercises to make sure no stone is left unturned along the way to making the best exercise selections.
We start with the king of all lower body exercises, the squat.
There is nothing more fundamental when it comes to movement patterns of the legs, hips and glutes than the squat. That said, sometimes people can experience an aggravation of low back and knee pain with the exercise. Beyond learning the proper mechanics on the squat you do have an option to switch to an alternative version to alleviate your discomfort. The bulgarian split squat will help offset back pain while box squats will dramatically decrease knee stress.
The deadlift is the twin king of the lower body, this time focused on the posterior chain muscles more effectively. Once again, it’s the movement pattern that is critical far more than the exact version of the exercise you perform. The hinge movement is one of the most fundamental to all human performance. Learning it is going to protect your lower back. If pulling from the floor is still too challenging however, simply switch to a mat elevated or trap bar variation to keep the gains coming without the pains.
The bench press is the main upper body pressing exercise you should be doing, at least in the horizontal plane. It involves the chest, shoulders and triceps to a great degree and gives you the opportunity to load up as able to build up not only your muscle size but your strength as well. Here again however, the exercise can be troublesome for some with shoulder issues. If this is the case for you, switch to a slowed down dumbbell press and most of your issues will decrease significantly as stability is restored to the press.
Pullups are not only one of my favorite bodyweight back exercises, they are one of my favorite back exercises – period. Of course, here again the loading options are many. If you find that you can do too many reps with your own bodyweight you can easily load some weight around your waist and make this a weighted pullup for more gains. Likewise, using a band can help offload some of your bodyweight making an assisted pullup possible for all.
Facepulls and banded external rotation are two critical exercises that sometimes elude the common exercise routine. Don’t make this mistake. They are just as important to the overall health of your joints while strengthening the weak points that undermine your performance on the bigger lifts.
Pushups belong on this list. Period. Just make sure that you’re doing the right kind of pushup. What I mean is, make sure that you are doing a variation that is challenging to you. Continuing to rep out 30,40 or even 50 reps in a set is not doing enough to increase your strength on the exercise since you can already do lots of reps. Pick a harder version to challenge your body and force new growth.
Of course, other exercises make this list as well. Lunges, Rows, and direct arm exercises like barbell curls and triceps extensions are all key exercises that should be included in every program. Watch the video for a detailed breakdown of why.
If you’re looking for a complete workout plan that has all of these must-do exercises in them, be sure to head to athleanx.com via the link below and use the program selector to find the program that best matches your current goals.
If you’re looking for more videos on the best exercises for building muscle and the best band exercises, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube via the link below and remember to turn on your notifications so you never miss a new video when it’s published.
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Chris Wright
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Don’t take me wrong,please Inform this to everyone and you also Please lock weights whenever perform squats or other barbell exercises,
B’coz weights drop on others most of injuries done in this type of case in gym
Every day, my list of things AthleanX tells me to do grows longer. I get 3 hours of sleep, to then wake up to do my morning routine. After 3,000 facepulls, I am ready to start my first workout (1 of 7) of the day. This will involve another thousand facepulls, coupled with certified Jeff Classics such as the overhead deadlift, underwater squat, and upside down pull up. Having worked up an appetite, I sit down to eat meal #1. I open YouTube, and to my horror, Jeff has uploaded yet another video on MUST DO exercises. In sheer panic, I throw away my AthleanX brand oatmeal (with real Jesse pubes!) to rewrite my daily routine. This is just another day in the life on an AthleanX subscriber.
Lol the effort you put in this
Hurry, youve already wasted an hr…chop chop!
Don’t forget to give 3 days in a week to your forearms full workout.. :p
Never forget the basics! Great information as always Jeff!
Especially the 12 face pull variations!
1. Back Squat 1:00
2. Deadlift 2:12
3. Bench Press 3:16
4. Pull Up 4:15
5. Facepull 5:00
6. External Rotation 6:10
7. Lunges 6:40
8. Push Up 7:55
9. Overhead Press 9:06
10. Lying Tricep Extension 10:30
11. BB Curl 11:53
12. BB Row 12:49
Thankyou
Thanks king
Thank you!
@Day D sounds made up. Like the Appleby rib splitter or the bk king inverse whopper. Or the frosted flake cruncher.
1. Squat(Bulgarian,box,drop,box)
2. Deadlift
3. Bench Press
4. Pull up
5. Face Pull
6. Banded external rotation or DB
7. Lunge(any variation)
8. Push Up
9. OHP
10. Lying tricep extension
11. Barbell curl
12. Barbell Row(some variation)
I like people with long brain. I have long amount of disl*kes btw. Why? Maybe people with short brain disl*ke because jealous of my long amount of subscr*bers. Please have long brain, dear san
Very good :P
He called out my work out plan
Jeff, could you do a video covering recommended warmup exercises for specific joints? Especially for us 40+ folks!
Do a little jump rope before your session then do warm up sets – for example warm up by benching 20 then work up to your top set
It’s fairly easy to search if you simply try to find all of his warm up/stretch related videos.
He already did them all
I’m 47 and do 10 mins of jumprope and bodyweight (30 sec work, 10 sec rest alternating between the two) before each lift session. Works great for me
@Ryan Burke Excessive cardio and bodyweight exercises before a workout is going to effect your actual workout. You might “feel” like you worked out because your tired but in reality you waisted a lot of energy on fluff
I do all 12 for the last 3 years thanks to you Jeff ❤ and results are impresive even the gym trainers in my gym are always suprise how balanced and effective my programm is with no personal trainer.
3 full 12 exercises workouts a week or do you break it up?
What regime are you following??
Isolating muscle training? PPL split? Or any choice of 2 muscles which go together per day?
And how many days do you train per week? Reply would be appreciated
@Khurram Rizvi I train 4 times a week upper body workout or lower body each time
@unadosxx its possible also in 3 time full body workouts, I did it in more busy times I had.
The dead row teaches the leg-press part of the deadlift the speed in pressing for a better deadlift. Leg press + hip thrust = speedy deadlift. I used my hamstrings to pull myself into the bar. Gets your more muscle activation
I already incorporate all of this or some variation in my routines so I’m glad I watched and get the reassurance that the workouts I’m performing are giving great stimulus.
Sticking to basics is what develops a majority of your strength and muscle mass. Variations are especially useful if you are an athlete and or bodybuilder who wants to target specific muscles more. Great video, Jeff. Doubt you see this, I’ve been following you for years. Hope you’re well!
I been following since 2005
@A A Maybe 2014 for me I think
No chance ch
And you haven’t noticed he only does a lower body video once every 20 videos??! The most unbalanced YouTube channel in existence….go count the thumbnails for yourself.
I’ve been lifting for 15 years and competing in bodybuilding shows, still always learn something from your videos and appreciate you making them all!
Jeff, I’ll be 47 in January and for the past few years I seem to hit a wall once fall sets in. My energy levels drop significantly, I feel groggy all the time and even hungrier than usual. This is affecting my workouts quite significantly to the point where I fall off the horse and what used to be 4-5 workouts a week, drops to 1-2. The other issue I run into is that due to the colder weather and just getting older in general and more susceptible to the cold, my back (lower to mid) has a tendency to tense and lock up causing me to miss workouts.
I know you’re close to the same age and a PT so if you haven’t experienced this for yourself, you may have worked with someone who has and figured out a good way to combat these issues and more 40+, approaching 50 content please.
Keep up the great work!
For the lack of energy you should go see a doc. Could be anything and you would want to rule out anything serious.
But for the lower back Jeff has a lot of videos for lower back pain and they really strengthen the lower back so they might.
@Wolf Fjord Yeah, winter time is horrible for a regular sleeping schedule — I notice the lowered energy and rhythm too. I’d definitely recommend waking up in an ever tighter schedule, while alternating when you’re going to sleep if need be. And food is the second trigger for your circadian rhythm. It doesn’t ‘really’ matter what you eat or drink, as long as it’s time-regulated. Don’t sometimes take breakfast at 6 am and other times at 9 am, or drink something with calories (so everything besides black coffee or water) too early or too late. Our endocrine system is still a simple, mechanical, binary system.
Of course there are solutions for the day/night cycle, such as lamps mimicking sunlight, blue-light filters for the night etc. But those are quite expensive and fundamentally unpractical with a busy schedule where you’re away from your house.
Hey, I’m 43 and for the longest time I went undiagnosed with an under active thyroid. After being super active (Marines) for many years, my body began to feel the very same symptoms you are describing. Funny thing, I switched doctor’s and my new doctor discovered hypothyroidism right away.
I feel like a new man again, that and Vitamin D supplements changed my life.
how bout checking doc or smth
I’m 59…….I try to workout 3 times a week….as I think only twice is too little, but 4 to 5 days is too much due to my age and just needing more recovery time…..stay away from sugar….actually, don’t drink or eat anything with refined sugar in it…..stick to water, unsweet tea or black coffee…….make sure you stretch as well…..so, in summary, reduce number of workouts to 3 days a week, stretch, stay hydrated and stay away from sugar….I agree with others on here about taking vitamin D as well…..but I think you might find trying this will help…..as it sounds to me like you are suffering from burnout and fatigue……I think as we age it simply takes more time for the body to recover…..but, as it appears the case with you….NEVER STOP……going once or twice a week is better than NOT going to workout…..good luck!
I just do full body 3x week… usually just ohp, flat bench, chin ups, bent over row, Romanian deadlift, squat, ez bar curls and tricep push down. I switch every couple months to different variations I.e. arnold press, Incline press etc.
Same…. it hits every muscle. You should try doing the 3/7 method along with rsst pause method and the classic sets 3x 8-12 reps.
Your not hitting the smaller parts of certain muscles like the rear delts or even bigger parts like calfs and traps altogether. Staying on something like this will allow muscle balances to occur long term. There is a reason why PPL is considered the best program.
@Dark Hacker I have pretty big calves naturally tbh so not worried about that and heavy rows hit my rear delts enough. I do some isolation exercises after if I have time, I use to do ppl but have had much better results since doing full body and less days required.
@ukguy I’ll give the full body a go soon. I’ve been doing PPL for a year now and though it has given me some nice gains, it is also very time-consuming and I could be doing better things with that time.
@Dark Hacker but you live in the gym, not convenient for everyone
I replace the lunge with sled pushes, the external rotation with reverse flies with thumbs out, and the deadlift with hip thrusts, but I like the nature of this list. The basics are the chicken, broccoli and rice of any hypertrophy program for a reason.
If you can’t do any type of pull-up, do Lat pull-downs, not as effect athleticly but helps you develop that strength for your pullup.
The deadlift is SO awesome this helped me get ripped in the 5 rep range, about 25-30 total reps , safety first perfect form, you can do nothing better than 30 high quality heavy weight deadlifts , every thing else is almost an accessory to the deadlift. I love too, the DB push press. This is an underrated exercise you see almost NO one in the gym do (except me :) ) . Also requires perfect form tight core, a beauty of an exercise, thanks Jeff
Slightly surprised there wasn’t a carry and a rotational core exercise to chalk off all the basic movement patterns – I’m going to take your point about push-ups and external rotation exercises though and chuck them into my current programme.
I have followed you for about the past year, and I’ve gotten a new program after my last one wasn’t working out too much for me. 97% of what I work out to comes from your videos (the last 3% is my variation because of pre existing injuries) and it has helped me get back in shape a lot better than me trying to do it alone. Thank you Jeff for the videos!
question: should we try to do all 12 exercises every other day (2 or three rounds) or is it better / more realistic to split the 12 in 2×6, A and B, and alternate for every session (and then do 3 or 4 rounds of the 6A or 6B)?