Squats come in a variety of shapes and sizes: the conventional (back squat, front squat), the advanced (overhead squat, squat clean) and the alternative (sumo squat, zombie squat). But one variation which may not be on your radar is the hack squat. 

Popularized over a century ago and named after its creator, weightlifter and wrestler George Hackenschmidt, it allows you to squat a heavy weight without putting quite as much load through your spine. This makes it an attractive option for anyone with back issues. 

It can be performed with either a barbell or a hack squat machine. Both methods target the large quadriceps muscles on the front of your thighs, and knowing how to master this technical lift could take your leg day gains to the next level while saving your back from the rigors of the squat rack. 

To explore the ups and downs and dos and don’ts of the hack squat, we spoke to Eddie Baruta, global head of gym floor personal training at Ultimate Performance. 

Barbell Hack Squat Vs Hack Squat Machine

How To Do The Hack Squat

How To Do The Barbell Hack Squat  

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and heels elevated on a pair of small weight plates or heel wedges. “The idea here is to enable your knees to travel forward to help target the quads,” says Baruta. “Elevating your heels allows for an upright torso, full knee flexion at the bottom of the movement and a straight bar path from start to finish.” 

Baruta says it can be challenging to start this exercise from the floor. Instead he recommends setting the bar up in a squat rack positioned just lower than full arm length when standing. Start light as you familiarize yourself with the technique required to take the bar out of the rack and drop into the squat.

Start with your back to the racked bar, and drop into a partial squat to grasp the bar with an overhand grip, palms facing behind you. Retract and depress your shoulder blades to straighten your back, puff out your chest and inhale to brace your core. From here, keep your gaze focused in front of you and stand to lift the bar out of the rack. 

With the bar clear of the rack, bend your knees to lower into a squat, allowing the bar to travel straight down, while keeping your torso upright. “When it’s executed correctly, your hips shouldn’t travel back,” says Baruta. “You want the barbell to move up and down vertically in a straight line, rather than have to travel around your legs.” 

Bend your knees to lower as far as you feel comfortable. Don’t feel you need the bumper plates to tap the floor each rep. From the deepest position, drive through your midfoot and heels to return the bar to the start position in one smooth motion, exhaling as you stand. Once all reps are completed, carefully lower the bar into the rack. 

How To Do The Resistance Machine Hack Squat

Hack squat machines vary, but in general this kit should comprise a fixed platform for your feet, a fixed backrest to take your weight and shoulder pads with handles to press against.

The platform should angle your feet optimally so there’s no need to raise your heels any further. Place your feet shoulder-width apart, grasp the handles and inhale to brace your core. Unlock the machine to take the weight, then bend your knees to lower slowly into a squat.

From here, drive through your midfoot and heel as you exhale to smoothly press your body away from the platform and straighten your legs. “Aim to flex your knee fully and maintain a neutral spine throughout,” says Baruta, adding that you ideally want to reach a squat depth that allows you to close the gap between your hamstrings and calves. 

Another thing to consider with bilateral movements is joint stacking, he says. “When pushing, you have to align your ankle with your knee and your upper leg with your lower leg [rather than letting it travel in or out] to avoid any damage to the knee. To achieve this, you might need to widen your stance to allow for your biomechanics.” 

Common Hack Squat Form Mistakes

Bouncing At The Bottom Of The Rep

For all the benefits of the fixed backrest, it can prove a problem for anyone with even slightly limited mobility in their ankles, knees or hips. That’s because at the bottom of a squat, it’s common for the lower back and tailbone to round, or curl under—known as a “butt wink” in bodybuilding circles. 

When pushing considerable weight, this can compromise the vulnerable lumbar joints and risk common back problems like a slipped disc. A flat backrest exacerbates this risk because it alters the natural curvature of your spine. 

The most important thing to bear in mind is to take extra care at the bottom of the hack squat exercise, says Baruta. Avoid “bouncing” in and out of this deep squat position, and focus on a controlled concentric and eccentric phase of the exercise. 

Pressing Through The Forefoot

While elevating your heels with bumper plates allows you to target your quads effectively, your focus should still be pressing through the midfoot and heel throughout this exercise to avoid placing extra strain on your knee joint and the patella tendon. 

If limited ankle mobility makes this feel impossible, try the resistance machine version of this exercise, or one of the hack squat variations listed below. 

Hyperextending The Knee 

Another all-too-common mistake Baruta warns against is overextending your legs at the top position of this exercise, whether performing it with a barbell or resistance machine. “Focus on moving throughout all phases of the lift with control,” he says. Don’t rush your reps or snap into a hyperextended position at the top of the exercise. 

Hack Squat Progressions, Regressions And Variations

Wall sit 

A beginner-friendly regression, this isolation exercise replicates the 90˚ knee bend and upright torso technique required in the bottom of the hack squat. Lean against a wall with your feet shoulder-width apart, heels down. Slide down the wall until your thighs are parallel with the floor, keeping your back in contact with the wall and core and glutes engaged. Hold this position, breathing normally as long as your thighs will allow. 

Kettlebell hack squat 

An advanced progression, this free-weight exercise demands immense control, balance, mobility and should be considered only if your knees have a clean bill of health. Rather than using weight plates under your heels, the goal is to perform this full move with heels elevated off the floor, balancing on the balls of your feet. Keep your feet close together and hold one kettlebell behind you in both hands. With heels lifted, slowly lower until your knees are bent 90˚, then drive up to stand.

Bodyweight hack squat

This is a slight regression on the kettlebell version. Perform the same exercise, with heels elevated throughout and your weight balanced on the balls of your feet, but without the added load of a kettlebell. Only when you can flawlessly execute three sets of 10 reps should you carefully begin to introduce weight. 

Sissy squat

This is another advanced quad-focused exercise that can be performed with just your bodyweight, or with a sissy squat machine, which can be found in most commercial gyms. For the machine version, position your calves firmly against the rest and your feet locked in tight to the shin pad. Lean back slightly to place tension on your quads, then slowly lower into a squat until your knees bend 90˚. Engage your quads to straighten up again, but keep leaning back slightly to maintain tension in the front of your thighs. 

Leg extension 

“The hack squat targets the quad muscles in their mid range,” says Baruta, noting that it generates a different stimulus than experienced with quad isolation exercises like the leg extension. 

Sit up straight with your back tight to the backrest and knee in line with the machine’s pivot point. Position the pad on top of your shins, keeping your ankles in a neutral position rather than dorsiflexing your feet. Maintain a greater than 90˚ bend at your hips so that you can effectively target the quads through their full range. From this here, squeeze your quads to extend your legs, pause, then slowly return to the starting position. 

About Our Expert

If you’re getting serious in the weights room, there will come a point when you start to focus on improving your one-rep max for the barbell squat, deadlift and the bench press. When you are taking on challenging barbell exercises like these, it’s well worth knowing about back-off sets, which can increase your load volume without trashing your central nervous system.

We spoke to Elliot Upton, global head of online training for Ultimate Performance, to find out more information about back-off sets and how to use them in your training. Upton has also given us the low-down on how to spot a weightlifter.

When should you use back-off sets in your training?

Back-off sets are best used for heavy strength training. It’s not necessarily something that will benefit people training at home unless they’re training very heavy. 

You’re really only going to use it on the big primary lifts that tax your CNS the most – the exercises that really fire up every muscle in your body. You shouldn’t do back-off sets on biceps curls or triceps extensions, because the risk of injury is enormous with one- or two-rep max lifts on those. Keep it to your bigger compound movements. 

With regards to frequency, it should come down to the programme, but as a general rule, you should not be doing that level of heavy lifting frequently because of the accumulated fatigue on the CNS. Your CNS will burn out and you’re going to start to fail too quickly.

Since back-off sets are used in concert with heavy lifts close to a one-rep max, is it a technique only experienced gym-goers should use?

The big caveat for using these types of techniques would be that the fundamentals of your lifts need to be right. You need to have a perfect lift before you’re trying to do a one-rep or two-rep max, because the risk is enormous otherwise.

A lot of people want to know how much they can lift. Even people with bad technique want to know what their one-rep max is. It’s important for people to understand that these types of things carry much greater risk than doing three sets of 10 or 12 reps. There’s not a huge amount of risk there because the loads you’re using are probably somewhere around 70% of what would be your one-rep max for any given moment. 

Focus on form. If your form is right then you can start to work towards more advanced techniques. If your form is not nailed, you shouldn’t be testing your one-rep max, which then negates using back-off sets.

Are there any other downsides to doing back-off sets?

If you do heavy workouts using them too often, you’ll fatigue yourself. A lot of people underestimate the demand on your central nervous system. Just like anything else it can get fatigued. Your muscles will recover and repair within two to three days, but your central nervous system can take anywhere between five and 10 days to fully recover from a max effort lift. 

Also, if you have overstressed your nervous system doing too much of this type of heavy training and things start to go a little bit awry, the risk of injury is extremely high. 

The Romanian deadlift and the barbell bent-over row are both excellent exercises that target the posterior chain – the muscles that run up the back of your body. The row is one of the best back exercises you can do, while the deadlift works wonders on your lower-body strength, targeting the glutes and hamstrings in particular.

Combining the two exercises thus creates a monster of a move that enlists muscles throughout the body. Along with an explanation of how to do the move, you’ll also find a workout that involves it below. Get stuck in.

How To Do The Romanian Deadlift To Row

Stand holding a barbell or dumbbells in front of your thighs in an overhand grip. Engage your core and keep your back straight as you hinge at the hips to lean forwards, lowering the bar to your shins. Row the bar up to your chest, leading with your elbows and squeezing your shoulder blades together, then lower it again slowly. Drive your hips forwards to come back up to standing.

Use This Exercise In A Workout

This quick workout is made up of four exercises that combine upper- and lower-body moves, which will challenge you in new ways and save you time in the gym. Treat it as a circuit, splitting a minute into work and rest periods for each exercise and repeating for as many rounds as desired.

1 Lunge to press

Stand holding a dumbbell in each hand by your shoulders. Take a big step forwards on one leg and lower until both knees are bent at 90°. Stay in the lunge position while you press the weights overhead, then bring them back down to your shoulders and push through your front heel to return to standing. Alternate legs with each rep.

2 Squat to curl to press

This exercise combines three different movements. Stand holding dumbbells by your sides. Bend your knees and push your bum back to drop into a squat, then push back up to standing and curl the weights up to your shoulders. From there, press the dumbbells overhead, then reverse the press and curl to return the dumbbells to your sides.

3 Romanian deadlift to row

As above.

4 Gym ball jackknife to press-up

Set up in a plank position with your shins resting on a gym ball. Roll the ball forwards by bringing your knees in to your chest, keeping your upper body as still as possible – don’t arch your back. Then roll the ball back out and perform a press-up with your legs on the ball, lowering your chest close to the floor before pressing back up.

When you’re really pushing yourself in the gym and working close to your limits with heavy weights, you need a spotter. They’re not there to lift the weight for you, but they will make your workout safer – as long as they know what they’re doing.

For all the info you need on how to spot someone safely, including how much to help, we spoke to Elliot Upton, global head of online training for Ultimate Performance.

How much should you help someone when spotting?

Remember it’s about keeping someone safe. So if help is needed, it generally should be help maintaining good technical form. Priority number one, especially for beginners, is to ensure that person is technically safe.

If you’re slightly more advanced and you’ve got better technique, then the spotter might be able to start pushing you past your limits, because you’re not going to default to bad form. 

You can look at maybe 2-5% assistance, perhaps when they are at a sticking point. Take a bench press for example. They can get the bar off their chest, and generally there’s a sticking point when the elbows reach about 90°. If you can get under the bar, or in the case of dumbbells under their elbows, then you can give them 2-5% of your effort. Then that pushes them past a sticking point. That’s probably close to a perfect spot. If you’re lifting 10-15% of the weight, there’s a problem.

How do you stay safe yourself while spotting?

The more experienced you are, the better you’re going to get at spotting. Every single movement is different, so you need to know how to spot that particular exercise and understand where you should be. There are resources out there to show you how to spot certain movements – do your research first. 

Then the fundamentals: number one, make sure you’re strong enough to spot that person; number two, make sure that you are stable and safe yourself.

If someone can bench press 200kg, but the spotter can’t bench 60kg, they can’t help when something goes wrong or even to get past a sticking point. Let’s say 5% assist is needed – 5% of 200kg is still a significant amount of weight to be leaning forwards and trying to upright row. If someone comes up and asks you for a spot  and you don’t feel confident doing it, say so.

Then the next fundamental is your base of support. You have to be ultra-stable no matter how that weight moves – expect it to move unpredictably. If you can keep yourself safe and stable, you should be able to keep the lifter safe and stable. 

The other thing I would add is communication. Understand exactly how that lifter wants to be spotted, because spotters can get in the way as early as unracking the bar. Make the lifter tell you exactly what is required: when the bar is going to be lifted, when to let go of the bar. A common way to do it is to say “your bar”, or “my bar”, so you know who has control.

For more expert advice from Ultimate Performance, read how to bench more, how to pick the right weight and how to use negative reps to get more out of the gym.

The list of benefits gained from doing the clean and press is long and impressive. This advanced barbell exercise works a huge range of muscles, with the different stages of the move primarily working the lower and upper body in turn. It’s an explosive exercise that will also get the heart pumping and improve your cardiovascular fitness, especially when done as part of an interval workout.

However, it’s a complicated, technical lift that requires a high level of focus on your form in order to do it correctly and safely. All the benefits it brings will mean little if you put your back out attempting it, and if you are planning to use it in fast-paced circuit training or as part of a CrossFit workout in particular then you need to make sure your technique is on point. It’s also more than wise to start with a light weight or even an unloaded bar as you learn the move.

The first half of the clean and press focuses on your lower body, mainly working the glutes and hamstrings, while the second half primarily targets the arms, shoulders, chest and back. Throughout the exercise you are also working your core and an array of small stabiliser muscles to maintain your balance and form during the lift.

How To Do The Clean And Press

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and the bar on the floor in front of you. Hinge at the hips and bend your knees slightly to reach down and grasp the bar using an overhand grip, with your palms facing you.

Push through your heels and drive your hips forwards to lift the bar explosively. As it reaches your chest, bring your elbows beneath the bar and rotate your wrists underneath it to “catch” the bar and rest it on your upper chest and shoulders.

Without pausing, lower into a shallow squat, then drive up and use that momentum to press the bar directly overhead until both your legs and arms are fully straight. Lower the bar back to your chest with control, then reverse the clean movement to take the bar back to the floor.

The deadlift is one of the most important exercises in any serious gym-goer’s locker, but it’s also one that can be tough to get to grips with, especially when you’re relatively new to the weights room. Small flaws in your technique can lead to potentially big injuries, particularly to the lower back, and so it’s certainly a move you should be careful with until you know your form is spot-on.

So if you are worried about the load on your lower back, the sumo deadlift is a great alternative to try. It’s a simple variation in which you adjust the width of your feet, a change that moves your upper body closer to the ground and so reduces how far you have to lean over to grab the weight.

By changing your stance you also shift the focus of the exercise off your hamstrings on to the glutes and hips. Doing deadlift variations like this hits the key muscles at a different angle from the standard move, so you will find that the sumo deadlift ultimately improves your performance in the deadlift proper. That means that even if you’re certain your deadlift form is on point, it’s worth adding the sumo variation to your gym routine.

How To Do The Sumo Deadlift

Stand with your feet wider than shoulder-width apart, and your toes pointing out at a 45° angle, rather than straight ahead. Bend at the hips to lower and grab the bar. Opt for whatever grip you normally use for a deadlift, whether that’s overhand or a mixed grip, with one underhand and one overhand.

Make sure your back is flat in this bottom position and be careful not to round it at any point during the exercise. Drive through your heels and extend your knees and hips to lift the bar to mid-thigh height. Pull your shoulders back at the top of the move, then carefully lower the bar back to the ground, still being mindful not to round your back.

More Form Guides 

• How To Deadlift
• How To Do The Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift
• How To Master The Romanian Deadlift
• How To Do The Stiff-Leg Deadlift
• How To Do The Trap Bar Deadlift
  

Little changes to the form of an exercise can make a huge difference. We’re saying that up front, because when we tell you that the snatch-grip deadlift is essentially a deadlift with a wider grip, you might wonder how much that could really alter the effects of the powerhouse move.

Widening the grip on the bar actually produces two substantial changes to the benefits of the deadlift. The first is that it targets the upper-back muscles more than the traditional lift. This can also reduce the load on your lower back, if you are worried about tweaking that area.

The second is that the different hand placement increases the range of motion involved, simply because your arms don’t reach down as far when your grip is wider, so you have to move your hips back more and drop deeper to pick up the bar. This helps to improve your mobility and works the hamstrings in a greater range of motion, which will translate into better lifting when you return to the standard deadlift.

See related

• How To Deadlift
• 7 Essential Barbell Exercises To Get Stronger

How To Do The Snatch-Grip Deadlift

When first attempting the snatch-grip deadlift, it’s wise to substantially reduce the load you lift in a standard deadlift. The wider grip will feel strange and the increased focus on your upper back can be uncomfortable, and indeed risky, if you choose too heavy a weight.

Stand with your feet under a barbell. Bend your knees and move your hips back to lower and take hold of the bar, with your hands around double shoulder-width apart, your elbows locked out and your upper back flat. Use your legs to lift the bar off the ground, then, as it comes past your knees, drive your hips forwards to stand up and complete the lift. Hinge at the hips to lower the bar slowly back to the start.

Weightlifting in its purest form is lifting something up and putting it back down. That’s the deadlift in a nutshell. It’s simplicity personified and one of the best muscle-growing, strength-building, health-improving moves around. It’s an essential component of any good strength training plan, along with the barbell squat and the bench press.

Of course, that all depends on knowing how to deadlift safely, so to help you understand the correct form and the ins and outs of the move, we’ve spoken to numerous experts to share this comprehensive guide. Follow our tips and aim for the holy grail of a double bodyweight deadlift, as we explain how to do this classic move.

The Benefits Of The Deadlift

The deadlift is one of the best total-body moves for building strength and power, because it allows you to shift more weight than its powerlifting counterparts the back squat and bench press.

Wahoo Sports Science’s expert strength coach Jeff Hoobler firmly believes it’s a beneficial tool to have in your strength-boosting exercise arsenal. “It’s a multi-joint exercise, so you’re getting distribution of load throughout the body – but it needs to be done properly,” he says. 

The deadlift works the quads, hamstrings and glutes, as well as the rest of your posterior chain – the muscles that run along the rear of your body from neck to heels. And that’s not all. 

“If done properly, you’re engaging the core,” says Hoobler. “And I want to be clear, the core is not just the six-pack. It’s everything from the shoulders to the hips, 360° around your body.”

This includes the transverse abdominis, erector spinae, and internal and external obliques. In fact, studies have shown that the erector spinae is more engaged during deadlift exercises than the glutes and the biceps femoris, one of the hamstrings muscles, according to a 2020 systematic review published in the journal PLoS One. 

Strong core muscles are vital for powering rotational movements, as well as for stabilizing the spine and taking load off the lower back, preventing injuries in this area. Moreover, exercise programs that incorporate deadlifts may help reduce lower-back pain, but only in individuals who have enough hip and spinal mobility to perform this exercise safely, according to a 2021 review published in the Human Kinetics Journal. 

Thanks to its compound nature, the deadlift is a great exercise to improve performance in a variety of sports. A strong core and a solid hip hinge (the ability to maintain a neutral spine while bending forward) are essential in activities that include running, jumping and powerlifting. Deadlifts are also great at developing balance and stability, which can boost performance in combat sports and martial arts. 

Deadlifts may also improve knee function in novice lifters, according to a 2015 study published in the Journal Of Strength And Conditioning Research. Researchers recruited 54 previously untrained individuals, divided them into two groups, and instructed one group to perform deadlifts twice a week for 10 weeks. Participants in the second group did not take part in any structured exercise program during that time. Following the experiment, individuals in the training group could jump on average 7.4% higher than the ones in the control group. Deadlifts also appeared to significantly improve the strength of the muscles surrounding their knee joints. 

Deadlift Risks

Heavy deadlifts are responsible for a significant number of lower back and hamstring injuries among athletes. When not done properly, this movement can lead to stress fractures, muscle ruptures and ligament tears, according to a 2018 review published in the journal BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine. Therefore, deadlifts may not be suitable for individuals with poor posture and reduced mobility, or those who struggle with co-ordination and body awareness. This exercise is also a no-go for anyone with existing lower back injuries, the review authors noted.

In addition, heavy deadlifts require an appropriate set-up of an Olympic barbell, bumper weight plates and a weightlifting platform. Not only does the use of this equipment minimize the risks of damaging the floor, but the taller bumper plates result in a better starting position that encourages you to use your legs, rather than your back, to initiate the movement.

How To Deadlift

The deadlift is one of the best total-body moves for building muscle and burning fat, but only if you do it right. Use strength coach Andy McKenzie’s deadlift form advice to nail the lift.

To start, here’s an overview of the basic movement. “Standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, grasp the bar with your hands just outside your legs,” says McKenzie. “Lift the bar by driving your hips forwards, keeping a flat back. Lower the bar under control—though once you get up to really heavy weights, it’s okay to drop it on your final rep.”

Of course, there’s much more to consider if you want perfect deadlift form (and believe us when you say you do). Here are some of the finer points to master.

“Place your thumbs against the outer part of your thigh, and run both hands down until they touch the bar,” says McKenzie. “This is your ideal hand position.

“As for your grip, you have two choices: a double overhand grip or a mixed grip, where one hand grips the bar overhand and the other underhand. The mixed grip will allow you to lift heavier, but make sure you switch hands regularly to prevent developing any muscular imbalances.

“Always ensure you squeeze the bar as hard as you can, especially in heavier sets, before the bar leaves the floor.

“Keep your head in a neutral position throughout the lift. This is achieved by looking forwards with your eyes fixed to a spot on the ground about two to three meters ahead of your feet. And focus on keeping your chin up to keep your head in the best position for lifting.

“You want to maintain a strong spine from the beginning of the lift to the end, and the best way to achieve this is to keep your chest up throughout to prevent your torso hunching forwards over the bar.

“You need to keep your abs braced throughout the entire move to maintain an arched lower back and a strong and stable body, especially when attempting heavier lifts. Engage your core from the very start so your abs are tensed as you squat down to grip the bar. As you are about to lift the bar, breathe deep into your belly, hold your breath, and brace your abs hard, like you’re about to be punched in the stomach.

“Your shoulders should remain slightly in front of your hands until the bar passes mid-thigh level, at which point you want to retract your shoulder blades for a strong and stable torso.”

Deadlift Form Tips

To round out McKenzie’s form guide, we’ve included more pointers from Hoobler and former world deadlift record holder Andy Bolton, plus four more for good measure.

Set up for success

“Approach the barbell and stand with your feet shoulder-width apart so your shins are touching it,” says Hoobler. “Squat down, making sure your hips are lower than your chest.

“Then grab the bar with a double overhand grip and brace; to do this, take a big inhale, let out a partial exhale, then brace [or squeeze] your midsection. The most important thing is the brace, and that people keep their spine neutral.”

As you progress and add more plates to the bar, you may want to try a mixed grip, where one hand takes an overhand grip and the other grips underhand. 

This will allow you to lift heavier weights without your grip strength becoming the limiting factor, but you should switch the role of your hands regularly to prevent any muscle imbalances forming. 

Lift in harmony

“Take the tension of the bar,” says Bolton. “You need to pull it hard and fast but never snatch it or you’ll risk injury. Looking straight ahead, exhale, then take a deep breath and drive your heels into the floor, and push up using the muscles of both your lower back and legs so that the bar reaches your knees.”

Drive and lock

“Ensure that your legs lock and your back straightens at the same time,” says Bolton. “Once you’re straight, retract your shoulder blades and hold your head high, keeping the bar under full control. Then reverse every part of the move to lower the bar back to the ground.”

Go shoeless

Most lower-body moves will benefit from weightlifting shoes, but in deadlifts they’re counter-productive—not only will they give you more height to lift, but they’ll tilt you slightly forward, throwing your movement pattern off. For best results, lift in flat shoes—think Converse—or in socks or barefoot. It’ll give you a stable platform to lift from.

Scrape your shins

The further the bar strays from your body, the harder to lift it will be—there’s a reason world champ Eddie Hall ends every record attempt with bleeding shins. Start your lift with your toes under the bar and your shins against it, then pull straight up. You might want to invest in a long pair of socks.

Belt up

You can instantly add around 12kg to your deadlift simply by wearing a weight lifting belt. Breathing into your stomach and pushing against the belt with your abdominal muscles will increase intra-abdominal pressure, creating a more stable core, a necessity when lifting heavier weights.

Get a grip

It won’t matter how much you strengthen your back and your legs, you won’t be able to deadlift heavy weights if your hands can’t hold the barbell. To develop a strong grip, try using chalk and practice white knuckling (gripping any bar that you encounter as hard as you can) to tighten that grasp.

Common Mistakes

Scott Britton, CrossFit and powerlifting athlete as well as the co-founder of charitable fitness competition Battle Cancer, highlights the mistakes he often sees people make when attempting to deadlift.

Rounding the back

“Every time I see a rounded back I see herniated discs, long physio sessions and pain,” says Britton. “Spending time concentrating on keeping your back straight when lifting will save you years in the therapy room. Imagine someone has put a broom across your back and, when bending over to lift, your back has to stay as straight as that broom.”

Incorrect breathing

“Learning the right breathing pattern for the exercise can take a long time,” says Britton. “but when deadlifting it’s essential to hold a big breath before you try to lift off the ground, and then let that breath out only when you have the lift completed.”

Dropping the bar after you lift it

“If you can pick it up, you can put it down,“ says Britton. “A lot of injuries occur when people drop the barbell from the waist. You have put your leg, back and stomach muscles under serious stress then let it go suddenly. Your muscles can act like a coiled spring and snap! Hold on and put the bar back down. What I do is imagine glass is under the bar so I pop it down nice and gently.”

Deadlift Variations

Romanian deadlift

This variation shifts the emphasis to your hamstrings, building flexibility as well as strength, power and control in these often neglected leg muscles. Stand tall with your feet shoulder-width apart, holding a barbell off the floor with an overhand grip just outside your thighs. Keeping a slight bend in your knees, bend forward from the hips—not the waist—and lower the bar down the front of your shins until you feel a good stretch in your hamstrings. There’s no need to go heavy for the Romanian deadlift to be effective, so start small.

Snatch-grip deadlift

The wider grip employed here places greater emphasis on your upper back (trapezius) muscles. You’ll also need to move the bar through a greater range of motion. Hold a barbell (check out our guide to the best barbells you can buy) with your hands approximately double shoulder-width apart. Push through your heels and keep your chest up as you drive forward with your hips to lift the bar.

Trap bar deadlift

You may also find this version referred to as the hex bar deadlift, owing to the hexagonal shape of the bar that’s used. This is a brilliantly effective version of the deadlift, with the side-on position of the trap bar handles forcing you to retract your shoulder blades and engage your lats. It’s great for making swift strength gains and doesn’t put as much pressure on your lower back as other deadlift variants because you won’t be pulled forward.

Deficit deadlift

Lifting from a “deficit”—an artificially lower start position—will fix any weakness in your deadlift form, forcing you to keep your back flat and shoulders engaged to get the bar off the ground. Stand on a weight plate or low box and grasp the bar. Engage your shoulders and take the strain, then lift the bar by driving your hips forward, keeping a flat back.

Sumo deadlift

This variation targets the muscles in your hamstrings, making it a great builder for leg power, and as with the Romanian deadlift it’s wise to use a significantly lighter weight. Place your feet wider apart and grasp the bar with a slightly narrower grip than you would with a regular deadlift.

Rack pull

If you find the range of motion of normal deadlifts too strenuous, start with the barbell raised on blocks or a rack. This is a good variation to start with until you are more confident with the movement required because it places less strain on your lower back.

Single-leg Romanian deadlift

This unilateral move develops balance, ankle stability and your hamstrings, but it can be very tricky, especially for your first few attempts, so master the bodyweight version first before adding free weights. Stand on one leg, then hinge forwards at your hips, sending your elevated leg backwards to help maintain your balance and reaching towards your toes until you feel a stretch in your hamstring. Reverse the move to the start.

Deadlift Challenges

Try these advanced but rewarding deadlift challenges to get bigger, leaner and stronger than ever.

Get strong with a 1RM test

What Your 1RM (one-rep max) is the amount of weight you can lift for one rep. After a thorough warm-up, do two or three reps at about 50% of your maximum lift. Add 10-20kg to the bar and repeat until you get to around 85% of your maximum. Then add 5kg and do one rep until you fail. Your last successful lift is your 1RM.

Why The most effective way to get stronger is to focus on performing low-rep sets.

Get lean with deadlift EMOMs

What EMOM stands for Every Minute On The Minute. Get a weight you can lift for 15 reps (this will be approximately 65% of the weight you could lift once), start a clock and do as many reps as you can in 30 seconds. Rest for 30 seconds and then repeat on the minute, every minute, for 10 minutes.

Why You complete a huge amount of work in a short space of time, which will get your heart pumping.

Get big with deadlift GVT

What  German Volume Training was popularised by strength coach Charles Poliquin. In this workout, you use a weight that’s approximately 60% of what you could lift for one rep. Do 10 reps, rest for 90 seconds and repeat that 10 times. If you fail before the end of a set, do as many reps as you can.

Why Maximising volume—the total amount of weight you lift—is one of the keys to muscle growth.

Deadlift FAQs

To answer some of the most common questions about deadlifts, we enlisted personal trainer Emily Servante, global trainer education manager at Ultimate Performance.

More About Our Experts

When you’re looking to build bigger shoulders, it’s essential to add some form of overhead press to your workout routine. Stick with the strict overhead shoulder press and you’ll be amazed at the results you can produce while using relatively light weights.

However, sometimes you want to use heavy weights, and sometimes you don’t want the word “strict” to appear anywhere in your workout description. That’s where the push press comes in. By generating momentum with your lower body, you’ll be able to press heavier weights overhead than you can with the shoulder press. It’s also a relatively simple move to master.

The push press not only increases your shoulder and upper-body strength, it also conditions your rotator cuff – an area of the body that needs looking after if you want to keep hitting the weights room hard. It also works your core as you drive up and then hold the weight overhead with your arms outstretched.

It brings with it a whole lot of benefits, in short – and you’ll notice those benefits in everyday life as well as the gym, because every time you effortlessly lift a bag up to pop in an overhead locker you’ll be using the muscles the push press helped to develop. Here’s how to do it.

Push Press Instructions

Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and grip the bar with your fingertips, elbows pointing forward. Rest the bar on the front of your shoulders. Drop down into a shallow squat, centring your weight under the barbell. Press up through your heels. Drive the bar directly above your head until your arms are straight. Lower the bar down to your chest. Maintain a neutral arch in your spine throughout the move.

Push Press Form Tips

Get the grip right

Basics first: unlike the strict press (where you’ll want to use a thumbless grip to keep your wrists in a more favourable pressing position), you’ll want to wrap your thumbs around the bar. Keep your grip fairly narrow and your forearms vertical underneath the bar. And grip the bar hard – an effect called irradiation means you’ll activate the surrounding muscles more if you squeeze before you lift.

Power up

The biggest beginner mistake in the push press is to squat too low. You only need to descend as far as it takes to let you explode up and into the movement. Bend your knees just slightly and then drive up as powerfully as possible. With light weights, this should be enough to send the bar skyward without any conscious pressing from you. Once you’ve got the movements down, up the weights and press that weight up.

Push Press Variations

There are a multitude of tougher shoulder moves you can do to challenge the front of your shoulders – the anterior deltoids – even more.

Dumbbell push press

This is essentially the same move but it’s tougher because you have to stabilise the same weight in each hand. This makes it better at building muscle in a more balanced way because you can’t distribute one weight across one side more as you can with a barbell. 

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and a dumbbell held over each shoulder with palms facing forwards. Lower into a shallow squat and then drive up through your shoulders pushing the weights overhead as you go. Finish with your arms fully extended then return under control to the start.

Overhead press

This is tougher than any variation of a push press because it doesn’t allow you to use your legs to power the move – it’s all about shoulder strength.

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, with a barbell held against the upper part of your chest with you palms facing forward. Press up powerfully until your arms are fully extended. Return carefully to the start.

Military press

In this ultra-strict shoulder builder you have your feet together, which means you have to use your core a lot more to stabilise the movement. It’s the toughest of the bunch because you have no leg drive and a less stable base to drive from, so lower the weight and don’t let your ego tell you otherwise.

Stand with feet together, holding a barbell at chest height with hands just wider than shoulder-width apart. Squeeze your glutes and core muscles so you don’t go soft in the middle. Press the bar overhead, pushing your head forwards as you straighten your arms for full range of motion. Lower the bar, letting your head move back as you bring it back to the starting position.

Arnold press

Named after the Austrian Oak himself, this Schwarzenegger favourite includes a lateral movement, increasing time under tension and allowing more of your deltoid muscle to get in on the action.

Sitting or standing, hold dumbbells in front of your face so your palms face you and your upper arms are parallel with the floor. Rotate your shoulders to move your arms out to the sides so that your palms face forwards. Continue the movement to press the weights overhead until your arms are straight and your biceps are close to your ears. Reverse the move back to the start.

While everyone’s training routine is a little different, as are their overall fitness goals, there are some things that appeal to all gym-goers. Effective exercises that make you stronger without having to spend hours in the weights room definitely fall into that category.

We’ve assembled seven such exercises below, and when you scan down to read them you’ll see that they’re all barbell exercises. That’s because the barbell is your best friend when it comes to building strength and size in an efficient manner.

The Benefits Of Barbell Exercises

“When you’re strength training, the best tool you can use is the barbell,” says personal trainer Tom Wright. “Nothing else comes close. Lifting for strength requires multi-joint exercises known as compound lifts, which create tension through different muscles and movement patterns, and they stimulate thousands of nerves all of which are a part of getting stronger.

“No other equipment allows such dramatic improvements in overall strength. Start out using a weight you’re comfortable with, increase the load every week and watch your numbers fly up.”

How And When To Use These Exercises In Your Training

You’ll find our seven top barbell exercises below, but you shouldn’t just hit the gym and knock them all out in order as your punishing new workout routine. It’s important to be smart when incorporating heavy barbell lifts into your training to get the maximum benefits and avoid any risk of injury.

“Because these movements recruit a large number of motor units and provide a big stimulus to the central nervous system, I always put them at the start of training sessions,” says Wright. “Generally you pick two of these exercises as your main lifts, such as squat and deadlift for a lower-body session, or bench press and barbell row for the upper body.”

Of course, we don’t mean you should dive straight in at the deep end with your main lifts. Prepare with this gym warm-up first, then do warm-up sets with an empty barbell, progressively adding weight until you’re at your target weight.

You can also do a set of moves that hit both the upper and lower body in one session.

“This upper/lower style of training can allow you to get more work done in a shorter amount of time because less recovery time is required when you move between body parts,” says Wright. “Another benefit of this method is increased heart rate as the body pumps blood from one area to another, leading to a higher metabolic rate and increased fat burning.”

Here are the seven barbell exercises you need to know about. Click the link in the bulleted list below to jump to that entry.

The Magnificent 7

Use these links to jump the relevant section of this article.

1. Bench Press
2. Bent-Over Row
3. Deadlift
4. Back Squat
5. Overhead Press
6. Lunge
7. Power Clean

Bench Press

Essential form: Start with your arms locked and the bar above your chest. Press your shoulders into the bench, plant your feet on the floor and squeeze your glutes. Bend your elbows to lower the weight to your chest, then press back up to the start.

Targets: chest, triceps, front shoulders

If you want to build an impressive upper torso then the bench press is king. “A trifecta of pecs, shoulders and triceps makes this compound pushing movement, along with the deadlift and squat, one of the true tests of strength,” says Wright. “This lift also allows you to load up your triceps with more weight than you could lift on assistance exercises such as dips or press-downs.”

Beyond The Chest

The bench is all about your pecs, right? Wrong. “It requires a lot of pushing power, which means that to join the big boys you’ll need a strong upper back too,” says Wright. “Make sure you control your shoulder blades by keeping them fixed on the bench. This tension will keep you in a stable position on your big lifts and stop you moving around. If you’ve ever seen a powerlifter bench they use this to the extreme, lifting their hips clear off the bench and planting their feet, squeezing their muscles tight from their shoulder blades all the way down their back to the floor.”

Be Single-Minded

If you have strong chest muscles but you’re weak in your shoulder stabilisers, you’ll struggle to lift a serious amount of weight on the bench press. To maintain good shoulder joint health and give yourself the best chance of going big, try this assistance exercise. “A great variation for bench press is the single-arm dumbbell press,’ says Wright. “It requires immense shoulder control as well as a strong core to stay balanced. If you think you might have one side stronger than the other then throw this in once a week and your imbalances will soon become a thing of the past.”

Use Your Body

Being able to control your own bodyweight is often a great way of laying the kind of foundations that will allow you to lift some significant weight when you use external resistance, such as a barbell. “The best assistance exercise for bench press would be dips or a close-grip pressing exercise that works the same muscles in a slightly different movement pattern,” says Wright. “Once you can perform ten controlled bodyweight reps start to add some weight either with a belt or by holding a dumbbell between your feet.”

Discover more with our everything guide to the bench press.

Bent-Over Row

Essential form: Hold the bar with a shoulder-width grip, bending your knees slightly, then bend at the hips until your torso is at a roughly 45° angle to the floor. Pull the bar up to touch your stomach and then lower under control. If you’re moving your upper body to shift the bar, the weight’s too heavy.

Targets: biceps, lats, core

You should be spending the same amount of time training your back as you do your chest, and the key move is the bent-over row. “The barbell row is a great way to develop a strong upper body and add size to your back, and it’s the only exercise to work all the different muscles that make up the rear of your torso,” says Wright. “The move requires not only a strong pull but also the ability to keep yourself fixed in the bent-over position, which takes strong spinal erectors – technically part of your core muscles."

Keep Your Shoulder Blades Engaged

If you want to lift a decent weight and activate the target muscle groups effectively, your start position is incredibly important. “You should always initiate the row by ‘setting’ your shoulder blades,’ says Wright. “To do this, pull them back and down by squeezing the muscles between them and expanding your chest, then let your elbows follow through to your sides. Think of your hands as hooks - they are simply there to hold the weight, not to pull it. You can even try a thumbless grip. This will engage your lats and help you get a better contraction in the muscle.”

Use The Right Muscles

It may not seem like a complicated move but there are some common mistakes that you can avoid. “The first is not pulling with the back and instead using too much biceps,” says Wright. “You must first activate the muscle you want to use and then move through the full range of movement. Secondly, loading up the bar with too much weight will cause you to lose form, and decrease the range of movement. Performing reps too quickly can also hinder progress. Remember, time under tension should be approximately 40 seconds for muscle growth, so control the weight and keep the tension on the muscles.”

Underhand Tactic

Once you know how to do the move perfectly, you can begin to play around with variations to get a different training effect. “If you’re looking to build your lats – your big back muscles – in particular try using an underhand grip with a narrow hand placement because this will target your lats and lower back,” says Wright. “As well as greater lat recruitment, it also uses more of the biceps too. Rows have been shown to be more effective for building your lats than even lat pull-downs.”

Add In Dumbbell Rows

Want to get even better at rows? Then do this assistance move. “My favourite assistance exercise for the barbell row is the braced dumbbell row,” says Wright. “Place one hand on a bench and take a wide stance with your feet, bracing through your trunk. Let the dumbbell hang down, then pull back and up so it travels along a curved path to the bottom of your ribcage. Rowing with one arm allows greater range of movement and is also great for developing your obliques and core.”

Get more pointers with our bent-over row guide.

Deadlift

Essential form: Standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, grasp the bar with your hands just outside your legs. Lift the bar by driving your hips forwards, keeping a flat back. Lower the bar under control – though once you get up to really heavy weights, it’s OK to drop your final rep.

Targets: whole body

If you’re looking for raw strength then the deadlift is the move for you. “It’s a posterior chain builder, working the muscles on the rear of your body to pull the bar from floor to hip,” says Wright. “The deadlift will allow you to move more weight than any other barbell exercise, so use it to develop your overall strength and power.”

Brains And Brawn

Deadlifting is all about brute strength executed with sound technique. “Although pulling weight off the floor may sound simple enough, there are actually quite a lot of things you can get wrong,” says Wright. “Poor technique lets down the majority of deadlifters in your average gym, and can cause serious injury. When setting up for your lift you want to remember to pull your shoulders back and your chest out, locking down your shoulder blades. This creates tension in your back that will help prevent you from rounding the lower back or having your hips come up too early. Your goal is to drive the hips towards the front wall, so lean back into the lift and squeeze your glutes hard while pressing through your heels in to the floor.”

Hard And Fast

Even if you’re a beginner you’ll quickly progress to having at least 100kg on the bar. And when it start getting serious, you don’t want to lift with suspect technique. “If you find you’re struggling to perform this lift with good technique, then start with some rack pulls – which means setting the bar up in a rack around 30cm off the floor,” says Wright. “You’ll develop the strength in a shorter range of movement.” And if you’re finding that you’re having to grind out every rep, you may want to work on your speed of lift.

“To help build your deadlift speed, work on heavy kettlebell swings. By firing your hips forwards against the weight of the kettlebell you’ll build stronger glutes and hip drive, supercharging your deadlift power.”

Continue mastering the king of lifts with our deadlift guide.

Back Squat

Essential form: Take the bar out of the rack with it resting on your rear shoulder muscles. Take two big steps back and stand with your feet roughly shoulder-width apart, toes pointing slightly out. Keep your spine in alignment by looking at a spot on the floor about two metres in front of you, then “sit” back and down as if you’re aiming for a chair. Descend until your hip crease is below your knee. Keep your weight on your heels as you drive back up.

Targets: quads, glutes and hamstrings

Walk in to any serious gym and the one question you will always be asked is, “What do you squat?” Like it or not, your strength will generally always be judged on the squat numbers you can put up. “People new to lifting fixate on bench press but the truly strong guys will go straight below the belt,” says Wright. “The reason the squat is a great measure of strength is because it works both lower and upper body at the same time while connecting the two with a strong core.”

No Half Measures

If you’ve spent any time in gyms you’ll probably have seen people loading up the bar and doing half reps in the squat rack. They might be pleased with themselves but they’re wasting their time. “A proper squat requires the hips to come down at least until they’re level with the knees,” says Wright. “You’ll hear the phrase ‘past parallel’ and this refers to the thighs being in line with the floor. Fail to go deep enough and your muscles won’t get the stimulus they need to get bigger and stronger. Work on your mobility for five to ten minutes before any squat session –this will give you extra depth, making a huge difference to your results as well as helping you to avoid injury.”

Whole Body Benefit

While the squat is primarily a legs exercise, the upper body is also involved and becomes increasingly important the heavier the weight you’re trying to lift. “An easy way to improve your squat is to make sure your back is tight and your chest is high,” says Wright. “Grip the bar and pull it down on to your shoulders. Raise your chest and push your elbows forwards. This will give you a stronger platform for the bar to sit on and means less work for your core and legs to do. You’ll be surprised at the difference this makes.”

Add In Bulgarian Split Squats

An imbalance of strength between your left and right sides is likely to lead to poor movement patterns and, ultimately, injury. Doing an exercise that develops strength unilaterally will help guard against that. “Once you have done your squats, move on to some Bulgarian split squats,” says Wright. “Holding a pair of dumbbells, take a split stance with one foot ahead of you and the other behind, and place your back foot onto a bench.

Perform a split squat by lowering your back knee while keeping your front shin vertical. This will develop your leg strength as well as balance and is an excellent assistance move for the back squat.”

Continue your development with our guide to mastering the back squat.

Overhead Press

Essential form: With your feet shoulder-width apart, position a bar on your upper chest, gripping it with hands just wider than shoulder-width apart. Brace your abs, glutes and quads as you press the bar straight upwards. Pause at the top, then lower. You may find you lift more weight by wrapping your thumbs around the same side as your fingers, to keep your forearms in a more favourable position.

Targets: shoulders, triceps

Hoisting a heavy weight above your head is a true old-school test of strength. “The overhead press requires strength and balance as well as shoulder mobility and stability,” says Wright. “This exercise will create bigger delts as well as a strong back – plus greater overhead strength, which will transfer over to the bench press.”

The Only Way Is Up

Pressing the weight directly overhead, rather than slightly in front of you, is key to going heavy. “When performing the overhead press remember that the weight should be over your centre of gravity, passing through your head, the top of your spine, your hips and your ankles,” says Wright. “Keep these in line by squeezing your abs and glutes and pushing your head through once the bar has passed your nose. You’ll also add about 10% to your lift by simply keeping your core tight – so squeeze those glutes!”

Protect Your Neck

A good overhead press relies on good mobility and that means being able to retract your shoulder blades and push your elbows through so that they are directly under the bar. To help develop that ability, try starting the move with the weight behind your neck. “Once you have mastered the military press (with feet together) you can try the behind-neck press,” says Wright. “The same rules apply, only you begin with the bar on your back. This variation will work your rear delts and back more, but you’ll need to drop the weight by around 30% and take a slightly wider grip.”

Add In The Landmine Press

Your shoulder joints are delicate because they are freely moveable and involve a group of small stabilising muscles called the rotator cuff. The upshot is that it’s easy for something to go wrong, particularly when you’re tired. “To improve shoulder health and stability, perform the landmine press after your overhead work,” says Wright. “Wedge one end of a bar into the corner of the room and perform a single arm shoulder press. Remember to stay strict and allow your shoulder blades to move while keeping your abs tight.”

Browse variations, assistance lifts and more with our guide to the overhead press.

Lunge

Essential form: Stand with a barbell resting on the back of your shoulders. Retract your shoulder blades and keep your back upright and core braced throughout. Take a big step forwards and lower your body until both knees are bent at 90˚ before pushing back off your front foot to return to the start position.

Targets: quads, glutes and hamstrings

The barbell lunge is an excellent lower-body builder because it allows you to apply heavy loads on to a single leg in a dynamic movement. “This exercise has many variations and can be used to target many different muscles of the lower body,” says Wright. “It is one of the most under-used movements for developing athletic ability.”

Tight Trunk

Although the lunge is primarily a lower-body move, the fact the weight is on your back puts the force through your trunk. “The tighter you can keep your trunk, the more stable you will feel and the more powerful you will become,” says Wright. “Try to make yourself as tall as you can, pulling your abs in and shoulders back, then lunge forwards. Short lunges will load the quads, whereas a longer stride will place emphasis on the hamstrings and glutes. If your ankle is flexed and your knee’s forwards you are loading the front of the leg, if not then you’re working your posterior chain.”

Reverse To Progress

If the standard lunge is rare then the reverse lunge is virtually an endangered species. Doing the move in reverse has a host of benefits, including improving your proprioception (your body’s ability to sense its own position, develop balance and co-ordinate movements). “If you struggle with lunges it may be to do with tight hip flexors or ankles, so the reverse lunge is a great progression,” says Wright. “The same principles apply but it allows you to drop your hips backwards and step back up, which will help you to improve up to the full walking lunge.”

Take A Long Lunge

Doing any form of lunge will help to improve your athletic ability because it’s a heavy compound exercise that involves an unstable unilateral movement. There are, however, ways you can perform it so that you get an elite-level benefit. “To develop power and speed I perform longer lunges and drive up through my front heel, engaging my glutes,” Wright says. “Without stopping at the top I allow my hips to continue forward in a natural arc into the next lunge. This is much more like a natural gait when running, and it helps keep tension in the core and build strength and power.”

Power Clean

Essential form: Start with the barbell on the floor, holding it with a shoulder-width grip. Drive through your heels to lift it off the floor, then explode up as it passes your knees, using the momentum to help pull it up to chest height and “catching” it on your chest. Pause for a second, then drop or lower the barbell for the next rep.

Targets: whole body

This is the one move in the series dedicated to increasing power and speed. “The power clean has been used by athletes for years to improve their performance on the field,” says Wright. “Building power requires improving speed against resistance, and a power clean allows you to develop full-body power by combining a deadlift and a hang clean.”

Warm Up Properly

You should place the power clean at the start of your session – but that doesn’t mean you walk straight out of the changing room, stick a couple of 20kg plates on the end of the bar and get lifting. “Make sure you are warmed up properly and your shoulders and lats are mobile to allow you to get under the bar quickly,” says Wright. “Being able to get in the front rack position quickly is key. The speed of the middle section is what will make or break your lift, so think about fast execution of the hip drive or ‘second pull’ and explode upwards, keeping the bar close to your body.”

Hang Clean

If you usually train while wearing tracksuit bottoms and aren’t too bothered about growing tree-trunk legs, you can do the hang clean variation of the move which involves starting the move while holding the bar. The other benefit of that version is that it improves your grip strength, which can, in turn, have a positive effect on your power and squat clean ability. “The hang clean, where the bar originates from the hips rather than the floor, is ideal if you want to focus solely on the upper body,” says Wright. “It’s also a good progression up to a power clean.”

Power Through

Power cleans will place a huge energy demand on your body but that’s no excuse to slack off once you’ve got to the end of your last set. “The two movements I like to use in the same session as power cleans are box jumps and thrusters,” says Wright. “Box jumps will improve your speed and power, while the thruster is like a continuum of the movement because it involves going from a front squat to a shoulder press. Thrusters in particular help to connect all the pieces of the puzzle by strengthening the connection between lower and upper body.

Use our guide to the power clean to master the movement. 

Photography: Glen Burrows; Model: Tom Wright

Photography Glen Burrows; model Tom Eastham

Powerlifting 101

What is it?

Technically, it actually means competing in the Big Three lifts (bench, deadlift and squat) – it isn’t considered good form to call yourself a powerlifter if you just train in them. The sport comes in “raw” (just T-shirt and shorts) and “equipped” varieties, the latter allowing knee and elbow wrapping, alongside spring-loaded suits that provide a hefty degree of assistance.

What is it best for?

Raw strength. “While it can have some carryover to building muscle, powerlifting’s main focus is one-rep strength in the big three,” says powerlifter and coach Tom Hamilton. That means lots of low-rep training, watching your figure (it’s a weight-category-obsessed sport) – and, of course, focusing on the finer technical points of the big lifts.

What are its limitations?

“Its strength may also be its weakness,” says Hamilton. “A heavy focus on maximal strength and particular lifts during a programme may cause overuse injuries – and, of course, there’s the danger of neglecting qualities like conditioning or mobility.”

The outside view

It’s a pretty niche sport – and rife with infighting – but fun. “Powerlifting seems fairly misunderstood but can be a great entry into weight training generally,” says Olympic lifting coach Alex Adams. “As long as powerlifting programmes have enough variety they don’t do you any harm. Problems arise when you become too specialist and only do the competitive lifts.”

Instant expertise

Go sumo

Most comps allow either regular or sumo-style deadlifting – you should experiment with both. For the latter, keep your feet double shoulder-width apart and your hands inside your knees – it’s an ideal option for a tall man.

Mention Westside

Westside Barbell, founded by Louis Simmons, turns out the strongest lifters ever, thanks to an ultra-competitive atmosphere and Simmons’s combining of speed-lifting “dynamic” days with all-out max effort sessions. Also worth noting: they rarely do the Big Three outside competition, building strength with endless variations like the box squat and close-grip bench press.

Know your programmes

At some point, somebody’s going to ask you what you’re “running”. Lifter and coach Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 is the safe option, but for extra points mention the Cube (a popular new method based on Simmons’s ideas), Coan-Phillipi (a deadlift programme used by the man regarded as the best lifter ever, Ed Coan) or Smolov (four times a week squat plan – for maniacs only).

You’ve made it when…

It’s not as simple as dividing your total by your bodyweight: limb length, muscle size and overall stress make a difference – put your numbers into wilkscalculator.com for a readout powerlifters will respect. “To be a competitive high-level powerlifter you’d need to aim for a Wilks of 400-plus,” says Hamilton. “If you have no desire to compete but enjoy the three powerlifts, a 300-plus Wilks would make you one of the stronger guys in your gym.”

See related

•  The Fundamentals Of Powerlifting
• Six-Week Strength Training Workout Plan
• How To Use The Big Three Lifts To Get Strong, Build Muscle Or Burn Fat

Get Triple-Threat Strength

“One way to train is a daily undulating periodisation, or DUP, approach,” says Hamilton. “This means you use a variety of reps and sets throughout the week for the same movement, allowing you to spread the volume over the course of the week.” So you might go heavy on one day, do light reps for speed on another, and have a moderate high-rep day on the third. Here’s a typical workout.

1 Squat

Sets 4 Reps 3

“Do your first set off your rate of perceived exertion, or RPE,” says Hamilton. “They should feel like a 9, or very, very hard – but how heavy that is will vary from week to week. Do your other sets at 85% of your max.”

2 Bench press

Sets 3 Reps 6

Do these at 75% of your max. In powerlifting, it’s all about the set-up: keep your grip wide enough that your forearms are vertical under the bar, and press into the floor with your feet to help the lift.

3 Pull-up

Sets 3 Reps 6

These should be hard but doable. Add a weight vest if you need to.

4 Dip

Sets 3 Reps 10

Add a weight belt, a dumbbell between your ankle or – if your gym’s really cool - chains around your neck.

Powerlifting Training Plan

If you’re keen to get started with powerlifting here’s a training plan from Scott Britton, CrossFit and powerlifting athlete and co-founder of charitable fitness competition Battle Cancer. There are three workouts on the plan, each focusing on a different lift. You’ll need to know your one-rep max for the squat, bench press and deadlift to do the workouts.

Squat Workout

Warm-Up

Start by mobilising your hips, lower back and hamstrings with these moves.

1 Standing quad stretch

Stand with your feet hip-width apart and bring one heel up towards your bum, holding it in place. Pull on your foot to gently bring your knee towards the floor and push your hips forwards. Don’t hold your breath while performing the stretch.

2 Box stretch

Stand in front of a box and place one heel on it. Straighten your raised leg and slowly move your torso forwards, moving your head in the direction of your leg. If you feel a sharp pain in your hamstrings, ease off. Repeat for the other leg.

3 Air squat

Squat down but pause at the bottom, keeping your torso upright. Move your weight from side to side and allow your hips to ease into the position. Try a few controlled bounces in the bottom of the squat and then stand up. Grab hold of something sturdy if you cannot maintain your balance without any assistance.

Main Workout

1 Barbell-only back squat

Sets 3 Reps 8

Start with just the unweighted barbell on your back.

2 Barbell back squat

Set 4 Reps 8

Progressively add weight across these four sets to finish a little under your working weight. The working weight is 70% of your one-rep max. So if your one-rep max is 100kg you should finish on 60kg here.

3 Barbell back squat

Sets 5 Reps 5

Now you’ll do reps at 70% of your one-rep max. The last set should be a real effort to complete. If you manage all five sets with little effort, then increase the weight by 5-10kg next week.

4 Barbell pause squat

Sets 5 Reps 3

Drop to 50% of your previous one-rep max and complete a squat, but hold at the bottom of the move for a count of three seconds. Make sure to count “one one hundred, two one hundred, three one hundred”, then lift.

5 Lat pull-down

Reps 100

When squatting you have to ensure a tight thoracic muscle group. These are the upper- and mid-back muscles and they keep the bar tight on your back.

Choose a light weight on the lat pull-down machine. Hit 100 reps on the machine on the same weight. Make sure you breathe and really engage your lats, shoulders and core as you pull the cable towards you.

If you don’t have a lat-pull down machine at your gym do 25-50 pull-ups instead.

Leg Destroyer Finisher

You have hit most of the muscle groups already, but ending with this 15-minute circuit will increase your explosive power.

Each station has a one-minute time cap. If you don’t finish the movements in the minute, make a note of the reps completed and keep the weights the same until you can hit all the suggested reps across the minute throughout the whole circuit.

Repeat the following circuit five times in total. The suggested weights are 20kg in each hand for men and 12kg for women.

1 Walking lunge

Time 1min Distance 15m

Holding two dumbbells by your sides, take a big step forwards, lowering until both knees are bent at 90° and your back knee touches the floor. Then lunge forwards on the other leg. Keep your chest up throughout.

2 Dumbbell deadlift

Time 1min Reps 15

Holding dumbbells by your sides, hinge at your hips to bend down and touch the dumbbells to the floor, then stand up tall, pushing your hips through at the top of the lift.

3 Elevated dumbbell goblet squat

Time 1min Reps 15

Place a weight plate on the floor and stand with your heels on the plate to elevate them while keeping your toes on the ground. A 5kg plate is perfect for this. Hold a dumbbell against your chest with both hands. Squat down, keeping the dumbbell in front of your chest.

Bench Press Workout

Warm-Up

Start with these triceps and pectoral stretches.

1 Resistance band overhead triceps extension

Secure a strong exercise band on the bottom of a solid stand – ideally a squat rack or weightlifting rig. Standing with your back to the anchor, press the band above your head, then bend at the elbow. Hold this tension as the band tries to pull your arm down and you feel your triceps being stretched. Repeat a few times with each arm.

2 Dumbbell flye

Lie on a bench with a light dumbbell in each hand. Open your arms as wide as possible in line with your upper chest with your palms facing up. Hold this position to let the weight of the dumbbells stretch your pectoral muscles. Ensure your arms don’t move above or below your upper chest because this can put pressure on the delicate rotator cuff muscles in your shoulders.

Main Workout

1 Bar-only bench press

Set 4 Reps 6

Begin with some explosive bench presses using an empty bar. As you push the bar off your chest imagine that there is a huge weight on the bar.

2 Bench press

Set 4 Reps 8

Progressively add weight across these four sets to finish just under your working weight. The working weight will be 60% of your one-rep max. If your one-rep max is 60kg you should finish on 30kg here.

3 Bench press

Sets 5 Reps 5

Now you’ll do reps at 60% of your one-rep max. The last set should be a real effort to complete. If you manage all five sets with little effort, then increase the weight by 2.5-5kg next week.

4 Close-grip bench press

Sets 5 Reps 3

Start with your hands in your normal bench press position, shoulder-width apart, then bring your hands closer together by at least two hand widths. The aim here is to try to manage 50% of your one-rep max, ensuring that your arms are locked out at the top of the lift.

5 Incline dumbbell press

Sets 3 Reps 10

Set a bench to a 45° angle and sit on it, holding a dumbbell in each hand by your chest, then press the weights up. If you fail to hit ten reps in a set reduce the weight.

6 Triceps push-down

Sets 10 Reps 10

Set the dual rope attachment to head height on a cable machine and hold the handles. Ensure your elbows are tucked into the side of your body and pull down on the rope, straightening your arms and triceps.

If you don’t have a cable machine you can grab a strong resistance band and loop it high on a stand or rig. Hold the band in both hands and pull down, extending your triceps.

Deadlift Workout

Warm-Up

Start by warming up your lower back, upper back and hamstrings.

1 Downward-facing dog

This yoga stretch is great for preparing for the deadlift. With both hands and feet on the ground, drive your hips up and back. Take deep breaths throughout.

2 Single-leg deadlift

Stand on one leg with a small bend in your knee. Reach down to the ground in front of the standing leg with one hand, moving your non-standing leg backwards to help maintain balance. Hold the position for a few moments to stretch your hamstring. If you need a little help balancing, hold a kettlebell – the added weight can help.

3 Kettlebell fold

Stand on a raised platform like a weight plate or step with your feet together, holding a kettlebell in both hands. Keeping your legs straight, fold over, tucking your chin into your chest as you let the kettlebell lower as far as possible. This will stretch your spine.

Main Workout

1 Deadlift

Sets 2 Reps 5

Start with either very light weights or training plates and do really explosive deadlifts, making sure your hips thrust forwards and that you’re breathing through the lift.

2 Deadlift

Sets 4 Reps 5

Progressively add weight across these four sets to finish a little under your working weight. The working weight will be 70% of your one-rep max. If your one-rep max is 100kg you should, finishing on 60kg here.

3 Deadlift

Sets 5 Reps 5

Now you’ll do reps at 70% of your one-rep max. The last set should be a real effort to complete. If you manage all five sets with little effort, then increase the weight by 5-10kg next week.

4 Banded deadlift

Sets 5 Reps 3

Keep the weight on the bar from the previous sets, and gather together two identical exercise bands and four heavy dumbbells to use for this lift. Place a dumbbell in front and behind each end of the bar and loop the bands over the dumbbells to hold down each end of the bar.

The extra resistance that kicks in as you lift the bar will help you work on your grip and leg drive, and test your will to hold on.

5 Bent-over row

Sets 3 Reps 10

Keep 40% of your one-rep max weight on the bar. With a slight bend in your knees, grasp the bar with your hands shoulder-width apart and lean over the bar with your back straight. From here, pull the bar towards your midriff.

6 Weighted sit-up

Sets 3 Reps 12

Grab a weight plate – anywhere from 5kg to 20kg – and hold it against your chest in the top sit-up position. As you lean back, widen your legs beyond shoulder-width and keep them straight. Sit back up.

There are plenty of compelling fitness-related reasons to do the overhead press, but first let’s address the obvious: hoisting a heavy weight skywards looks incredibly impressive. However, that can be a downside too, leading some people to attempt the move when they’re not ready for it or use too heavy a weight in an effort to impress.

To help you ensure you’re not one of those people, we’ve sought out expert advice from Wahoo Sports Science’s expert strength coach Jeff Hoobler, who provided a straightforward test to see if you are shoulder mobility and core strength to pull it off. Hoobler also detailed how to perform the overhead press, along with assistance shoulder exercises that will help you build strength in the muscles used in the movement. We also dive into the benefits of adding it into your training plan. But first, let’s clear up a couple of common questions. 

Benefits Of The Overhead Press

“I think the biggest reason to do this move is to load the entire body,” says Hoobler. “Any time you put a weight over your head, you’re doing that. 

“You might be working the shoulders, but the corollary benefit is building core stability and building structural integrity throughout the entire kinetic chain [the system of muscles and joints used to perform a movement].” 

Paired with the right nutrition, the overhead press can help build size and power in the active muscles (the delts, triceps and chest) while strengthening other stabilising muscles like the core and lats. And the pushing motion you’re training with this exercise has excellent transferability to sport-specific skills.

“This one’s a little more specific to sports like American football,” says Hoobler. “It depends on what position you're playing, but if you look at an offensive tackle, they’re pushing all the time, so the overhead press is a very key move.”

How To Work Up To The Overhead Press

The overhead press is a great barbell exercise for building strength and size in your shoulders, triceps and even chest, and you’ll find it featured in our favourite gym workout routines, upper-body workouts and shoulder workouts, but it’s not suitable for absolute beginners.

“It’s a good move but it’s not something that I would have a novice do,” says Hoobler. “I would start with dumbbells, the reason being that some people are very limited in their range of motion at the shoulder.” 

Work on mastering the seated dumbbell shoulder press before you reach for your nearest barbell. Using dumbbells allows you to train a greater range of motion through the shoulder, and using an upright bench will provide stability, making it easier to maintain a neutral spine so you can concentrate on keeping tension through your shoulders when pressing the weight. 

To check you’re ready to attempt the full overhead press, try Hoobler’s quick test below. 

“The requirements for the overhead press are that you have good shoulder mobility, and that you can get both hands straight up over your head keeping a neutral spine. Being able to do this is not as common as we'd like to think.”

How To Do The Overhead Press

If you’ve passed the test above, it’s time to try the barbell overhead press. 

“Your intention for this lift needs to be quality over quantity or load,” says Hoobler. “Timing is key, so pick a weight you can control. For most people, a one-count concentric [lifting] phase and a two or three-count eccentric [lowering] is a good place to start.”

“Start with the barbell in a rack at about chest height,” says Hoobler. “Step into the rack and hold the bar with an overhand grip.” Your hands should be just wider than shoulder-width apart. “Brace your core and drive your hands upwards to press it overhead, maintaining a neutral spine throughout.”

“Keep the bar close to your face as you press upwards, then control it on the way down rather than just letting it fall. It’s a simple lift, you’re just pressing a bar overhead, but it’s difficult to execute if you don’t have the core integrity.” This is why you need to keep your core tight throughout, providing a stable base from which to push from. 

You should also keep your forearms vertical throughout the lift, and avoid flaring your elbows too far out to your side.

You might think the body should stay as still as possible during this exercise, but Hoobler says your torso will naturally move when performing the lift. 

“The body does move, but it moves as a unit. As you press, your chest and head will move backward a bit—if you have poor mobility, your body will move more.

“I like to see people just clear their nose [with the bar], keeping the bar path as straight as possible.”

How To Perfect The Overhead Press

Use this advice from strength coach Andy McKenzie to master the movement.

Take a shoulder-width grip

“The wider apart your hands are on the bar, the weaker you will be and the less weight you will be able to lift. Aim for a grip with hands no wider than shoulder-width apart and keep your elbows directly underneath your wrists to keep you in the strongest mechanical position possible for the lift.”

Mobile wrists are key

“For the strongest press possible you need to have mobile wrists so that they can extend back towards your body,” says McKenzie. “The better the starting position of your wrists, the more able you are to initiate the move with a strong push.”

Squeeze your shoulder blades

“At the start of each rep focus on squeezing your shoulder blades together, then focus on using your shoulders to initiate the lift and get the bar moving. Lower the bar under control, ensuring that your shoulders are fully engaged and managing the weight with good form.”

Adjust your head position

“The bar starts across your upper chest below your chin, so your head must tilt backwards slightly as you push the bar up in the straightest line possible to avoid hitting your chin and nose. As you press the bar up, tilt your head backwards so that the bar just misses your nose on the way up.”

Keep your chest up

“You need to keep your chest up during each rep to maintain a strong and stable upper back, which in turn allows better and smoother movement patterns of all the muscles and joints involved in the lift – especially the shoulders, which are one of the most easily damaged joints in the body.”

Common Overhead Press Mistakes

Flaring your elbows: “It sounds odd when the lift is called the shoulder press but where you place your elbows when lifting makes all the difference,” says Scott Britton, CrossFit and powerlifting athlete as well as the co-founder of charitable fitness competition Battle Cancer. “Try to keep your elbows in front of you when lifting. When your elbows flare out to the sides during an overhead pressing move, this can lead to injury in your triceps and increase the risk of tendonitis.”

Incorrect breathing: “Make sure you take and hold a strong breath just before you press the weight,” says Britton. “Timing your breathing to each repetition will not only keep your body more stable but also help force more oxygen into your muscles to last longer.”

Thumbless grip: Use an overhand grip with your thumb wrapped under the bar to keep it secure. Some people place all five fingers over the bar, but Hoobler warns, “I’ve seen bad things happen when people do that, especially when you have sweaty hands.”

Lifting under fatigue: Lifting under muscular fatigue is a key element of strength and hypertrophy training, but it can lead to lazy form. “As you fatigue, it’s very common to use other muscles to assist your last few reps,” says Hoobler. “A lot of the time, you’ll see people get on their toes for that extra little pop of momentum [as seen in the push press].” Hoobler says this is OK to do if you’re consciously making the switch, just make sure you maintain a neutral spine. 

Overhead Press Variations

Dumbbell overhead press

By using dumbbells you’ll work each side of the body unilaterally, which should ensure that you don’t have any strength imbalances. So even if you’re accomplished at the overhead press you should sub in dumbbells from time to time just to check that both sides are working equally when lifting the bar, rather than one doing the bulk of the work. The dumbbell press can also be beneficial for your joint health because it enlists smaller stabilising muscles to control the weight.

Hold a dumbbell in each hand at shoulder height with your palms facing forwards. Press the weight directly overhead, keeping your elbows below your wrists.

Military press

It’s sometimes confused with simply doing an overhead press with strict form, but the military press actually differs from the standard overhead press in that you bring your feet close together, in the manner of a soldier standing at attention. This means your glutes and core have to work extra hard during the exercise to maintain the stable base required for the lift. Since you’re losing a bit of your lower-body stability with this variation, it’s important to put less weight on the barbell than you would for a standard overhead press.

Push press

The push press allows you to recruit your lower body to help you press the weight overhead, so it’s a great variation for people struggling with the full overhead press. There’s also nothing wrong with switching to it halfway through a set of overhead presses if you become fatigued. Start with the bar on your upper chest, then drop into a quarter squat and drive back up, using the momentum to help you thrust the bar above you.

Thruster

The thruster is similar to a push press, but you lower into a full squat before driving back up and pressing the barbell overhead. It’s a winning combination of the front squat and the overhead press, creating an exercise that challenges muscles all over the body. With so many major muscle groups involved, the thruster also gets your heart pumping hard, making it a great addition to a HIIT workout. However, if you are doing it as part of a circuit, be mindful of your form. There’s no point in losing your shape just to fly through the reps quicker – you’ll risk injury and reduce the benefits of the move.

Kettlebell press

This variation is a good way to make sure that your movement patterns are on point when you press, because the way the kettlebell sits on the back of your wrists encourages you to lift it straight overhead rather than to the side or behind you and putting undue strain on your shoulders.

Hold a kettlebell at shoulder height with your elbow underneath your hand, then press it directly overhead, rotating your arm 90° so your palm is facing forwards at the top of the move.

It’s easy to dismiss rack pulls as a poor man’s deadlift, but there’s more to this barbell exercise than meets the eye. It allows you to tackle heavier weights by shortening the range of motion, which can result in stronger back muscles, as well as improved form and power in the top half of your deadlift. 

To familiarise you with the ins and outs of this deadlift variation, we went to NSCA-accredited strength and conditioning coach Andrew Reay, who spoke to us on behalf of sports coach booking platform Sport Session.

Benefits Of The Rack Pull

Rack pulls offer several benefits that may persuade you to include them in your training. 

Improving your deadlift: “I see rack pulls as a way to improve your deadlift,” says Reay. “If you’re weak during the upper portion of the lift then it should allow you to lift heavier, so if you spend a block of time building strength with rack pulls then you can go back and see if your deadlift has improved.”

Posterior chain development: “Many people will do a lot of squatting and bench pressing,” says Reay, “but I think many programmes lack focus on the posterior chain. These are the muscles we use to propel us forwards, in sport and in everyday life, so we don’t want to miss training them! The rack pull can put a lot of load through the posterior chain, helping to build some serious strength.”

Developing strength: There are few movements that allow you to lift as heavy as the rack pull, including the deadlift. As a result, this is a great exercise for building strength by progressively overloading your glutes and back muscles.

How To Do The Rack Pull

Set up a barbell on a power rack so it’s resting on either a set of hooks or spotter arms an inch or two above knee height. “You should always start with a slight bend in your knees,” says Reay. “A helpful cue is to have the bar almost directly under your shoulders. If you can get into that position, your back should be straight.”

Another top tip Reay suggests to ensure good form is to imagine you’re “crushing oranges under your armpits”. This will keep your arms tucked tight to the sides of your body. 

Take a deep breath in, brace your core and then lift the bar by driving your hips forwards and straightening your knees. Keep the bar close to your legs as you stand up straight. Control the descent to return to the start position. 

Rack Pull Variations

Resistance band rack pull

An easy way to increase the challenge of your rack pulls is to attach resistance bands to the rack’s feet and both ends of the bar. This will increase the overall resistance in the exercise and also progressively load that resistance to the top of the move, when the tension in the band is the greatest. If you’re doing rack pulls to improve the top half of your deadlifts, this is a canny way to make the exercise even more effective in that regard.

Trap bar deadlift

This variation on the standard deadlift eases the pressure on your back during the lift, making it a great option for those new to the exercise. Between rack pulls and the trap bar deadlift you’ll build all the strength required to nail full deadlifts and strengthen your back safely. The hexagonal or diamond-shaped trap bar is designed so you can stand inside it and hold the handles by your sides as you perform the lift, rather than leaning over to grab a standard barbell from the ground in front of you.

Stand in the middle of the bar and reach down to grab the handles. Sit your hips back, raise your torso and look up in front of you. Stand up by straightening your hips and knees, keeping your back flat. Lower the bar slowly back to the start.

Once a staple of the weights room, the military press is now something of an endangered species. The meteoric rise in popularity of the bench press is one reason for this, but the main factor in its diminishing presence is the simplest – the military press is really hard.

Fortunately you’re clearly not one to shy away from a challenge – that’s why you’re reading this guide. Below you’ll find all the information you need to nail this excellent shoulder exercise and impress at your local gym, and also correct someone when they compliment you on your overhead press. Which leads us neatly to…

Military Press Benefits

Like all presses, the military press will increase the strength of your chest, shoulders, upper back and triceps

The wider base of the overhead press – where you stand with your feet shoulder-width apart – provides a much more stable platform for the lift. When you bring your feet together, your core has to do more work to keep you stable during the lift, with your abs and obliques in particular handling more of the load.

Even though you’ll be forced to use less weight with a military press than with an overhead press, you get a better core workout during the exercise. Strengthening your core muscles in this way will have the added bonus of making you able to handle more weight when you do tackle the overhead press or push press.

In short, the military press builds both size and functional strength, making it deserving of a place in any serious training regime.

How To Warm Up Before The Military Press

Never go straight into heavy overhead presses. The ball and socket joint of the shoulder and the muscles that surround it are easy to injure, and this is one of the quickest ways to do that.

Prep your body by doing two sets of 20 shoulder dislocates with a broom handle and then two sets of 30/30 light push presses – that's 30 seconds of work, 30 seconds of rest. Do the two sets with no break, then rest for two minutes. Repeat once more and you’re ready to start working your way through your military press sets – starting light, of course.

How To Do The Military Press

Start with a barbell set up in a squat rack at mid-chest height. Take hold of the bar with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and your palms facing forwards.   

Stand close to the bar and bend your knees so you’re in a quarter squat, contract your core and glutes, and drive up with your legs to stand and take the bar off the rack support. Doing it this way means your lower back is protected when you pick up the weight. Take a couple of steps back so you’ve got room to raise the bar.

Stand with your feet together, like a soldier on parade, and squeeze your glutes and core muscles hard to give you a solid base to press from. Maintain this tension throughout. If you start to go soft in the middle you’ll lose power, arch your back and put pressure on your spine. If that starts to happen, set the weight down.

Holding the bar level with your chin, make sure your elbows are pointing forwards rather than flaring out to your sides. This means you’ll recruit more of your front and side deltoids and pec muscles to help you lift heavier and with more control. 

Take a sharp breath in, tense your glutes and torso, and drive the bar straight up, breathing out as you press. As you near full extension, push your head forwards so your biceps are close to your ears – this will ensure you use good form and don’t arch your back.

As you lower the bar under control to chin level, move your head back slightly so you don’t clip your forehead on the way down. Keep your core tensed throughout the set. Once you’ve put the weight down you can relax. At ease, soldier. Good job.

Military Press Form Tips

Drive through the floor

Think of each rep as a leg press or back squat and drive your feet through the floor. You want to drive down through your feet to create stability and tension in your lower body. This creates a rigid frame, which means more strength can be transferred upwards into your arms as you drive the bar up. So actively tense your glutes and quads as well as your core during every rep.

Work with your breath

“Taking a deep breath before you start the lift will help stabilise your ribcage and shoulder blades,” says strength coach Mike Causer. “Breathe out as you press the weight up and breathe in as you lower it.”

Switch on your core

Keep your core engaged when pressing the bar overhead. Not only does this protect your back from excessive strain, it creates a strong foundation from which to lift.

Hand placement

“Grip the bar with your hands just wider than shoulder-width apart so you can lock your arms out comfortably,” says Causer. “Any wider and you’ll lose drive.”

Forearm position

“Aim to keep your forearms vertical throughout the move to keep the weight balanced and put the load through the elbow rather than the wrist.”

Elbow position

“Keep your elbows vertically in line with your ears – don’t move them forwards or backwards – to make sure you press the weight up through the shortest possible distance.”

Lower to your chin

“Don’t lower the bar below your chin. If you lower the bar too far you’re likely to internally rotate your shoulders excessively and you’ll take the emphasis off your deltoids, so only go as low as your chin.”

Respect the lift

Lift with your body, not your ego, and don’t make the mistake of overloading the bar. This is a technical lift with minimal margin for error, so only lift a weight you can move with perfect form.

Military Press Variations

Dumbbell military press

Using dumbbells rather than the barbell adds another element of instability into the lift, making your core work even harder as you press the weights overhead. It’s also a good way to highlight any imbalances, because you could well be relying on one side of your body to do the bulk of the work when pressing a barbell overhead. When each side has its own weight to lift, that will iron out any strength discrepancies in no time.

Suitcase press

If you want a shoulder press that forces your core to work even harder – therefore demanding that you have your form absolutely perfect when you do military presses – try the suitcase press. Get into military press position, holding a barbell to the side of your head in one hand. You’ll need to have your hand in the middle of it to stop it toppling, and you’ll have to go super-light. Press it, making sure you don’t tilt your body to either side, then lower under control. As with the dumbbell version, working one side at a time ensures you’ll make balanced strength gains.

Arnold press

If you want one exercise to build boulder shoulders, the Arnold press could be just what you’re looking for. Popularised by Schwarzenegger himself, this movement increases the range of motion and time under tension of a standard overhead press and recruits all three heads of the deltoids (anterior, medial and posterior). 

Hold dumbbells by your shoulders with your elbows bent and your palms facing you, as at the top of a biceps curl. Press the dumbbells up, rotating your palms to face forwards and moving your elbows out to the sides as you raise the dumbbells, finishing with your arms extended and biceps next to your ears. 

Small movements can result in big gains, and the barbell shrug demonstrates this perhaps better than any other exercise. Since the movement involved is so small, you can load up a lot of weight on your bar, and all that weight means the strength and power gains in your upper back will be considerable.

This barbell exercise primarily targets the traps, which respond to the challenge of moving the heavy weight used for the motion by growing bigger and stronger, so if you’re chasing a monster upper back then the barbell shrug is one move that will quicken your pursuit.

How To Do The Barbell Shrug

Stand tall, holding a bar in an overhand grip with your hands just outside your thighs. Lift your shoulders straight up, hold for one or two seconds in this elevated position, then lower them back to the start. Throughout the exercise, make sure you keep your shoulders back and your spine and elbows straight.

Barbell Shrug Variations

Behind-the-back barbell shrug

Hold the bar behind your back in both hands for a variation on the exercise that puts slightly more focus on the middle traps rather than the upper traps, which are the focus of the standard movement. Be careful to ensure you’re not stressing your shoulders or upper back unduly with this variation.

Dumbbell shrug

Using a set of dumbbells instead of a barbell works each side of your body independently so you can even out any imbalances in your strength. Hold a dumbbell in each hand by your waist with your palms facing each other. Shrug your shoulders up, pause for a beat or two, then lower back to the start.

Dumbbell upright row to shrug

Combine these two upper back exercises for an efficient double hit. Hold two dumbbells by your waist in an overhand grip. Using your upper back, row the weights up to your chest, taking your elbows out to the side, then shrug to raise them a little higher. Then lower the dumbbells back to the start.

The word “thruster” strikes fear into CrossFit fans the world over, yet they continue to do the move. Why? Because it’s effective. 

The thruster is a one-stop shop for total-body conditioning, developing muscular endurance and delivering significant cardio fitness gains. If you want to put this to the test, see how hard you’re breathing after a quick 10. 

The ability to rattle through reps is an important skill for any competent CrossFitter to master—you’ll need to do 45 thrusters to finish the CrossFit workout Fran, which is a rite of passage for box-goers.

To help you perfect the technique and improve your performance we spoke to professional CrossFit athlete Victor Hoffer. But before Hoffer discusses the finer points of the thruster, here’s which muscles the thruster works and our explanation of thruster form.

How To Do The Barbell Thruster

Start with the barbell in a front rack position, across your shoulders in front of your neck. Your upper arms should be roughly parallel to the floor. Your elbows should be pointing forward and bent so you can hold the bar with your hands. 

Keeping your elbows high, squat down until your hips are level with, or below, your knees, then explode back up to standing. As you do this, use the momentum from your leg drive to extend your arms straight up and drive the barbell overhead. 

Lower the barbell back to the front rack position on your shoulders and immediately start squatting to transition into the next rep.

This should be one fluid movement, rather than a separate front squat and push press, and the bar should travel in a vertical path—straight up and down. At the top of the rep, your hips, ankles, shoulders, elbows and wrists should all be in line.

You can approach the barbell thruster in two ways. Going for a heavier weight and doing low reps will help you build power and strength. Alternatively use a lighter weight and up the reps for a faster-paced, fat-torching, high-intensity workout.

Thruster Form Tips

So now you can do a thruster. Great. But one is rarely enough. In CrossFit, you’re most likely to see thrusters performed at speed, and there’s a knack to doing that efficiently and effectively. To help you get the hang of it, here are professional CrossFitter and Represent 247 athlete Victor Hoffer’s top tips.

Maximize your cycle speed

Hoffer’s first piece of advice is to move weight quickly where possible, rather than grinding through reps. 

“A lot of people take a very long time with their thrusters,” he says. “If you check how long people need to do 10 reps, I might need 25 seconds, but some people might need 32 or 33 seconds.”

While we wouldn’t expect you to match the speed of a professional CrossFit athlete for RX weights, try dropping the weight and developing your ability to move at speed.

Break up long sets

To keep your speed up during long sets, Hoffer suggests taking a short-and-often approach to breaks, rather than holding on for a large set and then taking an age to press the barbell overhead because you’ve lost the lung capacity to keep up the momentum. 

“I prefer to do a quick set, breathe, another quick set, breathe, rather than long sets,” says Hoffer.

Hoffer also divides up a big set into a series of sets that gradually shrink in size, helping keep your motivation levels high. In practice, that might mean splitting the 21 reps in the first round of Fran into an eight, seven and six. 

Common Thruster Mistakes

Thrusters aren’t especially complicated, but there are still a few pitfalls Hoffer has spotted people falling into when performing them.

Letting the barbell travel forward

In the CrossFit Open, we usually have a lot of thrusters,” says Hoffer. “You see people try to do them faster and push the barbell out in front of them, but the better position is to have the barbell over the shoulder and hip.”

To minimize the risk of costly no-reps in competition, make sure you’re locking out your arms directly overhead.

For reference, in CrossFit Open workout 23.2—a one-rep max thruster—a rep was credited when “the athlete’s hips, knees and arms are fully extended, and the bar is directly over, or slightly behind, the middle of the body”.

Not going low enough

You shouldn’t sacrifice form for speed at the top or bottom of this exercise, says Hoffer, who sees a lot of people not going low enough on the squat.

To meet CrossFit’s movement standards, “the crease of the hips must clearly pass below the top of the knees in the bottom position”. 

Thruster Workout

This workout from Hoffer is designed to increase your muscular endurance. It keeps your heart rate high, simulating an Open-style workout, so you can practice performing thrusters under fatigue. 

Complete the following in two minutes then rest for one minute. Complete five rounds in total.

1. Thruster x 10
2. Burpee box jump over x 10
3. Thruster x AMRAP

Thruster Variations

Dumbbell Thruster

The form doesn’t differ much, but there are benefits to doing the move with dumbbells. First, if you have any wrist or shoulder issues that flare up when using a barbell, using dumbbells might be more comfortable because you hold them with your palms facing during the thruster, rather than the overhand grip used with a barbell.

The other major advantage dumbbells have over barbells is that they’ll train each side of the body separately, so you can’t rely on one stronger side to push the weight up. Identifying and addressing imbalances in your muscles is important for reducing the risk of injury. If you notice that one side struggles with a weight that the other is managing comfortably when doing the thruster, it’s worth targeting your weaker side in your workouts until both sides are equally strong.

To do the dumbbell thruster hold two weights by your shoulders, with your palms facing. Drop into a squat, then push up and press the weights straight overhead until your arms are fully extended. Then lower the dumbbells back to the starting position.

Kettlebell Thruster

The kettlebell thruster offers many of the same benefits as the dumbbell thruster, working each side of the body separately to expose and correct any weaknesses, but there are a couple of reasons to use kettlebells instead of dumbbells. One is that you might only have kettlebells available (a very good reason, that) and the other is that the off-centre load of the kettlebell can provide an extra challenge to your core while you perform the thruster.

Hold two kettlebells in the rack position by your shoulders with the bell resting on your forearm and your elbows pointing down. Drop into a squat, then drive back up and push the kettlebells overhead.

Single-Arm Thruster

This is one of the rare occasions where halving the weight can increase the challenge of an exercise, to your core at least. Holding only one dumbbell or kettlebell during the exercise (don’t do single-arm thrusters with a barbell, obviously) means your body has to work to resist rotating towards that side, strengthening your core muscles. You might find that a lighter weight is required to avoid being pulled over to one side, but otherwise perform the dumbbell or kettlebell thruster as normal, holding the weight by your shoulder and pushing it overhead as you come out of a full squat.

There a few things you can do in the gym that provide more satisfaction than nailing a heavy clean. It looks impressive, but you’re not just doing a flashy move for the sake of it – it’s an incredibly effective move for building strength. And you don’t just have to take our word for it – here’s Tom Wright, head coach at online coaching group Movable Muscle, on the benefits of the clean.

“There isn’t a much better developer of strength and power than the clean,” says Wright. “Explosive power primarily comes from the hip drive, which is the crux of all weightlifting movements. It teaches you to create whole-body tension and work your body as a unit. It’s great for co-ordination, timing and structural integrity.”

The power clean is an excellent exercise but also a tough one to master, and it’s not something you should be attempting the first time you walk into the gym. Below you’ll find Wright’s tips for achieving perfect power clean form, plus some advice on variations on the exercise that will help you build the strength and power to perform it correctly.

Whether it’s the power clean or a variation of the move, Wright recommends doing cleans once or twice a week to help build full-body power.

How To Do The Power Clean

The power clean is a terrific exercise with many benefits, but it’s also a move that you need to do correctly to get the most from it and reduce the risk of injury. Here are Wright’s key tips for every stage of the exercise.

Strong stance

“Foot placement should be at shoulder width, with weight evenly distributed throughout the sole, and toes turned slightly out,” says Wright. “One big thing often overlooked is engaging the lats. This is essential for keeping a tight back and maintaining a good body position when getting the bar off the floor.”

First pull

“In the first pull, your hips should stay low and not come up faster than your shoulders,” says Wright. “Try to push the floor away as you drive upwards. Keep your arms locked with your knuckles turned towards the floor. Your elbows will just be touching the outside of your thighs. This position doesn’t change until the bar makes contact with your thighs.”

Second pull

“The second pull is where you violently drive your hips forwards,” says Wright. “Contact with the bar is a result of this, not the aim. This power will transfer into the bar but focus on hip drive and not ‘bar-bang’. It is at this point you pull your elbows as high as you can and begin your drop into the catch.”

Catch the bar

“A clean should closely resemble a front squat,” says Wright. “As soon as the bar is above the hips, your aim is to get into the front rack position and catch the weight with your legs. Once the weight become too heavy to power clean you’ll need to rely on your lower-body and core strength because you catch the bar much lower. This is why front squats are so important in any programme featuring cleans. From here you need to stand the bar up so keep your knees out, chest up, and drive like hell.”

Bar path

“When dropping under the bar you want the transition to be as fast and smooth as possible,” says Wright. “Keeping the bar close to your body will allow you to bring the bar and your shoulder together. Your elbows should be turned out and driving forwards and up to get into the rack position. A missed front rack ends in a missed lift nine times out of ten.”

See related 

• 7 Essential Barbell Exercises To Get Stronger
• How To Do The Kettlebell Clean

Power Clean Assistance Moves

Add these exercises to your workouts to target the key muscle groups so you can lift a heavier weight in your cleans.

Hang clean

Why Doing a hang version of the clean makes it simpler and allows you to concentrate on injecting a powerful hip drive into the move.

How Pick up the bar from the floor as if you were doing a deadlift. Start the move by bending forwards (hingeing at the hips) to send the bar down the front of your thighs until it is just above your knees. Push your hips forwards powerfully to raise the bar, then catch it as if you were performing a conventional clean.

Front squat

Why The front squat will give you the leg strength you need to stand up with the bar once your caught it.

How Rest the bar on the front of your shoulders with your palms facing upwards and your elbows high. Simultaneously bend at the hips and the waist to lower until your thighs are parallel to the floor, then stand up and return to the start. Keep your weight on your heels and mid-foot throughout the move.

Clean pull

Why This move will improve your control during the first and second pull and strengthen your hamstrings.

How Set up as if you were going to perform a clean. Slowly raise the bar off the floor by straightening your legs without altering the angle of your torso. Keep the bar in contact with your legs and raise it until it touches your knees, then lower it back to the floor and repeat the move.

Movable Muscle is an online coaching group that provides programming for fitness professionals looking to unlock their full athletic potential

Do I need to different moves depending on my primary training goal?

The barbell exercises that should make up each training session don’t really change whether you’re training for more strength, increased muscle mass (hypertrophy) or fat loss. In all three scenarios the three big lifts (barbell squat, deadlift and bench press), as well as a few key other ones including the overhead press and bent-over row, should feature. What does change, however, is how long you rest between sets, and consequently the weight you have on the bar.

How do I build strength and muscle size?

To build strength you need to lift heavy – upwards of 80% of your one-rep max. Lifting this heavy means you can only do a few reps and you’ll need to rest longer between sets to allow your muscles and central nervous system to recover. This can be three to five minutes.

When lifting for more muscle mass you will lift lighter – 60-80% of your one-rep max – but do more reps, and keep rest periods under three minutes to maximise the damage to your muscles fibres, because this is what causes your muscles to grow bigger.

What about the big lifts and fat loss?

To reduce body fat you want to keep your rest periods between sets and different exercises as short as possible – under one minute – to elevate your heart rate and build up an oxygen debt that your body must repay post-workout. This increases your metabolism in the hours after lifting to burn more calories. With such short rest periods you will have to reduce the weight on the bar so you can lift safely, especially towards the end of your session when you start to get tired.

How do I perform the big lifts?

When training for strength your best bet is to do straight sets. Doing one move at a time allows you to really focus on maximising your output. For hypertrophy you can do straight sets, or pair two moves together – such as the bench press and bent-over row – in a superset.

What’s a better big lift approach for fat loss?

A great option is a barbell complex, in which you do a variety of bar moves back to back in a circuit. It’ll work all your major muscle groups as well as your heart and lungs to burn maximum calories in a short period of time. Try four sets of ten reps of the below five moves, resting for two minutes after exercise five.

1. Deadlift
2. Front squat
3. Overhead press
4. Bent-over row
5. Romanian deadlift

How do I incorporate auxiliary moves?

For strength gains you can use the assistance moves as part of your warm-up, or after the main lift to work on your weaknesses. For hypertrophy, you can focus on specific body-part lifts to cause maximum muscle damage. For instance, for a bigger chest, you can do the bench press, then the incline dumbbell press in a superset with incline dumbbell flyes. Focus on key body parts each session and really hit them hard. For fat loss, a well-executed circuit-style session will be enough to get your body burning fat.

In a perfect world, we’d all be athletes – able to overhead press with zero pain and perfect form, maximising muscle with flawless body mechanics. But in the real world that’s trickier than it seems. “If you’re inflexible from your nine to five, keeping your shoulders in position while you press can be tough,” says trainer James Adamson. “Do them wrong and you can increase the strain on your rotator cuffs.”

Enter the landmine. Landmine exercises involve lifting, squatting or pressing one end of an angled barbell and they’re a worthy addition to any workout regime, but they’re especially good for those new to the weights room. That’s because they act as a stepping stone between unweighted versions of exercises like the squat and the full, loaded-barbell versions. By approaching the bar from a different angle, you’ll reduce the stress while still being able to load up for hypertrophy.

Some gyms will have a dedicated landmine, a device that you insert one end of a barbell in, but you can also do these presses with one end of a barbell pushed into a corner (we recommend wrapping the end in a towel or something similar to avoid marking the wall).

The landmine press is a great exercise for almost all of your upper body, with the chest, triceps and shoulders taking the brunt of the work. The curving path of the press and the neutral grip also make landmines presses slightly easier on the shoulders than vertical presses.

How To Do The Landmine Press

There’s no agreed standard for this exercise, so don’t be surprised if a PT asks you to do the landmine press differently to the way described here. The variations come down to doing the press standing or kneeling, and holding the bar with one hand or two. We’ll run through the form of two common standing landmine presses here, then detail more in the variations sections below. At least you won’t get bored of the landmine press in a hurry.

For the two-handed landmine press, stand holding the weighted end of the barbell with both hands in front of your chest. Make sure the barbell is wedged securely in a landmine device or corner. Your feet should be level and shoulder-width apart. Press the weight up with both hands until your arms are extended, then bring it back down slowly.

With the single-arm landmine press it’s best to adopt a split stance, with the opposite leg to the arm you are lifting with forwards. Press the weight up with one arm, keeping it in line with your shoulder rather than moving it towards the middle of your body. Single-arm landmine presses work the shoulder harder than two-handed presses, which are more focused on the chest.

See related

• How To Nail The Landmine Squat

Landmine Press Variations

Kneeling landmine press

The motion involved in a landline press changes depending on how tall you are, because barbells don’t vary as much in their length as humans do in their height. If you are very tall the move is more like a flat or incline press than a vertical press. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you want a more vertical-style lift, drop onto one knee (on the same side as the arm you’re pressing with) and perform the press. You can also do a two-handed press with both knees on the floor.

Landmine shoulder-to-shoulder press

Holding the barbell in both hands by one shoulder, with your feet level and shoulder-width apart, press the weight up and then bring it down to the opposite shoulder. This movement makes your core work harder to stabilise your upper body during the movement.

Single-arm landmine press with rotation

Start in a single-arm landmine press position, in a split stance with the opposite leg forwards. At the start of the movement your weight should be over your rear leg. Press up, turn your body and lift your back heel so your weight shifts forwards onto your front foot. Then rotate back down as you lower the weight. This version recruits your legs more and is a good way to build power throughout the whole body.

Landmine squat to press

Combine two key moves with this variation. Hold the end of the bar in both hands, squat down until your thighs are parallel to the floor, then stand up and press the bar overhead in one motion. The forward angle on the press reduces shoulder stress, and you don’t need a bar on your back.

How many deadlift variations do you need in your life? It’s a question that everyone who lifts weights regularly should ask themselves, and the answer is at least three. The standard deadlift should, of course, be on the workout schedule of every serious gym-goer. The other two deadlifts to consider are the Romanian deadlift and the stiff-leg deadlift. 

These two exercises look similar, and both put more focus on the hamstrings than a regular deadlift, but they differ in how much you bend your knee and the flexibility required to execute them correctly. 

The stiff-leg deadlift, as its name suggests, involves less bending of the knee, and so provides a greater test of hamstring strength and flexibility, with less recruitment of the glutes. For that reason, it’s often used as an accessory lift to enhance range of motion, rather than to shift as much weight as possible, as is the case with the standard deadlift. 

To scrutinize this excellent hamstring exercise further, we spoke to certified personal trainer Jeff Dobos, regional manager at renowned global fitness company Ultimate Performance. He’s provided a stiff-leg deadlift form guide, as well as highlighting common mistakes and variations that will help you master this move. 

What Are The Main Benefits Of The Stiff-Leg Deadlift?

The main benefit of the stiff-leg deadlift, says Dobos, is that the exercise starts from the floor, and returns to the floor each rep. Unlike the Romanian deadlift, which involves lowering a barbell from a standing position to mid-shin and up again, resetting from the floor means the stiff-leg variation will “require slightly less internal stabilization of the core and pelvis”, he explains. 

That’s because touching the barbell plates to the floor—or a weight rack or blocks if required due to limited range of motion—provides external stabilization, or consistency, to the exercise. “A Romanian deadlift, conversely, forces you to control the deceleration of the weight in the downward phase, before accelerating it back up, without any external stabilization,” says Dobos. 

As a result, you can focus almost entirely on working through the hamstrings’ full range of motion, and use the floor to reset the exercise each rep rather than having to rely on your core and pelvis to keep the bar level.

How To Do The Stiff-Leg Deadlift

The set-up

As with the standard deadlift and unlike the Romanian deadlift, the stiff-leg deadlift should start from the floor, but only if you’re able to lift the bar from the floor with your knees almost straight and without your back rounding. If your hamstring range of motion doesn’t allow this, you can set the bar up on small lifting blocks or pins in the squat rack.

Next, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and the barbell in contact with your shins. Rather than locked straight, your knees should be ever so slightly bent. The aim is to maintain this slight flex throughout the exercise. Push your hips back and hinge forward to grasp the bar with an overhand grip (palms facing you). 

The lift

If the bar has been set at the right height for your range of motion, your back should remain flat in this starting position. From here, move your shoulder blades back and down to engage your latissimus dorsi muscles, and inhale to brace your core. With your weight in your heels, drive your hips forward to lift the bar off the floor until standing straight.

As with other deadlifts, “breathe and brace” before you initiate the lift, says Dobos. Taking a deep breath ensures your lungs are full of air and helps engage the transverse abdominis muscle to provide core stability. “Maximizing this intra-abdominal pressure provides extra spinal support and helps maintain tension in the target muscles,” says Dobos.

The return

At the highest point of this lift, your knees should still be slightly bent rather than locked. While keeping your knees set in place, push your hips back to slowly lower the weight to the starting position. Keep the bar touching your body throughout and avoid jerky movements—keep it slow and controlled.

“A second cue that is more specific to the stiff-leg deadlift is to consider pushing your hips back,” says Dobos. Because the knees must remain fixed so as not to flex, the act of pushing your hips back will help maintain a neutral spine while your chest is able to fall forward towards the floor.

Common Stiff-Leg Deadlift Form Mistakes

The most common pitfalls associated with the stiff-leg deadlift relate to a limited range of motion and an unsuitable set-up. 

Poor bar path

“For every variety of deadlift, the bar should always remain over the center of the base of support, meaning that it should always be directly above the midfoot,” says Dobos. With the stiff-leg deadlift, however, it’s common to see people getting caught up with keeping their knees locked in place but forgetting to keep the bar close to their shins. 

Instead it will drift away from their midline, heaping extra strain on the lower back. “This forward translation of the bar multiplies the force being placed on the spinal erectors and will ultimately reduce the challenge exerted on the hamstrings,” says Dobos. 

A simple fix is to “push your hips back” when lowering the bar, as Dobos noted above, and to keep your weight in your heels throughout the move to keep the bar grazing your shins as you start and finish the lift. As with most deadlifts and Olympic lifts, that’s why shin-length socks come in especially handy.

Lifting from the floor when hamstring ROM is limited

The second common error Dobos points to is when someone insists on performing a stiff-leg deadlift from the floor, even when their hamstring flexibility isn’t up to it. 

If that describes you, don’t take it as failing. Some of us are tall, some are short, some have a broad range of motion in our posterior chain, some don’t. “Despite this,” Dobos continues, “the barbell is always the same distance from the floor with standardized bumper plates.” In other words, you should always customize the set-up for the stiff-leg deadlift to match your unique physical capacity. 

“Always assess your range of motion before performing this move and adjust your set-up accordingly,” says Dobos, noting that if your back starts to round as you lower the bar you should reduce the distance it needs to travel. 

“You can still enjoy all of the same benefits of this move when practicing it to small lifting blocks, or to pins in the squat rack, if that’s what is required to lift safely,” he says. 

Stiff-Leg Deadlift Variations, Progressions and Regressions

Because of the unique requirements of the stiff-leg deadlift, progressions and regressions are limited to using dumbbells instead of a barbell, or practicing this on one leg rather than two. That said, there are plenty of alternative exercises you can use to challenge the hamstrings. 

Stiff-leg deadlift with dumbbells

This exercise can be performed with dumbbells or kettlebells, but will require even greater range of motion when you start with the weights on the floor because you’ll need to lower them further than you would with a barbell loaded with bumper plates. Again, it can be performed from small blocks if required. Using dumbbells, as opposed to a barbell, will help to iron out any imbalances in the muscles on either side of your body.

Stiff single-leg deadlift

This is a great single-leg exercise to boost strength for runners and people who play team sports, because it trains your legs in the manner they are used when running. You’re not moving forward with two-footed leaps, right? You can use a barbell, or two dumbbells, or even just one dumbbell but whichever you opt for, keep the weight fairly light. 

Start in the normal stiff-leg deadlift position, holding your chosen weight close to your thighs. Bend forward, taking one leg off the floor behind you as you lower the weight. Keep the raised leg straight and your pelvis level rather than allowing it to rotate. Once you feel the stretch in the hamstring of your grounded leg, reverse the movement to return to the start.

Romanian deadlift

Another variation on the deadlift, this exercise provides a greater challenge for the hamstrings. Stand holding the bar with feet hip-width apart and hands shoulder-width apart, shoulder blades packed back and down to engage your lats and spine in a neutral position. Take a deep breath to brace your core, then sit your hips back to let the bar travel down your thighs to just above or below your knees, depending on your flexibility. You should feel a deep stretch in your hamstrings at this point. Pause, then press the floor away and drive your hips forward as you exhale to stand tall. Pause, squeeze your glutes hard, then repeat.

Rack pull

Load a barbell in a squat rack, set to mid-thigh height. Stand with quads touching the bar, sit your hips back and hinge forward to grasp the bar with a shoulder-width grip. Keep your spine in neutral, eyes on the ground just in front of you, and move your shoulder blades back and down. Avoid flexing or extending your mid back. From here, take a deep breath in to brace your core, then powerfully press the floor away as you exhale to lift the bar out of the rack and stand tall. Pause, lower the bar to the start position slowly, pause to reset, then repeat.

Sumo deadlift

This wide-stance variation of the deadlift will challenge the adductors on the inner thighs as much as your hamstrings. Stand with feet wider than shoulder-width apart and your toes pointing out at a 45˚ angle, rather than straight ahead. Sit your hips back, hinge forward at the hips and bend your knees slightly to lower so you can grasp the bar. Keeping your chest facing forward, drive through your heels and extend your knees and hips as you exhale forcefully to lift the bar to mid-thigh height, keeping your arms long. Pause, slowly lower under control and repeat.

About Our Expert

The high pull may look similar to the upright row, but it is an entirely different beast. In fact, this compound exercise has much more in common with Olympic lifts than with the upright row. 

That’s because the high pull incorporates all your major muscle groups, including the posterior chain (glutes, hamstrings, back) to initiate and stabilize the movement. It also hits the upper, mid and lower traps in your back, rather than just working the upper traps–prioritizing these can make your posture look hunched. 

On top of all that, the high pull is one of the best shoulder exercises. It is a brilliant movement for targeting your rear delts and a great tool for improving the stability of your most mobile joint.   

Finding another movement that targets all these areas is difficult, and that’s what sets this exercise apart. It’s a great exercise to add to your training, but it’s also easy to get wrong. Here’s everything you need to know about the high pull.

High Pull Benefits

The high pull engages many different muscle groups in a dynamic manner, making it a great exercise for increasing co-ordination and developing functional movement patterns. This will come in handy when you perform compound exercises with a heavy barbell, such as deadlifts and bent-over rows. The high pull is popular with powerlifters because it helps them master more complex movements. “Going straight into a full clean is hard, so people often begin their powerlifting journey with the high pull. It’s a nice entry into the Olympic lifts,” says Raynsford.  

High pulls are also great for maintaining good posture. If you spend a significant amount of time in front of a screen, you are at a higher risk of developing rounded shoulders and tight chest muscles. This can lead to your delts being internally rotated, which places significant stress on the rest of the shoulder girdle. “It’s a nice exercise to get fully extended into that upright position,” says Raynsford. However, if you’ve already developed postural problems, the high pull may not be your best option. “As it’s quite explosive, it can easily go wrong,” he warns. 

Similarly with shoulder health, the high pull can be a double-edged sword. “Is a high pull going to correct issues in your shoulder? It depends on what those issues are,” says Don Saladino, a celebrity personal trainer and a Lumen ambassador. “For example, the high pull is a great movement if you need to work on your rear delts. However, this exercise is not for beginners. It adds power and strength to your shoulders, but it can also strain them.” 

High Pull Risks

The high pull offers many benefits, but this exercise is not for everyone. “Even though it’s not a highly advanced movement, but rather a prerequisite to more advanced exercises like a snatch or a clean, I would not recommend it for beginners,” says Saladino. “To put it simply, the high pull can mess them up.”  

To start with, it requires impeccable form. “The high pull is a movement where you can easily start in a poor position and use a completely wrong set of muscles,” says Cody Mooney, a former CrossFit Games athlete and the director of performance for the mobility and recovery app pliability. 

You also won’t be able to complete the high pull with good form unless you have sufficient mobility in your upper body. “When you start this exercise with poor posture, with shoulders internally rotated and tight pecs, you’re not going to set your shoulder position right,” says Mooney. “You will execute this movement by overusing your traps. You’ll be digging yourself deeper and deeper into poor posture. But if you have mobility, you can loosen your back and get your shoulders back and down. You can still engage your traps, but you’ll also work your front delts and lats. You’ll be able to get into that good posture and maintain it throughout the exercise.”

Your lower body also needs a good degree of mobility. “Because the high pull is an explosive movement and needs to be initiated from the lower body, make sure you know how to do a hip hinge properly,” says Saladino. Without a good range of movement in your hips, you are bound to put excessive strain on your upper body. “In that case, the risk of an injury outweighs the reward,” says Saladino. 

The takeaway? Master your basics before attempting the high pull. Even if you’re a seasoned gym-goer, be mindful of the strength and mobility needed to perform this exercise safely. “Before you attempt the high pull, consider booking a one-off session with a personal trainer or strength and conditioning coach to understand what kind of groundwork you may need to do,” says Raynsford. 

High Pull Vs Upright Row

At a glance, the high pull and the upright row look similar. However, they work on vastly different principles. “If you’re doing the high pull correctly, it’s almost like a vertical jump. It’s a ballistic exercise,” says Saladino. “The upright row focuses instead on creating tension in the muscle, so it’s more of a bodybuilding exercise.” 

The upright row and the high pull also differ in terms of muscle engagement. “The upright row is focused on isolating the shoulders and upper back muscles, while the high pull is more about working several big muscle groups at once,” says Mooney. As such, picking the right exercise will largely depend on your fitness goals. If you’re hoping to develop power and full-body co-ordination, choose the high pull. But if building strength and muscle mass is at the top of your priority list, you may get better results from the upright row.  

In addition, the upright row tends to be less demanding on the lower body than the high pull. There won’t be any need to work on your hip mobility or master the triple extension, and you can focus entirely on your upper body. As a result, it may be a better option for beginners or those who struggle with range of motion. 

How To Do A Barbell High Pull

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, holding the barbell just in front of your thighs. Your grip placement should fall about a hand’s width outside of each leg. Keeping your glutes and abs engaged, push your hips back and bend your knees slightly, then push through your heels and extend your ankles, knees and hips to pull the bar upwards in one controlled movement, keeping it close to your body. As the bar rises, shrug your shoulders to pull the bar as high as possible. Slowly lower back to the start position.

Pay attention to the positioning of your lower body. “The biggest issue we see with the high pull is when athletes try to lift the bar off using their upper body, turning this exercise into an upward row,” says Raynsford. “Make sure you maintain triple extension through your lower body, ensuring your ankles, knees and hips work together and extend simultaneously. Once you’ve nailed that, more power will come from your lower body. The momentum will carry the weight upwards, so it’s just a little bit of work through the upper body to finish the movement off.”

Getting enough momentum is important, but don’t overdo it. “If you want to lift really heavy weights, make sure that you use your traps, rhomboids and delts to finish the movement,” says Raynsford. “If you fully rely on momentum, you can end up hyperextending through the lower back.” 

High Pull Form Tips

1. Pick The Right Weight  

Why Lifting too heavy can lead to strain and injury, but going too light may be counterproductive. “When the barbell is too light, you won’t feel like you need to use your legs, because you’ll be able to lift the weight quite easily,” says Raynsford.

How “Take the weight you use for an upright row and increase it by roughly 20%, but make sure you’re still able to get that triple extension through the lower body,” says Raynsford. If you need to go on your toes at the end of the movement, or feel like you’re pulling with your chest, reduce the load. 

2. Go Slow On The Way Down

Why Lowering the bar in a slow, controlled manner increases the intensity without the need to rack up the load, but that’s not all. “The heavier the weight is, the harder it is to move it properly,” says Mooney. “Slowing yourself down will help you focus on your form and movement patterns, as well as build strength and stability in your upper body.”

How Lower the bar on a count of five, keeping an even pace throughout the descent. 

3. Pull From A Rack

Why “When you’re pulling from a rack you have to be really forceful to initiate the movement,” says Saladino. “It’s a good training tool to increase muscle engagement.” 

How Use a power rack, blocks or even stacks of weight plates to set the bar at knee height. With each repetition, pull the bar up and then put it back down on the rack.  

About Our Experts

We’ll be honest: although it’s a common sight in commercial gyms up and down the land, there are many more moves better for building bigger arms than the barbell biceps curl.

We’d rank hammer curls, chin-ups, EZ-bar curls and dumbbell curls as better bang-for-your-buck moves because they force the biceps to work through a fuller range of motion, as well as allowing your wrists and elbows to stay in a more natural position throughout each stage of each rep. And that’s the main problem with the barbell biceps curl: as soon as you start adding serious weight to the bar, it can place significant stress on these two joints.

However, sometimes you might have no other option than to use a barbell to work your biceps – you’re using a hotel gym, say, or your gym is packed to the rafters (although we’ll say again that any of the moves you can find in our biceps curl guide or selection of the best biceps exercises are preferable). If so, you need to train smart to get the muscle-building results you want without risking injury. Here’s how to do the move effectively.

How To Do A Barbell Curl

Stand tall with your chest up and core braced, holding the barbell with your hands just outside of your hips, using an underhand grip. Keeping your chest up and your elbows tight to your sides, initiate the move by raising your hands slightly so you feel your biceps become engaged. While maintaining tension on your biceps, curl the bar up to shoulder height, then give your biceps a one-second squeeze. Start to lower the bar slowly, keeping your biceps tensed and engaged to work as many muscle fibres as possible.

Once the bar is back in the start position, straighten your arms fully to tense your triceps to ensure that your biceps are worked through the fullest possible range of motion.

1. Drive Your Feet Into The Floor

When performing deadlifts or squats, making sure your feet are planted firmly on the floor is essential to getting a good lift – and the same is true when you’re benching.

Why it helps “Pushing your feet into the floor helps you activate your glutes and quads,” says PT Tom Wright. “It also creates torque, allowing you to generate more force for a more powerful lift. Whether it’s for a deadlift or a bench press, proper foot placement can really give you the edge.”

2. Squeeze The Bar Really Hard

Gripping the bar with both hands and giving it a squeeze – as hard as you can – for a few seconds will help prepare your mind and muscles for the heavy lift ahead.

Why it helps “It’s similar to driving your feet into the floor. By squeezing the bar hard you activate your nervous system,” says Wright. “This creates a tightness response throughout the body and helps to recruit more muscles.”

3. Engage Your Core And Keep It Tight

When lifting heavy, you are only ever as strong as your weakest link. Once that breaks down you’ll not only fail to lift the bar, you also put yourself at a much higher risk of injury.

Why it helps “Core strength is true strength, because you’ll perform every lift better if you have a strong core,” says Wright. “Almost all compound movements transfer energy through the legs to the upper limbs via the core, so a breakdown in this chain can be costly for strength.”

4. Raise Your Chest And Keep It Up

This is true of almost every lift, because raising your chest and keeping it up helps maintain correct posture through every rep.

Why it helps “It requires the contraction of your back muscles - essential when doing heavy compound moves,” says Wright. “Locking your shoulder blades back and down creates a solid platform to work from on the bench, and an upright posture for all other lifts. It will also aid with your breathing and bracing.”

5. Control Your Breathing Better

For better cardio performance you need to breathe with your lungs. Better heavy lifting, though, means breathing from your belly.

Why it helps “By breathing into your belly and keeping your abs tight, you create internal tightness that equals heavier lifts – and a far lower risk of injury,” says Wright. “Hold your breath until near the end of the movement, reset and go again. You can expect to add 5-10% to your lifts by mastering this.”

6. Time Rest Periods To Perfection

To burn fat, rest periods must be short. To build muscle they need to be a little longer. But to build raw strength you need to get enough rest between sets to perform at your best.

Why it helps “Strength training uses a different energy system from cardio, and even hypertrophy,” says Wright. “It uses the short-duration ATP system that requires longer to replenish itself. Aim for three minutes of rest if you’re doing three reps or fewer.”

Photography Glen Burrows; model Tom Eastham

Olympic Weightlifting 101

What is it?

Training and competing in the two Olympic lifts: the snatch (where the bar goes from the floor to overhead in one move) and the clean and jerk (where you “clean” the bar to your shoulders, then push-press it overhead and drop underneath it). Competitive lifters get three attempts at each to post a combined total for both.

What’s it best for?

“Although I compete, I first learned the lifts for developing power for other sports,” says strength and conditioning coach Alex Adams. “It’s essentially jumping with weights, so it improves not only strength but speed and rate of force development.”

What are its limitations?

It’s not exactly entry-level. “To do the full lifts safely requires very good mobility, flexibility and balance,” says Adams. “This shouldn’t put people off – practising the positions is a great way to improve knee and hip flexibility.” But forget the cardio until you’re experienced. “Fatigue reduces rep quality, so Oly lifts aren’t great for metabolic work until you’ve learned your technical limits.”

The outside view

“Olympic lifting is very technical and to be good requires a lot of practice,” says powerlifter Tom Hamilton. “If you get bored easily, it isn’t for you. The benefits are clear though – it builds strong, powerful physiques, requires a good level of flexibility, gives you clear targets to work on and can be fun.”

Instant expertise

Learn the hook grip

Tuck your thumb under your first two fingers. It hurts but it works. “It secures the bar much better and leads to higher loads lifted in the long term,” says Adams. “Anyone who lifts should use it.” It’ll also help you improve your deadlift.

Know your power hangs

“The terminology is fairly simple: power variations are lifts caught in a half squat or higher,” says Adams. “Cleans and snatches can be done from the ‘hang’, meaning that you don’t start from the floor – but you could start anywhere from knee to mid-thigh, depending on what you’re working on.”

Don’t say “squat clean”

“That’s a CrossFit thing,” says Adams. “In reality, every full squat or clean should be caught at full squat depth – otherwise it’s an indication that you could be lifting more.”

You’ve made it when…

You can clean and jerk your own bodyweight. “That’s my initial benchmark, but you’re doing well if you can then progress to snatching bodyweight,” says Adams. Want to compete? Standards are high: to qualify for a English national competition you’d need to total 239kg as an 85kg lifter.

Build Power Session

“Most sessions will begin with snatch or a snatch variant,” says Adams. “It takes the most speed to execute so it comes when you’re freshest. I usually do both lifts on the same day but vary the exact exercise to limit the crossover and fatigue. Most sessions will have a heavy squat or pull but rarely both. Assistance work like pressing, rowing and back and abs comes last.”

1 Snatch pull

Sets 5 Reps 2

It’s easier than the full snatch, but still a great power generator. Set up with the bar on the floor and your hands fairly wide. Drive up, and bump the bar off your hips as you shrug it slightly upwards. Drop, reset and go again.

2 High hang clean

Sets 4 Reps 2

Start with the bar in your hands, with a shoulder-width grip. Bend your knees slightly, then do a small jump as you explosively bring the bar to your shoulders.

3 Front squat

Sets 4 Reps 3

Take the bar out of a rack with it resting across the front of your shoulders, supporting it slightly with your fingertips. Squat down with your weight on your heels, and drive back up.

4 Bent-over row

Sets 3 Reps 8

Bend forward at the hips, and pull the barbell to your sternum. Pause, then lower.

5 Hanging leg raise

Sets 3 Reps 10

Hang from a bar with your legs straight. Bring them until they’re at 90˚ from your torso, pause and lower.

This month marks 40 years since one of the most controversial Olympic Games of all time, yet the legacy of Montreal 1976 still burns bright. These were the Olympics in which 25 African nations boycotted the event – in protest at New Zealand’s rugby tour of South Africa during the apartheid era. Where Bruce Jenner (now Caitlyn) shattered world records to claim decathlon gold. And where Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci scored the first ever perfect 10 – and then six more – in her pursuit of a gold medal trio, aged just 14.

But none of these sporting Hallmark moments have a foot in the present (excluding Jenner, perhaps, who is seldom absent from the MailOnline’s sidebar). Instead it’s the Soviet Union weightlifting team – that snaffled seven of the nine available golds – and, more specifically, their deeply coveted scripture: the 1976 USSR Weightlifting Yearbook.

Four decades on, this elusive text is long out of print, though its teachings pass from gym to gym like a photocopied Masonic handshake. The content is simple – a six-week plan of barbell squats three times a week, with a view to upping your one rep max (1RM, or the maximum you can lift if you only have to do it once) – yet, to its weights room disciples, the Russian Squat Routine is a gym-floor Holy Bible.

But in a modern fitness era that embraces CrossFit, HIIT and dynamic bodyweight workouts, can a middle-aged, monotonous, suitably Soviet prescription of heavy metal still hold weight? Or has gym bro and hipster culture collided to falsely trumpet a long-outdated trend? If you blew the dust from your hip flexors, you just might find out.

Barbell squats are the single most effective exercise to pack muscle to your frame.

In a New York Times essay bearing the headline “What’s The Best Exercise?”, Professor Stuart Phillips nominated the squat, branding it “very potent” in combating the effects of sarcopenia – otherwise known as the breakdown of muscle mass that comes with ageing. So this is something every man needs to be considering.

Gains aren’t restricted to keeping the Reaper at bay, either. Often dismissed as a mere leg day staple, loading bumper plates onto a bar, getting low and driving upwards engages a laundry list of upper body parts – your shoulders, back and abs among them. It’s also the sole movement to engage your entire posterior chain (comprising of the glutes, hamstrings, abductors and lower back) and quads simultaneously.

For the gym-shy, time-starved and/or those who want their session simmered down to a single move, consider squatting as your gym-based cheat code.

“Squatting is the kale of workouts – it’s a superfood,” claims Ben Rowe, a vending machine-sized bodybuilder and lead coach at Team Benbo. “As it’s a compound movement, squats will assist in building muscle in your entire body. It’s proven that your body triggers an increase in growth hormone and testosterone, whereas day-to-day activities like climbing stairs or bringing in the food shop become a breeze – as squatting improves balance, mobility, strength and joint stability.”

The Russian Squat Routine is the gold standard for taking lifters to the next level.

It’s no nonsense and zero frills – but with a four-decade-strong record for results (including those shiny Montreal medals). With three sessions evenly spaced throughout each week, the first nine progressively up the volume while maintaining 80% of your one rep max. The following nine sessions see volume reduced, ahead of a climactic final day in week six, where your new 1RM is calculated. The programme promises a 5% 1RM increase, colossal for strong squatters whose progress might have plateaued; the difference between gold-and-champers or bronze-and-a-crying-fit at elite level.

Numerous rivals have since emerged, including the Smolov Programme (a torturous routine that spans 13 weeks of super-heavy squats); Westside Barbell Conjugate Method (two squat days a week – the first maximum effort, the second dynamic squatting and deadlifting) and 5/3/1 (one session of front and back squats a week, for four weeks, of varying effort).

But there’s a reason we’re still discussing the Soviet programme in 2016 and not, say, that of the East German Olympic team. And not just because the latter fell foul to a state-sponsored doping scandal. While a cynic might also level a healthy dose of suspicion at the Soviets – particularly given Russia’s current suspension from Rio – you only need whisper “Russian Squat Routine” in the weights room at your nearest gym to see how highly it’s still regarded today.

To properly test the Soviet approach, I subjected myself to the exhausting programme.

I’m a moderately active gym-goer of average fitness, so someone just like you, perhaps.

Upon arrival at Fitness First Liverpool Street on day one, I find an ally in Matt Smith (no, not that one. Or that one). A towering, friendly PT of 28, Smith combines northern charm with his own inspirational back story – just three years ago he was 11st heavier with a 54in waist.

“It’s fairly straightforward,” Smith says of the Russian Squat Routine. “I think the reason it’s so popular is because it’s lasted 40 years. Weightlifting can be quite faddy, protocols come and go, and things get picked up and passed around. But follow this to the letter and it works.”

As my soft palms become closely acquainted with the rack’s cold steel, the early surprise is not the monotony that comes with performing the same exercise ad infinitum; there’s plenty of accessory work, from foam-rolling to split squats and calf raises. Or the load: once a 1RM is calculated then, by design, each squat is within your capabilities. It’s form. I’d always presumed my straight back and protruding backside gave ample protection to my spine while squatting, but throughout week one Smith meticulously readjusts my position.

Commands are offered on a loop (“Arse under!” “Chin down, chest up!”) until it becomes a reflex. Had I attempted the programme solo, I may have performed 300 squats with chiropractor-baiting grace or, more likely, a handful before suffering an injury. “It’s definitely a two-player game,” confirms Smith. “You need someone to help you with the physical monitoring aspect.”

As the programme progresses, the only drawback I experience comes from consecutive training days depleting my energy. The plan itself advocates a day’s rest between sessions – so it cannot shoulder too much blame – however the Soviet Union circa 1976 clearly didn’t anticipate the daily diary of a 21st-century male. That said, bunching up sessions doesn’t derail progress, and is put into context by Smith. “Hashtag: life,” he muses.

Hurtling toward the climactic final session, I feel I’ve succeeded. From a starting weight of 12.5st, I’ve shed nearly 4.5lb of fat, while gaining 4.7in on my thighs and 1.2in on my biceps. I’m down 2.7in on my waist, and also a belt notch.

Despite the rigorous, repetitive style, I find myself relishing the programme – even longing for the squat rack on rest days, where previously I might have avoided it. Besides, there are few things quite so nourishing as hauling a piece of metal that weighs more than you do.

Six weeks in, my 1RM skyrocketed from 90 to 112.5kg.

That’s 25% growth, maths fans. Say what you like about the since-dissolved Soviet Union, its efficiency in this regime cannot be dismissed.

Following my decisive squat – a sweaty, shaky-legged affair that left me prostrate, gasping for breath and feeling like a deflated party balloon – Smith expressed a proud sense of bewilderment that, “You were only supposed to get to 94.5.”

As he clutched my arm and eased me gently on to my Elvis Presley-cum-Bambi legs, he laid down the gauntlet for one final challenge. “Find out what animal weighs 112.5kg,” he adds, grinning. “Because that is what you just squatted.”

So, take on the Russian Squat Programme and you too could grow strong enough to lift a harbour seal, striped dolphin or, fittingly, Eurasian brown bear cub. They’re big, and terrifying, and most commonly found in Russia.

For more info on Matt Smith or to book personal training sessions, visit fireandsteelfitness.com. With thanks to Fitness First Liverpool Street: fitnessfirst.co.uk

Like most men, I used to see Olympic weightlifting as an odd sport full of singlets and tiny differences in technique. But ‘Oly’ lifting, as it’s known, is emerging from the shadows. For instance, the snatch and the clean and jerk are so heavily featured in CrossFit workouts that if you want to progress, you need to nail them.

The snatch is the one where you pull a barbell overhead from the floor while dropping into a deep overhead squat, then standing up. The clean and jerk is one lift in two parts: first you pull the bar off the floor and catch it, then you drop into a split stance while pushing the bar overhead. As you might imagine, these aren’t like biceps curls. You can’t just watch someone do a bunch of them and get the form right.

So I enrol for a month of Olympic lifting sessions at The Athlete Centre in Oxford. These twice-weekly classes are run by TAC’s head of strength and conditioning, and fanatical Olympic lifter, Barrie-Jon Mulder.

Slow Burn

‘It takes serious time to become proficient in both lifts,’ Mulder tells me before our first session. ‘But they are extremely effective exercises for developing power, muscular co-ordination, flexibility and mobility.’

After a surprisingly long, 15-minute warm-up, we break down the key moves – a far more technical affair than I expected. We start by working on a hang pull, the part of the clean and jerk where you pull the bar from thigh to navel. It’s a bit like pulling your trousers up, with an explosive hip drive to speed the whole process up. ‘Starting in the hang position helps people establish how to bump the bar off the right part of their legs to get it overhead efficiently,’ explains Mulder.

Next come overhead squats, where we sink down with the bar held overhead in a wide grip – the ‘snatch grip’. ‘This improves hip mobility and helps you establish where the bar needs to be to maintain balance in the bottom position of the snatch,’ says Mulder. Before I leave, Mulder gives me a comprehensive three-times-a-week training programme I can follow in my own time.

That sinking feeling

The following week we’re on to hang cleans and split jerks, to help me master the final stage of the clean and jerk. To ensure I’m doing snappy kicks that generate as much explosiveness as possible, Mulder puts weight clips in front of me that I have to kick forward rather than jump onto. I also do snatch drills that consist of taking a bar out of a rack in a back squat position and dropping into a squat while pressing the bar overhead.

In the third week, my kung fu-style session involves doing cleans from the floor while Mulder holds out two broom handles to either side of me at navel height. The idea is that I have to just touch the broom handles as I pull the bar up my body and sink under it into a clean: anything higher and, by Olympic competition standards, my reps won’t count.

During the fourth and final week Mulder says he feels I’ve progressed enough to start doing the full moves. We start with the clean and jerk and I quickly manage to get up to 60kg.I find I perform better reps when I feel, rather than think, my way through each stage of the move. At 70kg, however, my form keeps breaking down no matter what I do. We stop, but Mulder is pleased with what we’ve achieved.

I keep losing my balance on the snatch but persist and eventually get up to 50kg. Mulder’s scream of excitement as I dump the bar after my last wobbly rep indicates I’m now a fully-fledged Olympic lifter.

There’s a huge amount of work to be done before I can consider myself proficient in either lift, but I can now take on more CrossFit workouts – and that’s what I’d set out to achieve when I embarked on this experiment.

theathletecentre.com

The deadlift is probably the most functional exercise you can do. It uses nearly every major muscle group and most of the small, stabilising muscles, which increases levels of growth hormone and testosterone to help you build strength and muscle mass. But like every big lift, it has risks if you don’t warm up properly or you use incorrect form. These range from prolapsed discs and nerve impingement to ruptured tendons. But don’t fret – following the steps below will ensure you avoid the pitfalls.

Warm welcome

Warming up is crucial for avoiding injury, especially for big compound lifts. For beginners, I’d first recommend lifting an empty bar and focusing on form (see the box below). Then you can add weight with every subsequent warm-up set, increasing it each time by 10-20% of the weight you intend to lift in your main workout per set, until you reach around 80-90% of that. You should also perform extra reps during your early warm-up sets, then reduce the amount incrementally until you reach your main workout rep range in your final warm-up set.

So if your main workout is three sets of five reps with 100kg, warm up by performing eight reps with an Olympic bar (which weighs 20kg), followed by seven reps with 40kg, six reps with 60kg and five reps with 80kg, resting for two minutes between sets. This means the heavier you lift, the longer it takes to warm up, but it’s worth the effort to stay injury-free.

Flex appeal

A key element of correct deadlift form is keeping your back flat with your spine in a neutral position, but this can be tricky if you’re not flexible. Adding light Romanian deadlifts to your warm-up will help loosen your hamstrings, but if you’re still struggling with form, try elevating the bar in a low rack, because this reduces the pressure on your lower back. As your hamstring flexibility improves, you can gradually reduce the elevation.

Deadlifting with a mixed grip (one hand in an overhand grip and the other underhand) allows you to lift more weight but increases spinal rotation and makes it harder to maintain a strong back position. If you want to keep the lift as safe as possible, stick to a regular grip. If you use a mixed grip, switch hands with every set to minimise the risk of muscle imbalances.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is to train to technical failure rather than complete failure. Stop as soon as your form slips, rather than trying to force out extra reps. You’ll progress faster and stay healthier.

How to deadlift properly (and safely)

Stand with your feet between shoulder and hip-width apart and the bar 3cm or so from your shins. Grab the bar just outside your legs using an overhand grip, arms locked out and as narrow as possible.

Bend your knees until your shins touch the bar, 
then squeeze your shoulder blades together, push your chest up and brace your core.

Lift the bar directly up, maintaining the arch in your back until the bar passes your knees, then push your pelvis forward, bringing your back into a vertical position, with the bar touching your legs throughout.

Lower under control by pushing your hips back and bending your knees as 
the bar passes the top of your shins.

This article is by Lawrence Farncombe, a strength coach with 20 years’ experience working with athletes in a variety of sports, including powerlifting, boxing and triathlon. Farncombe is an ambassador for Bio-Synergy.

At a glance, the Z-press looks easy. Popularized by the Lithuanian strongman Žydrūnas Savickas, this exercise is basically an overhead press performed while sitting on the floor with your legs straight. But don’t let its simplicity fool you. The Z-press requires strength in your shoulders and core, plus flexibility in your hamstrings and hip flexors, and there’s no way to cheat. Without a doubt, the Z-press takes pride of place among the best shoulder exercises for developing mobility, stability and co-ordination. 

However, your technique needs to be on point if you want to reap all the benefits of the Z-press. Good form is also crucial to avoid painful shoulder injuries and reduce unnecessary strain on your lower back. To help you master the Z-press, we asked strength and mobility experts to share their best training tips. Read on for top-notch advice on how to perform this challenging movement safely and effectively.

Z-Press Benefits

The Z-press is much more than a bodybuilding exercise. “The Z-press mimics the position in all sorts of push exercises. It really builds a lot of stability inside the shoulder,” says Cody Mooney, a former CrossFit Games athlete and the director of performance for the mobility and recovery app pliability. As a result, incorporating this exercise into your workout routine can help you master more complex movements, such as a handstand push-up. 

The Z-press is also a useful exercise if you want to increase your mobility, especially around your thoracic spine and shoulder blades. That’s according to Mitch Raynsford, a certified strength and conditioning coach at P3RFORM, a digital fitness coaching platform. “I always advocate using strength training to improve range of motion,” he says. “If you just do mobility and flexibility exercises, you can be flexible throughout the range of motion, but you might not be strong in those ranges, top and bottom.” 

How To Do The Z-Press

Sit upright, gripping the bar with hands just wider than shoulder-width apart. Aim to keep your hamstrings flat on the floor so your lower back remains tight. Press the bar overhead and push your head through the window created by your arms at the top of each rep—this’ll keep your shoulders healthy. 

“Same as with the push-up, go for a 45° angle with the elbows. Pressing slightly in front of you is going to allow you to work more towards front delts rather than getting pinched through the shoulders. Make sure to keep your shoulder blades retracted and depressed,” says Raynsford. And absolutely do not lean back during tough reps or break the sitting position when you’re not lifting.

“Hyperextending can place a lot of stress on the lumbar spine. Make sure you’re able to keep that neutral spine throughout the exercise,” says Raynsford. Resist the urge to break your form by tightening up your core muscles and pressing your hips into the ground. 

Z-press Form Tips

1. Switch To Dumbbells

Why “I’m a big fan of using dumbbells during the Z-press, because you can’t overcompensate on one arm,” says Mooney. “With a barbell, you sometimes start using more of your dominant arm. And because dumbbells take away some of the stability, your shoulders need to work all those little stabilizing muscles too.” 

How Since the dumbbell Z-press is slightly more difficult than the barbell Z-press, make sure you go for lighter weights.  

2. Slow Down On Your Way Down

Why “One of the best ways to increase intensity is to go slow on your way down. Increasing the time under tension fatigues your shoulder without the need to use a ton of weight,” says Mooney. 

How “You can get creative and mix your rep scheme or the descent time—there are many different ways to build muscles without the fear of hurting yourself,” says Mooney. For example, lower your bar on a count of three.

3. Don’t Skimp On Safety Measures

Why The Z-press is a challenging movement, so make sure you have safety measures in place. 

How “Keep safety bars close at hand. If you can’t rack it, then ask someone to spot you so the barbell doesn’t land on you,” Raynsford said.

Z-Press Vs Overhead Press

Both the Z-press and the overhead press involve lifting a bar above your head to build mass and strength in the shoulder muscles. However, the difference in lower-body position changes muscle engagement. “In the Z-press, there’s more focus on your thoracic mobility and a lot more stress through your shoulders and triceps than with a normal overhead press,” says Raynsford. “You’re not allowed to cheat in any way—you have to do it correctly. If you don’t, then the barbell is not going up.” As a result, the Z-press is a better choice for more advanced exercisers, but even seasoned gym-goers will need impeccable mobility to perform this exercise safely. 

Another notable difference is the maximum possible load you’ll be able to press. The overhead press allows you to put more weight on the bar. That means if shoulder strength is at the top of your priority list, you may be better off ditching the Z-press in favor of the overhead press.

On the other hand, the Z-press may be a better option if you struggle to isolate your shoulders. “If you have a tendency to flex your knees or your hips during a standing overhead barbell press, a bit of the work will come from your legs. By doing the Z-press, you take out all of that legwork, and rely on your rear delts,” says Raynsford. “So there’s no way of really cheating it.”

About Our Experts

The squat is heralded by those in the know as the king of exercises – a full-body strength builder that’s the backbone of most serious training programmes. Among serious gym-goers, what you squat is considered much more important than what you bench, but it’s also one of the toughest moves to get right. 

How low can you go?

To see what your squat might be missing, look at any Olympic weightlifter. They’ll typically squat ‘ass to grass’, or as low as possible. This helps them to catch a snatch or clean, but also builds huge strength in the glutes, quads and hamstrings. 

You may not want to go that low, because it reduces the amount of weight you can handle. But remember that for a squat to be worthy of the name, your hamstrings have to make contact with your calf muscles at the lowest point of the move. 

Also remember that your chest should remain upright throughout the squat. A common mistake with the back squat is leaning forwards until your chest almost touches your thighs, at which point you’re endangering your lower back. 

The absolute minimum-depth squat you can get away with is the powerlifting version, sometimes called a ‘sumo’ squat. This is designed to shift the maximum weight while staying competition-legal and involves taking a wider stance, but still getting the hip crease below the knee. 

Do you know squat?

What should you do if you can’t manage a normal back squat? One solution is to reduce the weight - there’s no shame in squatting nothing but the bar – but if you’ve been out of action for a while, you may be missing the hip and ankle flexibility required to squat at all. 

The solution is to stick with unilateral exercises such as the split squat, which basically involves staying in the ‘bottom’ position of a lunge. The next step up is the goblet squat – hold a dumbbell in both hands like a goblet, then squat until your elbows touch the inside of your knees. Not only does this act as a gentle weighted stretch if you hold it, it’s also impossible to do while leaning forwards so it encourages good form. 

The next step up is the front squat. Many strength coaches will tell you this is the only squat you need and it’s certainly tougher to get wrong than the back squat. For a real challenge, warm up with an overhead squat, holding a bar or broomstick in a wide grip fully extended over your head. This takes full-body mobility and it’s a great test of core strength. 

Done all those? Then hit the back squat – and watch your legs grow.

Going down

Squat better by doing this warm-up three times a week

Door handle squat

Hold a door handle and squat as low as possible, keeping your chest up. Do five sets of three reps. 

Wall squat

Face a wall, with your toes as close to it as possible and hands out to the sides. Squat as if you’re sitting on a chair. Do five sets of three reps. 

Goblet squat

Holding a weight in front of you, squat as low as possible. Pause at the bottom to feel the stretch. Do two sets of five reps.

This month’s workout is focused on glute activation and core stability. Activating the glutes, which are among the largest muscle groups, gives you a growth hormone boost and a platform for all-over muscle gains, while core stability is vital for the transmission of force throughout your body, which applies to pretty much every sport. The two barbell movements in it, the overhead squat and barbell rollout, require proper activation of your glutes and trunk to be performed correctly and effectively.

The overhead squat is a true total-body barbell exercise. To perform this taxing movement, you need a solid base of strength, good all-round mobility and a strong midsection. It also packs a powerful punch to the shoulders.

In this workout you will aim to complete 50 overhead squats in as few sets as possible (30 for beginners). To measure your proficiency, record the total number of sets it takes you to perform 50 reps. You should also record the time that it took you, but the number of sets is the primary measure. Focus your efforts on keeping the bar over your head for as many consecutive reps as possible each time.

Perform the overhead squats with a short pause at the bottom of every rep to increase the demands on your core. This will require you to ‘fire out’ the bottom of the squat by tensing your core and glute muscles (your ‘gut and butt’).

To finish off, use the barbell to perform three sets of barbell rollouts. This is a very tough move that will use any strength remaining in your trunk after the overhead squats to keep the barbell under control. A hard contraction of the glutes will ensure you maintain proper back position and make sure you do not overextend your lower back. You can expect this move to have an effect on your upper abs in particular.

Warm-up

Five minutes of low-intensity rowing, cycling or skipping.

Glute bridge - Sets 2 Reps 10
Lie on your back on the floor, with your arms to the side and your knees bent at an angle of around 90˚.
Raise your hips until your knees, hips and shoulders are in a straight line by squeezing your glutes and bracing your abs to avoid hyperextension of the back.
Squeeze and hold for two seconds, then bring your hips back down and repeat.

Shoulder pass-throughs - Sets See below Reps 5
Grasp a broomstick or plastic pipe with a wide grip and pass it over your head, maintaining straight arms.
From this position behind your body, bring the stick over your head and back around to the front. Repeat.
For each subsequent set, bring your grip in a few centimetres until you cannot perform this drill with straight arms. Then bring your grip out slightly and perform one further set.

10 overhead squats with a broomstick or plastic pipe - Sets 2 Reps 10
Take a wide grip on the broomstick or pipe and, with your feet shoulder-width apart, pull your hips back and down, keeping your weight on your heels until the crease of your hips is below your knees.
Maintaining drive through the heels, squeeze the glutes, brace the core and rise out of the squat.

The workout

Beginner  
Overhead squat - Reps 30 with 30% of your bodyweight
Kneeling barbell rollout - Sets 3 Reps 5 Rest 60sec between sets

Intermediate  
Overhead squat - Reps 50 with 40% of your bodyweight
Kneeling barbell rollout - Sets 3 Reps 8 Rest 60sec between sets
 
Advanced  
Overhead squat - Reps 50 with 50% of your bodyweight
Standing barbell rollout - Sets 3 Reps 8 Rest 60sec between sets

Overhead squat form

• Set the bar on your upper back, either from a rack or by cleaning the bar up to your shoulders, then pressing it overhead and down to your back.
• Adopt a wide grip on the bar (the same width as your last set of shoulder pass-throughs).
• Fill your belly with air and press the bar up, locking out your arms, so that the bar is in line with your heels and ears. Keep your chest up and your weight on your heels.
• Squeeze your glutes, tense your core and pull your hips back and down, keeping the bar locked out overhead at all times with an arch in your back.
• Stop when the crease of your hips is well below your knees and hold the position for one second.
• Squeeze your glutes, brace your abs and drive up out of the squat.

Anyone who hits the gym regularly knows how annoying it can be when an injury gets in the way of training. Lifting very heavy weights, as powerlifters do, often leads to injury – but common powerlifting injuries are usually caused by technique problems that can easily be prevented. I’m going to outline three common injuries and the mistakes that cause them, as well as how to avoid them.

Remember – any pain you have must be fully diagnosed and technique adjustments must only be made under the guidance of a qualified physiotherapist.

Lower back pain

This can range from muscular aches to more serious joint or disc injuries that can cause neurological symptoms such as tingling, numbness and weakness in the legs – it’s particularly important to have these assessed by a physio before continuing training.

Solution When squatting, deadlifting or doing anything that involves bending your hips and knees, your lower back should retain its natural concave curve. This can be achieved by visualising tipping the tailbone upwards behind you, particularly as your hips move closer to the ground. Specific training of the deep abdominal muscles and back extensors can help to maintain this posture – learn how to do this type of back exercise in my article about how to fix back problems.

Shoulder pain

The most common form is ‘impingement syndrome’, which involves damage to a combination of structures such as the long head of the biceps tendon, supraspinatus and the subacromial bursa. Pain can therefore be experienced at the front, top or behind the shoulder as well as being referred to the area of the deltoid muscle in the side of the arm.

Solution Technique can be improved by training the scapular stabilisers that hold the shoulder blade in the correct position and allow the stability muscles of the ball and socket joint of the shoulder – the rotator cuff muscles – to work optimally. Find more of this type of shoulder exercise in my article about how to fix shoulder injuries.

When doing any movements in which the arm is not moved above shoulder level (pushing or pulling), you should avoid moving the shoulder blade forwards. When looking at the alignment of the shoulder from the front, its upper contour should form an upward curve (smiley face) not a downward curve (unhappy face).

Neck pain

The small intervertebral discs, facet joints, nerves and blood vessels in the neck can become irritated if this part of the spine is not held in the correct position. This can cause neck pain, headaches and symptoms such as pins and needles or pain in the upper back and/or arms.

Solution When doing upper-body or lower-body resistance exercises the neck should be held in neutral – that is, with a very slight concave curve. Most often the chin is lifted away from the body squashing the structures at the top of the back of the neck and stretching structures at the front. This can be corrected by gently tucking the chin in and ‘elongating’ the back of the neck. Find more neck exercises in my article about how to treat neck injuries.

This article was first published in July 2012. It was updated in 2022 to improve the formatting.

The squat is considered by many experts to be the single best exercise for boosting strength, power and size. But which variation is better: the front squat or the back squat? To find out, we asked Ross Edgley, sports scientist at Myprotein.com, to compare them by examining the muscle activation patterns and movement mechanics of each type.

Weight Lifted

A study at the University of Florida studied muscle activation in 15 trained and experienced athletes as they performed both types of squat at 70% of their one-rep max for three reps. The study uncovered that although the athletes were able to lift 19kg more during the back squat, there was no significant differences in muscle activation of the quads, hamstrings or erector spinae muscles. 

Winner: Back squat (marginally) 

Injury risk

The same study at the University of Florida found the additional load (19kg) during the back squat increased compressive forces during the lifts, making athletes more prone to injury. This led the researchers to conclude the front squat is better at maximising overall muscle recruitment while minimising injury.

Winner: Front squat

Glute activation

One of the most important muscle groups in the lower body for sport is the gluteal muscles (the gluteus maximus muscle, gluteus medius muscle and gluteus minimus muscle) since they are involved in almost all lower-body movement, either as producers or stabilisers of movement. Australian research found that the wider stance usually used during a back squat was better able to activate the gluteal muscles than the narrower stance of the standard front squat. 

Winner: Back squat

The results are in… The back squat edges it here because it allows you to go heavier and activates more muscle fibres. However, you need to include both in your routine if you want to hit all the muscle groups in your legs effectively. Just remember to start light and get your form correct before you start pushing up through the weights. 

The back squat is universally accepted as the single best exercise for total-body strength and has been rightly called ‘King of Exercises’. That said, when I’m asked the best way to assess an athlete’s lower-body strength, my answer is the front squat. And I have four good reasons.

1. It’s Harder To Cheat Your Form

First, the front squat is the most honest test for lower-body strength. It’s easier to cheat in the back squat, so the front squat provides a more objective interpretation of maximal strength levels. This is because if you try to cheat—by shooting the hips back upon the concentric contraction—you’re likely to drop the bar and you could seriously injure yourself. The incentive to be honest is very high in the front squat.

2. It Requires Impressive Flexibility

 
The second reason is that the front squat immediately accesses your flexibility, because you can’t perform the exercise properly unless your flexibility is good in all the major joints. When I give a strength test that requires flexibility, my athletes have a strong incentive to train for flexibility. This is particularly true for bench press addicts who have problems supporting the bar in the correct position on the top of the chest. If an athlete has tight forearms and external rotators of the shoulder, it will be hard to hold the bar. This deficiency can be corrected by learning proper technique.

3. It Places Less Stress On Your Knees

The third reason is based on sport science research. Electromyography (EMG) data suggests that the front squat is more effective than the back squat in activating the vastus lateralis (the largest muscle in the quads) and the rectus femoris (the middle muscle of the quads); also, biomechanical analysis indicates that the front squat places less compressive force on the knee. Put simply, front squats work the quads harder with less stress on the knees.

4. It’s A Strength Coach Favorite

 Still not convinced? The fourth reason I value the front squat is that it is a favorite among strength coaches worldwide. In one survey of top European coaches who were asked what their three top strength exercises were, the consensus was the power snatch, the incline bench press and the front squat.
 
That’s because when comparing the front squat with the back squat, weightlifting coaches believe the front squat is more useful for improving your clean and power clean. This makes sense: the starting position of a front squat more closely approximates the start position of a clean because the trunk is more upright than in the back squat.
 
The back squat would be considered more specific to the snatch, because the wider grip forces the athlete to start with a back angle that is more parallel to the floor. And for a competitive weightlifter, the front squat will obviously help in recovering from the bottom ‘rack’ position of the clean.

As such, if an athlete’s power clean or clean is considered relatively weak compared with their other strength tests, it would be appropriate for that athlete to focus more on the front squat.

Form Tips

To perform the exercise, use a pronated (palms-down) grip as you would for a power clean. Squat until the hamstrings completely cover the gastrocnemius (upper calf) muscles. You should not be able to see daylight between the hamstrings and calf muscles. Keep the trunk upright, and push the elbows up and in.
 
One thing to remember when using front squats is never to exceed six reps per set. This is because your rhomboids tire isometrically before your quads do concentrically. You don’t want to get to a point where you’re squatting with a kyphotic (hump-backed) posture. That’s when accidents happen.

Performing heavy Olympic lifts can be problematic – not only because you’re lifiting massively weighty plates but also because most gyms frown when you drop a 100kg bar on the floor after you’ve finished a set.  These four assistance moves will help you perfect the form you need to go bigger, avoid injury and, due to the fact that you’re using lighter weights, stop you getting told off by nearby personal trainers because you're no longer making an awful racket when you drop the bar.

1 Power jerk

A progression from the push press. You’re still using a strong drive with the legs and a hard drive with the arms, but this time you bend your legs to receive. Keep your chest up and your back tight. Start like a push press, with a quarter-squat and a hard drive. Now quickly perform a second dip to receive the bar with your arms locked out.

Straighten your legs to finish. Because you’re catching with your legs slightly bent rather than finishing with your triceps, you should be able to use more weight. This is good for racquet sports, or for anyone who uses arm and leg power together.

2 Overhead squat

This is very good for core stability. It’s obviously a leg exercise but it's also good for keeping your stomach and back muscles strong, because you can’t lean forward too much. It’ll keep you from injuring yourself in the other lifts. Start by snatching the bar, or taking it off a rack, with a wide grip.

Squat as low as you can without relaxing – ideally your thighs should be just below parallel to the floor. If you’ve got a flexibility problem, just go a bit lower each time. If you arch your back you’ll drop it, so this one keeps you honest.

3 Push press

Whether you're a martial artist or a shot putter, this one will develop leg power. Take the bar off the stand if you're in the gym, so you don't have to learn the power clean. Keep your chest up and your back flat. Dip down and bend your knees into a quarter-squat.

Drive up hard with your legs, get all that power into the bar, then finish off with a pressing movement. Your body should stay upright – don’t lean forward or back. The main thing is to drive with the power from your legs.

4 Snatch high pull

This is exactly the same as the start of the snatch. You want your elbows to make a 90˚ angle at the top, so start with a wide grip. Keep your bum down, chest up and look up, keeping your back straight all the way.

Once you get the bar past your knees, explode up like you’re jumping in the air. Push hard with your legs and pull on the bar, elbows up as high as you can get them. Always keep your back flat. Most weightlifting injuries aren’t that bad, but the one you must avoid is bending your back and slipping a disc.

If you have a gym membership, it’s an excellent idea to spend a lot of time in the weights room mastering a handful of essential barbell exercises. These compound moves are challenging, but yield significant benefits to people who attempt them. But if you find they start to go stale, take a break with some moves, like these. Ideally, you’ll put an empty barbell in a landmine attachment, but you can always wedge the end in a corner.

1 Windmill

Targets Shoulders, lower back, core

Face away from the barbell, holding it above and behind you with your left hand. Keeping your left arm straight, bend forwards from the hips until your torso is parallel to the floor, before returning to the start.

Like this? Try the kettlebell windmill.

2 Hammer jammer

Targets Shoulders, triceps, core

Hold one end of the barbell at chest level with your left hand and wedge the other end against a wall. With your right leg forward and core braced, raise the bar in a smooth arc until it’s above your head before returning slowly to the start.

3 Floor press

Targets Chest, triceps

Lie on the floor and hold the bottom end of the barbell by one side of your head. Press the bar straight up until your arm is straight, then lower slowly.

4 Landmine squat

Targets Shoulders, core, glutes, hamstrings, quads

Wedge the barbell into a corner and hold the other end in one hand above your head. Keeping this arm straight, your back arched and core braced, squat down until your thighs are parallel to the floor before returning.

5 Suitcase deadlift

Targets Hamstrings, quads, glutes, core, lower back

Stand to one side of the barbell. Squat down and grip the bar. Keeping it close to your side, drive through your heels to stand back upright.

6 Landmine

Targets Core, obliques

Wedge one end of a barbell into a corner and grab the top end of it with both hands. Rotate at the waist to one side, then the other. Switch which hand is on top between sets.

7 Single-arm flye

Targets Chest, shoulders, core

Stand facing the wall, holding the bar in one hand just above head height. Slowly turn your arm out to the side, staying in control of the bar throughout, until your arm forms a right angle with your body. Then return to the top.

In This Series

• Introduction
• Variation: Reverse wrist curl
• Variation: Forearm rotation
• Variation: Barbell collar grip

Get a powerful handshake using barbell collars, or crush a rubber ball for the same effect.

Barbell collar grip

• Squeeze the collar and hold for a two-count before releasing slowly.

Get a training partner to help you lift the bar into the 'up' position, then lower it as slowly as you can with good form. 

Negative barbell curl: Step 1

Get help to lift the bar to the start position.

Negative barbell curl: Step 2

Lower the bar as slowly as you can.

Smith machines are those giant racks with a barbell fixed to a set of rails, and they inspire mixed reactions among gym-goers. Some trainers will tell you they let you lift more weight without needing a spotter, while functional training advocates will point out that they require less stabilisation and make proper form impossible on exercises like the squat. But while Smith squats might be out, if you're looking to spice up your workout—or if the Smith's the only bit of free kit in the gym—there's still plenty you can use it for.

1. Inverted row

It's difficult to get enough horizontal pulling into your workout, but these are a great alternative to bent-over barbell rows. Set the bar at roughly chest height, lie horizontally underneath and pull your chest towards it. Start with your feet on the ground and when you find that's too easy, put them on a bench or gym ball.

2. Overhead press

Exercises such as the squat incorporate a slight arc, so carrying them out with proper form requires a barbell, but the classic shoulder press is a safe one for the Smith machine. Keep the bar in front of your face and stand up straight as you push it up.

3. Shrug

As with the shoulder press, the limited range of motion means it's difficult to go wrong with a shrug—and you don't have to worry about hauling the weight off the ground before you can do them. If you've never done them before, they're exactly like they sound. Just 'shrug' your shoulders upwards to work those difficult-to-hit trapezius muscles.

4. Incline bench press

You're better off doing your normal bench press routine with free weights and a spotter, but if your gym hasn't got an incline bench—and many haven’t—this is a great way to target your upper chest.

5. Pull-up

Many gyms have weird, angled pull-up handles that make normal pull-ups tough and close-grip variations impossible. If this sounds familiar, you can put the Smith machine's bar at its highest setting and do pull-ups on that instead.

Andy Bolton became the first man to deadlift over 1,000lb when he lifted 445kg (1,003lb) in November 2006, a record that still stands. Here’s his deadlift form guide. 

1. The Set

“Start with your feet shoulder-width apart and stand so that the bar is touching your shins. The closer you keep the bar to the body, the easier it is to lift. Begin with a double-overhand grip—with your hands slightly wider apart than your feet—but you will need to switch to a reverse grip as you begin to lift heavier weights.”

2. The Lift

“Before you lift, take the tension of the bar. You need to pull it hard and fast but never snatch it: that’s where you get injuries. With your eyes looking straight ahead, exhale before taking a deep breath and drive your heels into the floor, and push up with your legs and lower back together so that the bar reaches your knees. These muscles must lift in harmony otherwise you won’t be able to lift the bar high enough.”

3. The Drive

“Because the bar is close to your legs it can be hard to lift it over your knees. Ensure that your legs lock and back straightens at the same time. This will make lifting it easier and minimize the risk of injury.”

4. The Lock

“The final part of the move involves locking the shoulders so that the bar is held under complete control. Once the knees lock and you’re straight, retract your shoulder blades and keep your head high with the bar under full control. Then reverse the parts of the move to lower the bar back to the ground.”