What Are the Trapezius Muscles (Traps)?

(See 00:28 in the video above.)

When weightlifters say “traps,” they’re talking about the trapezius muscles on the upper back. There are two of them, one on each side of the spine, and they consist of three parts—each with a different function.

The upper traps start at the top of the neck and attach to the upper and outer edge of the shoulder blade. This part of the muscle shrugs your shoulder, rotates your shoulder blade upward when you raise your arm above horizontal, and helps turn your head. The middle traps originate in the center of the spine and spread out to the shoulder blade and acromion joint. The mid traps pull your shoulder blades back and together.

The lower traps start out way down at the bottom of the rib cage and stretch up to the shoulder blade. They do the opposite of what the upper traps do, drawing your shoulder blades downward.

Most guys only train their traps with barbell and dumbbell shrugs, but as we just explained, that shrugging motion really only works the upper traps, so shrugging alone is incomplete training when you want an upper back like a bull. To get trapezius muscles that appear three-dimensional and make you look like you’re wearing an oxen’s yoke—hence the term “yoked”—you need to train the traps’ other two functions. And that’s not just a good idea for building a bad ass physique. Strengthening the middle and lower traps will also help to ward off shoulder injuries and keep your upper back in balance with your chest.

Ask any physical therapist who’s dealt with clients complaining of shoulder pain from too much pressing or poor posture—they often prescribe scapular retraction and lower-trap exercises to restore balance. Chronic slouchers often experience scapular winging—excessive outward movement of the shoulder blades—which can lead to poor shoulder mechanics in pressing and reaching overhead. Strengthening the lower and middle trap helps offset that, explains Chad Waterbury, DPT, a physical therapist and strength and conditioning coach in Los Angeles (@drchadwaterbury). “You’ll open space in the shoulder joint and avoid pain and impingement when you reach overhead.”  

Finally, from a performance perspective, strong traps play a role in weightlifting cleans and deadlifts. “In sports, they help you throw a punch and swing a racquet,” says Andrew Heffernan, CSCS, an award-winning fitness journalist and co-author of The Exercise Cure and Your New Prime. In short, big traps aren’t just a sign of a guy or gal who can rip sh!t up—they actually help you do it.

Four Effective Exercises for Working Out Your Traps

(See 01:39 in the video.)

Start integrating the following movements into your training. They can be done toward the end of any upper or full-body training days you do, as well as on back days, if you follow a body-part workout split. (See sample workouts below in the Best Trap Workouts For Getting Huge section for examples of how they can fit in.)

1. Dumbbell Shrug With Forward Lean (Upper and Middle Traps)

(See 01:44 in the video.)

Most people do shrugs by shrugging their shoulders straight up. That will certainly hit the upper traps, but you’ll involve more of the muscle—specifically, the middle traps, the meatiest part of the muscle—by angling your body forward a bit. It also allows you to use a greater range of motion.

This kind of shrug was a favorite technique of Dorian Yates, a Mr. Olympia-winning bodybuilder with one of the biggest backs in history.

Step 1. Hold dumbbells at your sides and bend your hips back about 20 degrees. Keep a long straight line from your head to your tailbone, and brace your core. You don’t want to round your lower back here. Retract your neck and tuck your chin. Maintain this body position throughout the exercise.

Step 2. Shrug your shoulders up and slightly back. You should feel your whole upper back pinch together. Hold this top position for a second or two to really make the traps work, and then lower the dumbbells back down under control, letting the weight stretch your traps at the bottom of the rep.

As you get stronger, your grip strength will limit the weight you can use, shortchanging your traps of the stimulus. It’s OK to use lifting straps to reinforce your grip so you can shrug heavier weights and challenge your traps even more.

2. Wide-Grip Chest-Supported Row (Middle Traps)

(See 02:44 in the video.)

Any rowing movement that has you squeezing your shoulder blades together will involve a lot of middle traps. But supporting your chest on a bench will provide more stability, which allows you to lift heavier weight, and will better isolate the upper back muscles in general. There’s a time and place for bent-over rowing variations, but if you want to zero-in on the traps, it’s better to take your lower back out of the equation and not waste energy stabilizing the entire body.

You can do these on a machine, with a barbell, or with dumbbells, as shown in the video above.

Step 1. Set a bench to about a 45-degree angle. It just needs to be high enough to accommodate the length of your arms and prevent the weights you’re using from hitting the floor at the bottom of each rep. Lie on the bench, chest down, and grasp dumbbells.

Step 2. Row the weights with your arms out about 60 degrees. This will target the traps better than if your arms are close to your sides, which is more of a lat exercise. Drive your elbows back as far as you can and squeeze your shoulder blades together at the top. You may want to hold the top for a second or two as you did with the shrugs to make the exercise stricter and emphasize the traps as much as possible.

Step 3. Lower the weights and allow your shoulders to spread at the bottom.

As with the shrugs, it may be helpful to use lifting straps on your rows once you’ve worked up to very heavy weights that your grip can’t hold onto.

3. Kelso Shrug (Middle Traps)

(See 03:59 in the video.)

Here’s a movement that really isolates the traps. The goal here is to prevent the other back muscles, along with the biceps, from assisting, and force your traps to retract your shoulder blades alone. You can do these with a barbell or a machine, but dumbbells work fine too, as long as you use a wide enough grip to allow your shoulders to retract all the way.

Step 1. Set up on a bench the way we described for the chest-supported row.

Step 2. Simply retract your shoulders and squeeze them. Hold the top for a second or two. Be careful not to shrug your shoulders up or hyperextend your back. Just pull the weight straight back. Your chest may come off the pad a little, but don’t arch your back hard trying to get the weight up. It’s a short range of motion and a subtle movement, but the point is to isolate the traps, so don’t turn it into another row.

4. Y Raise (Lower Traps)

(See 04:41 in the video.)

Remember we said that your lower traps pull the shoulder blades down in a reverse shrugging motion, so any pullup or pulldown variation will involve the lower traps to a large degree while it trains the lats. Still, it’s a good idea to really isolate the lower traps to strengthen them, especially if you do a lot of overhead or chest pressing, which can be hard on the shoulder joints. Strong lower traps help to stabilize shoulders, and the Y raise is a great movement for this purpose.

Step 1. Set a bench to a 45-degree angle and lie on it, chest down. Hold a light dumbbell in each hand, and brace your core.

Step 2. Raise your arms out in front of you on an angle so your body forms a Y shape. Hold the top for a second or two. You should feel the tension in the middle of your back, and if you don’t, make sure you’re not going too heavy or arching your back.

The Best Trap Workouts for Getting Huge

(See 05:30 in the video.)

“The traps work in concert with other muscles—such as the rhomboids and serratus anterior—to perform a myriad of scapular movements,” says Waterbury. Any time you perform rows, chins, pulldowns, overhead presses, or deadlifts, you’re also hitting your traps—especially the upper traps. Because the traps are involved in so many of your other back exercises, you don’t need to blast them with a death ray of volume to see gains.

Try adding one or two trap-focused exercises to your routines for two sessions a week, and do only two hard sets to start. (This means sets taken to failure, or within one rep of failure.) If you feel your traps are really lagging and you want to emphasize them, prioritize them by doing a trap exercise first in your workout. Here are two examples of back workouts that emphasize the trapezius.

Sample Back Workout 1

1. Chinup

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–8

2. Wide-Grip Chest-Supported Row

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

3. Close-Grip Cable Row

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

4. Dumbbell Shrug

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

Sample Back Workout 2

1. Kelso Shrug

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

2. One-Arm Dumbbell Row

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

3. Lat Pulldown

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

4. Y Raise

Sets: 2  Reps: 6–10

How to Stretch Your Traps

(See 06:23 in the video.)

The traps can get tight from a lot of heavy training in combination with sitting in front of a computer or looking down at your phone all day, so it’s helpful to stretch them out a little bit throughout the day and after training. This stretch from Waterbury may help to prevent headaches as well as injury in the gym.

Step 1. Reach your right hand behind your back and place the back of your hand against the back of your left hip. Hold your shoulders down and back.

Step 2. Grasp the back of your head and gently pull it down and across in the direction of your left shoulder. You’ll feel a strong stretch in the back of your neck and traps. Hold for 30 seconds, and then repeat on the opposite side. Repeat for 3 rounds.

Learn an additional trap-building exercise with our guide to the landmine row.

The post 4 Traps Exercises and 2 Workouts for Getting Huge appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Here’s what you can expect of yourself when you’re expecting…

What Exercises Can I Do When I’m Pregnant?

The first thing you should do is take a deep breath and let it out—working out while you’re pregnant will NOT harm your baby. (Obviously, check with your doctor first to see if there’s any kind of exercise that you should specifically avoid, but if you’re in good health, there’s no reason you should sit on your butt for nine months.) Staying active and pushing yourself will help prevent unnecessary weight gain and keep your fitness level up, so that after the baby comes, it won’t be so difficult to get back into your pre-pregnancy shape.

Eden says that you can gauge the intensity of the exercise you’re capable of by simply listening to your body, and doing training that’s appropriate for your current level of fitness. If you’ve been working out one to two times per week for the past three months or so, consider yourself still a beginner. If you’ve been at it for the last 12 months or more, going to the gym two to three times per week, call yourself an intermediate. Finally, ladies who have worked out two to four times a week consistently for more than a year can consider themselves advanced trainees who can take on the most challenging exercises we present here.

For each exercise you do, rate your perceived effort on a scale of 1 to 10. In other words, if 1 is easy activity that barely registers as effort, 10 is going all-out, as hard as you can. Eden recommends that beginners keep their intensity under a 4, intermediates at a 7 or under, and advanced people 8 or less. You should never approach a 9 or 10, so if you feel yourself starting to struggle, stop and back off a bit.

Additionally, Eden offers the following warning signs that you might be pushing too hard for you or your baby to handle (see 01:48 in the video above):

1. If your belly pushes out, called “coning,” you may be putting too much pressure on your intra-abdominal wall. Stop the set.

2. This kind of goes without saying, but if you lose control of your bladder and wet yourself (or worse), stop. Unexpected leakage can happen suddenly during jumping or other high-impact exercise when you’re pregnant, so take it easy on these movements, and stop if you spill!

3. An inability to speak at a normal cadence due to breathlessness is a warning sign that you’re pushing too hard. Essentially, if you can’t hold a somewhat normal conversation with a friend/partner during an exercise, take it down a notch.

4. If you stop sweating, or feel exhausted, you may be dehydrated. Stop at once. Be sure to drink extra fluids before, during, and after your workout to help prevent this.

5. Another obvious point but it warrants a mention: stop if you feel woozy or like you’re losing your balance. This is a more serious risk toward the end of your pregnancy when your body is really working for two.

6. If you feel an ache in your groin, stop. That could mean extra pressure on your perineum, the tissue that covers the bottom of the pelvic cavity.

How To Breathe During A Pregnancy Workout

(See 02:43 in the video.)

When working out for two, it’s doubly important to breathe properly—that is, breathing into your belly rather than your chest. Doing so enhances stability when you train, lessening the risk of injury, while also maximizing the amount of air you can take in and circulate to your muscles. Before you do your workout, take a few moments to practice your breathing as follows.

Step 1. Stand tall and tuck your tailbone slightly so your pelvis is level with the floor. Place one hand on your belly and one on your lower ribs and breathe in, trying to expand your abdomen 360 degrees. Think about directing the air into your belly, sides, and back.

Step 2. As you breathe in, relax the muscles in your pelvic floor. These are the muscles you’ll use to push the baby out, so get connected to them. It may help to imagine your sit bones separating as you take the air in.

Step 3. As you exhale, contract your pelvic floor as if squeezing the air out. That’s one rep.

Do 2–3 sets of 8–10 reps.

The Best Pregnancy Workout

Eden chose the following exercises for two main reasons: they’re tried and true muscle and strength builders, and they also mimic the kinds of activities you’ll need to perform once the baby comes—i.e., standing up with a bundle of joy in your arms, carrying the baby upstairs, picking him/her up, and so on. One prominent feature of this workout is the use of off-set loads, meaning that you’ll lift two weights at a time and one is heavier than the other. This imbalance will challenge your ability to stabilize your body and even things out, just as you have to do when you’ve got a baby in one arm, on one hip, etc. (Switch the heavier load to the opposite side each time you repeat the exercise to ensure balanced training.)

DIRECTIONS

(See 04:40 in the video.)

Perform the following exercises as a circuit, completing one set of each in sequence. Rest as needed between exercises, and then rest again at the end of the circuit. Repeat for 4 total rounds. Select the appropriate version of each exercise according to your experience level (beginner, intermediate, or advanced), and choose loads that allow you to stay in the intensity range for your experience level (a 4 or below, 7 or below, or up to 8). In other words, use weights that are challenging but will allow you to perform all the required reps with good form and no straining.

1. Swiss-Ball Wall Squat

(See 05:05 in the video.)

Reps: 10

Beginners:

Step 1. Place a Swiss ball on the floor against a wall and stand with your back to the ball, feet hip to shoulder-width apart.

Step 2. Bend your hips and knees and squat until your butt lightly touches the ball. Drive through your heels to come back up. You can extend your arms in front of you to help you balance during the squat.

Intermediates:

Step 1. Place the Swiss ball against the wall and rest your back against it to hold the ball in place. Get into your squat stance.

Step 2. Press into the ball as you squat as low as you can without your pelvis tucking under. Drive through your heels to stand back up.

Advanced:

Step 1. Set the Swiss ball against the wall and lean back against it while holding a kettlebell with both hands. Drive your shoulder blades back and together and brace your core.

Step 2. Squat as low as you can without your pelvis tucking under, and drive through your heels to come back up.

2. Off-Set Suitcase Carry

(See 06:18 in the video.)

Reps: Walk 20 yards

Beginner:

Step 1. Place two weights of different loads on boxes or benches set to the outsides of your feet, and stand with feet shoulder width. The boxes/benches should elevate the weights several inches above the floor, so you don’t have to reach so far to grasp them. Both weights should be light, but one can be 2.5–5 pounds heavier than the other.

Step 2: Hinge your hips back, keeping a long line from your head to your tailbone, and grasp the weights.

Step 3. Extend your hips to stand tall, finishing with the weights at your sides and your shoulder blades drawn back and together.

Step 4. Start walking forward using small steps—think heel to toe. Keep your shoulder blades back and your chest proud. When you’ve walked 10 yards, turn around and walk back to the platforms you took the weights off and return them (20 yards total).

Switch the weights to the opposite hands in the next round of the circuit.

Intermediates & Advanced:

More experienced trainees can increase the challenge by using heavier weights, creating a slightly greater discrepancy between the two weights (opt for a five to 10-pounds difference), or by walking backward. If you opt for the latter, walk 10 yards forward and then 10 backward—have a spotter/partner around to watch and make sure you don’t stumble.

3. Swiss-Ball Pushup

(See 07:23 in the video.)

Reps: 10

Beginner:

Step 1. You don’t need the Swiss ball for this version. Place your hands on a wall at shoulder-width apart. Spread your feet apart wide enough so that you feel balanced, and position them far enough away from the wall to make the exercise challenging (the closer your feet are to the wall, the more upright your body will be and the easier the exercise will feel). Tuck your tailbone so that your pelvis is perpendicular to your spine, and brace your core.

Step 2. Lower your chest toward the wall, keeping your body in a straight line with your abs braced. Tuck your arms 45 degrees to your sides as you lower, and go until you feel a stretch in your chest. Press yourself back up.

Intermediates:

Step 1. Place a Swiss ball against the wall and grasp its sides at arms’ length.

Step 2. Perform pushups against the ball, bracing it on the wall with your hands. Squeeze your triceps at the top of each rep.

Advanced:

Perform the pushup on the ball as shown, but with your feet further away from the wall so that the ball must support more of your body.

4. Lunge With Off-Set Load

(See 08:33 in the video.)

Reps: 10 (each leg)

Beginners:

Step 1. Place a weight on a box or bench as you did for the suitcase carry above, and hold a PVC pipe, dowel, or other object for stability. Hinge your hips back to reach down and grasp the weight with your free hand.

Step 2. Extend your hips and knees to stand tall. Now reach the pipe out in front of you to the length of your lunge stride. Using the pipe to mark the distance, lunge forward with one leg, planting your foot next to the pipe, and bend both knees until your front knee is 90 degrees and your rear knee is just above the floor. Come back up, and then repeat on the other leg, lunging in one place.

Intermediate:

If you feel strong and well enough to keep your balance without the pipe, place another weight on the benches/boxes so you have two loads and ditch the pipe. One weight can be heavier than the other. Perform walking lunges, alternating legs and stepping forward on each rep until you’ve done 10 reps on each side across the room. Stop a moment between reps to reset your feet and keep your balance.

On your next round of the circuit, switch the weights.

Advanced:

Perform the lunges with weight in both hands, but don’t reset between reps. Walk fluidly across the room.

5. Swiss-Ball Biceps Curl

(See 09:58 in the video.)

Reps: 10

Beginners:

Step 1. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and sit on a Swiss ball with feet set hip to shoulder-width apart. Sit up tall with your pelvis level to the floor and your core braced, and turn your palms out away from your sides.

Step 2. Keeping your upper arms close to your sides, curl the dumbbells, and then control their descent back down. Do your reps slowly so you can maintain balance on the ball.

Intermediates & Advanced:
Do the exercise the same way as the beginner level, but you can challenge yourself with heavier weights, or offset the load as you see fit.

Want more of Eden? See her top 6 beginner kettlebell exercises.

The post The Best Pregnancy Exercises and Workouts appeared first on Onnit Academy.

The hex press feels intense, but it looks weird, and it seems to have only gained popularity in the past 10 to 15 years, so trainers have questioned whether the hex press is really a worthwhile exercise in a chest-training arsenal, or just another training fad that’s about to run its course. Lucky for you, we researched the move and got to the bottom of it, finding that it can be both a solid pec builder and a real help to those with shoulder problems that hamper their training.

How To Do The Hex Press Properly

The hex press takes a lot of concentration to perform correctly, but it’s technically very simple.

(See 02:55 in the video above)

Step 1. Lie back on a bench with a dumbbell in each hand and press the two weights into each other. They should meet in the middle of your breastbone, just over your chest.  Arch your back, pushing your chest upward. The weights should be very close to your pecs—even touching—but not resting on your chest.

Step 2. Squeeze the weights together—hard—as you press them straight over your chest and lower back down again. Don’t let up on the tension—you have to keep the dumbbells in tight contact the whole time. That’s one rep.

It’s easier to get the weights to stay together comfortably—and without slipping—if you use hexagonal dumbbells, or another model of dumbbell that has flat sides and corners, but any dumbbells can work. (Note that if you do use round-plated dumbbells, your grip can slip while you’re pressing them together and one weight can end up mashing the fingers holding the other dumbbell, so be careful.)

“With the hex press,” says John Rusin, PT, a strength coach and founder of the Pain-Free Training Methods Certification (drjohnrusin.com), “you can knock out two different motions for the pecs at the same time—dynamic pressing, where you’re lifting the dumbbells from your chest to straight up in the air—and horizontal adduction, where you’re moving your arms toward your midline and holding an isometric contraction [that is, the weights don’t move horizontally but you’re tensing the muscles as if they were].” Essentially, you’re combining a dumbbell press and a flye exercise into one movement. That alone should be enough to classify the hex press as a good chest exercise, but wait, there’s more.

“The hex press limits the range of your pressing motion,” says Rusin. You’ll notice that, because your arms are pressing together the whole time, they won’t be able to lower as far on the downward portion of each rep, so you won’t get much of a stretch on the pecs in the bottom position, like you would if you were doing a regular dumbbell bench press. Normally, that’s not good, because muscles often grow better when they’re taken through full ranges of motion and forced to contract hard in a stretched position, but if you have shoulder pain, this reduced range may allow you to press again without irritation! Some chest pressing is better than no chest pressing, so if the hex press lets you carry on with your training, chalk that up as a win.

Furthermore, Rusin notes that pressing the weights together—maintaining that isometric contraction—“makes the rotator cuff and other stabilizer muscles in the shoulders more active. Herky jerky shoulders usually feel bad because the stabilizers aren’t working hard enough, and the hex press ensures that they will.”

One more benefit: the hex press requires maximum concentration to maintain the squeezing action while you press the dumbbells, and that means you’ll build a really strong mind-muscle connection in your training. You can’t zone out when you do this exercise, and research shows that focusing your mind squarely on the muscle you’re training may help to activate more muscle fibers and spur growth.

So that’s the classic, original dumbbell hex press, and while Rusin loves the concept, he doesn’t dig the execution.

The flaw he sees in hex pressing is that the forearms will tend to point inward as a result of the dumbbells being so close together. “If the forearms point inward,” he says, “you’re training an isometric in internal rotation under load. This won’t necessarily kill your shoulders, but it’s not ideal,” especially if you have pre-existing shoulder injuries. “The perfect position is with your forearms parallel to each other/perpendicular to the floor throughout the rep.” This is a much more natural way to press, but it’s difficult to do unless you’re using very heavy weights. You’ll typically need hexagonal dumbbells in excess of 50 pounds to allow your forearms to remain parallel while maintaining the squeezing motion (bigger dumbbells will cause the forearms to rotate outward further), and since the hex press takes a lot of energy combining movement in two planes, it doesn’t lend itself to going that heavy.

Enter the hex press with a medicine ball.

Placing a medicine ball on your lap and then squeezing it between the dumbbells will allow your forearms some space and will keep them more vertical, making for near-perfect pressing without sacrificing that isometric feature. This is the hex press variant Rusin recommends for most people, especially those who are new to the movement.

Hex Press With Medicine Ball

(See 01:57 in the video)

Step 1. Sit on the edge of a bench with a light medicine ball in your lap—six pounds or less is plenty. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and squeeze the ball in between the dumbbells. This should cause your forearms to be parallel, but if not, get a bigger ball until they’re closer to the ideal position.

Step 2. Now lie back on the bench with the ball and dumbbells at your chest. Arch your back and push your chest up. Squeeze the ball hard, and press the weights up to lockout. Continue squeezing as you lower back down.

TRAINING TIP

Whether you choose the medicine ball version or the original, the hex press can be done in place of your normal dumbbell bench pressing whenever the latter aggravates your shoulders. It can also be a good choice for those who don’t feel their pecs working on conventional presses, in which case you might want to do it early in a session in order to warm up the chest and give it your best attention. Two to three sets of 8–12 reps are a good place to start.

If you’re just looking for a new pec exercise to experiment with, however, Rusin suggests using the hex toward the end of a chest or upper-body day to burn out the pecs. Go for the pump with higher reps, such as 15–25. Three to four sets is more than enough.

What Muscles Does The Hex Press Work?

The hex press targets the pectoralis major, the main chest muscle you’ve been trying to build with more conventional bench press movements. Pressing the dumbbells together reduces the distance your arms can travel at the bottom of the range of motion (when the dumbbells are close to your chest), so the hex press won’t put the same stretch on your pecs that a regular dumbbell bench press would. But the squeezing action means that the contraction will be stronger at the opposite end of the range—at the top of the press, when the muscles are shortened. Therefore, it can be said that the hex press emphasizes the shortened position of the pecs more than other dumbbell presses, and that alone could provide a novel training stimulus.

Some coaches, and Rusin among them, believe that hex presses can produce more activation in the inner chest—where the sternal pec fibers (the ones that run horizontally across the middle of the pec major muscle) connect to the breastbone. This is a very controversial point, as most research shows that, while the pecs can be divided into upper, middle, and lower regions and trained to bring out one area over another, inner and outer divisions don’t exist. In other words, when you contract the sternal pecs, they share the tension from one end of the muscle to the other.

Nevertheless, muscle research is still in its infancy, and bodybuilders have proven it wrong in the past (scientists used to think the mind-muscle connection was sheep dip too). “I think we’re going to see the research catch up with what the bros have known for years,” says Rusin. “You can target and place more emphasis on different portions of the pec, and it’s highly dependent on mind-muscle connection.” So, if you do an exercise that helps you focus your mind on the innermost portion of your pec fibers, it’s not out of the question that they’ll grow as a result.

Because the shoulders and triceps work synergistically with the pecs in the hex press, you can count the hex press sets you do toward your total volume for those muscles groups as well.

Why And How To Do The Incline Hex Press

(See 03:47 in the video)

Performing any bench press motion on an incline can shift its emphasis to your upper chest, and the hex press is no exception. Incline pressing involves the shoulders to a greater extent, and that can irritate the joints, so the hex press done on an incline may be a way to get around otherwise painful incline pressing and still target the clavicular head of the pecs.

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench to a 30- to 45-degree incline and lie back with a dumbbell in each hand at chest level.

Step 2. Squeeze the weights together, and maintain the tension as you press the dumbbells up and come back down.

How To Stretch Before Doing The DB Hex Press

Warm up your shoulders and pec muscles, and lubricate your joints, before any workout that includes hex presses with this mobility sequence from former Onnit Chief Fitness Officer John Wolf (@coachjohnwolf). Do 3–5 sets of 3–5 reps for each movement.

Alternatives To The Hex Press

Some coaches argue that the hex press doesn’t work the chest as advertised because the tension from the adduction (the arms pushing inward) comes from your active squeezing, not from overcoming resistance in the horizontal plane. It’s the same, they say, as flexing any other muscle—sure, you can feel it working and maybe even burning, but it’s not being overloaded to produce gains.

This point is debatable, but if you’re an advanced lifter and want to make the hex press even more challenging, you can attach exercise bands to it. The tension of the bands will try to pull your arms apart, so you’ll have to work that much harder to hold the weights together, and that undoubtedly makes the hex press more like a hybrid press-cable flye movement.

Hex Press With Bands

(See 04:00 in the Pro’s Guide To The Dumbbell Hex Press video)

Step 1. Set up as you would for a normal hex press but attach bands to dumbbells on the floor, or some other sturdy objects. The bands should be set to where your hands will be when you lie back on the bench. Now hold the end of each band along with your dumbbells and lie back on the bench.

Step 2. Squeeze the dumbbells together, fighting through the band tension, and press them up.

The post A Pro’s Guide To The Dumbbell Hex Press appeared first on Onnit Academy.

– Improving gains in the upper chest requires learning to better isolate the clavicular head of the pec major muscle.

– The best angle to set the bench for incline presses and flyes depends on the dimensions of your own sternum and ribcage.

– The path of motion that your arms travel is a critical factor in upper-chest training technique.

The Best Upper-Chest Workout for Getting Defined Pecs

Whether you’re a recreational gym rat who wants a well-rounded physique, or a bodybuilding/physique/figure competitor looking to bring up weak areas to win a show, there’s one portion of the body’s musculature that’s almost always troublesome to develop: the upper chest.

The pecs are sure to look fuller and more impressive when the region that attaches to the clavicle is more prominent, but for some reason, that part doesn’t seem to respond like the rest of the muscle. To improve this area, there’s one simple prescription that is given time and time again.

You’ve heard it before. “If you want your upper chest to grow, do incline presses and flyes.” The thing is, if you’ve been lifting for any length of time, you’ve probably already tried that. And if that was all there was to it, you wouldn’t be reading this now.

The truth is, putting your bench on an incline isn’t the only consideration for targeting the upper chest. Your individual anatomical structure matters, as well as your biomechanics and ranges of motion on specific exercises.

The new advice for boosting the upper chest is to know your body and train accordingly, and we asked a trio of physique-training experts to tell you how to do that for a more balanced pair of pecs, top to bottom.

What Muscles Are In The Upper Chest?

When discussing the upper chest, we’re only talking about one muscle: pectoralis major. However, the pec major consists of three distinct portions of muscle fibers, called heads, and the way they’re arranged determines their function (i.e., the mechanics you need to use to develop them). From the top down, the sections of the pec are:

1. The Clavicular Head (Upper Chest)

The fibers originate on the clavicle (collar bone) and run diagonally downward to attach to the humerus (upper-arm bone).

2. The Sternal Head (Middle Chest)

The fibers start on the edge of the sternum (breastbone) and reach across to attach to the humerus (just below where the clavicular head goes).

3. The Costal Head (Lower Chest)

Fibers run from the cartilage of the ribs and the external oblique muscle to the humerus.

To improve the upper chest specifically, you’ll want to focus mainly on training the clavicular head, but with some emphasis on the sternal head as well, because it covers the upper portion of the sternum (see the diagram above).

Now for the big question: can you really train specific portions of a muscle? For decades, bodybuilders have argued that you can, but scientists have rebutted them, citing the “all or none” principle, which states that a muscle either contracts or it doesn’t—you can’t contract one part of a muscle without the others. Due to the way muscles are innervated, when the signal to contract is sent from the brain, the entire muscle shortens at once.

The truth is, both sides of the debate are correct to a degree. That is, when you work your pecs, you work the whole muscle, but it’s still possible to zero in on specific fibers in the muscle if you set up your training accordingly.

“The ‘all or none’ principle is more around the actual depolarization of the muscle [that] causes it to contract,” says Jordan Shallow, DC, an Ontario, Canada-based strength coach and licensed chiropractor (@the_muscle_doc on Instagram). “There’s no partial contraction—the muscle’s contracting or it’s not. But people conflate that with the idea that a muscle contracts and we can’t put particular tension, or effective tension, across certain fibers… and we absolutely can.”

A study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research showed as much, with regard to the upper chest specifically. Researchers had subjects perform the bench press at various angles and tested the muscle recruitment for each. Pressing at an incline of 44 degrees resulted in greater activation of the upper-chest muscle fibers than pressing on a flat bench, or one set to 28 degrees of incline. A 2020 study on bodybuilders in the European Journal of Sport Science had comparable findings, with the incline bench press again outperforming horizontal and decline presses for recruiting the upper chest.

However, as we’ll explore below, raising your bench angle is only one component of effective upper-chest training, and research has yet to catch up with what today’s top trainers have learned by experimenting on their clients.

How Do You Target the Upper Chest?

The idea that any chest exercise done on an incline bench hits the upper pecs has been perpetuated for more than a half-century, at least. Arnold credited his outstanding upper chest to incline presses and flyes, and most bodybuilders still swear by them. Indeed, some degree of incline is important to get the clavicular pec fibers working against gravity in the most efficient way, but elevating your bench is only part of the equation.

The key to targeting a certain area of the chest, says Shallow, is “understanding where to look from an anatomical standpoint—that will indicate what pec fibers you’re training. Arm path is going to be a key factor, but sternum angle and ribcage depth are going to be anatomical variations that will drastically affect how you recruit the pecs.”

Kassem Hanson, a trainer of bodybuilders and creator of biomechanics courses for muscle building (available at N1 Education; @coach_kassem on Instagram), echoes Shallow’s comments, particularly with regard to arm path. “The pecs gain their mechanical leverage by using the ribcage as a fulcrum,” says Hanson, “allowing them to pull the arm forward when it’s behind you, and pull your arm across your body when it’s in front. When you put your elbows out wide, you move the pecs away from the ribcage, taking away that fulcrum and leaving you to rely more on your anterior deltoids. This is a common mistake people make when performing an incline press, and also one of the reasons there’s conflicting research on the impact of incline angles on chest recruitment.”

In other words, you can choose any degree of incline that you like, but if you move your arms out too wide on your incline presses, you still won’t target the upper chest effectively.

In addition to arm path, the angle of your sternum and the depth of your ribcage should be considered. Yes, we know that sounds very technical and complex, but it’s not that difficult to assess.

The degree to which you incline your bench depends on your sternum angle and ribcage. “Some people have a very straight up and down chest—a flat sternum angle,” says Hanson, “while others have a steeper angle where the lower portion of their sternum sticks out further. The more angled your sternum, the greater the incline you should use,” up to 45 degrees. “The flatter the sternum,” says Hanson, “the less of an angle—usually around 30 degrees.”

Determining your own sternum dimensions is really as simple as standing in front of a mirror, turning to one side, and taking your shirt off. Look at where your collarbone is versus the bottom of your breastbone and lower ribs. If it’s behind these bones, you’ll probably need a steeper incline than if the two are nearly in a straight line. And if your clavicle is slightly in front of the sternum and ribs, you may need only a few degrees of incline, because your chest is basically on an incline already.

But don’t just rely on bench angle. “One of the most common cheats is people arching their back and completely negating the incline on the bench,” says Hanson. So, once you’ve found the appropriate bench angle, make sure you take advantage of it by keeping your back flat against the bench (even though, alas, it will force you to go lighter and use stricter form).

Remember, too, that the orientation of the pec fibers determines the way you need to move to work the muscle. As you can see in the diagram above, the fibers of the different pec major heads don’t all run in the same direction. The fibers of the clavicular head run at an upward angle (diagonal), not side-to-side like the sternal head. So using an incline bench isn’t as important as making sure your arms are moving along the path that the upper-chest fibers go.

“The clavicular pec is unique in that it originates on the clavicle, not the sternum,” says Hanson. “This gives it more of an upward line of pull, which means you’ll use motions that go low to high. This can be done with a cable, using an incline on a bench, or adjusting your torso position in a machine. Bottom line is, you need to be pressing at an upward angle [to target the clavicular fibers].”

How To Stretch Your Upper Chest

Prepare your chest, shoulders, upper back, and elbows for your upper-chest training with this quick mobility routine from Eric Leija (@primal.swoledier). Perform each move for 2–3 sets of 10–15 reps.

Best Exercises for Building Upper-Chest Strength

Here’s another common debate when it comes to chest training: Are presses or flyes better for hitting the pecs, and, in this case, the upper (clavicular) fibers in particular? Hanson and Shallow agree that there’s no blanket approach that applies to everyone, and both movement types can be beneficial when performed with the proper setup.

“Presses tend to be better for working the lengthened portion of the range of motion,” says Hanson, which is at the bottom of the movement, when your pecs are stretched. “Flyes, [when done with a cable], tend to be better for working the short portion of the range of motion,” when the muscle is nearly fully shortened (such as when your hands come together on a cable flye). “The best option is to use both exercises. Presses tend to have more total pec recruitment, so, when programming, you may do more flye exercises than presses, because one to two good presses will cover it.”

“If I’m doing a flye, I’m going to be able to isolate [the pecs],” says Shallow. “And there’s going to be a certain advantage to being able to isolate the muscle outside of the deltoids and triceps. With the press, you’re going to be able to use more load. That load will be dispersed through the delts and triceps, but if we can set it up properly to make the pecs a prime mover based off the anatomical variants [remember: sternum angle, ribcage depth], we can really make the press a good exercise and challenge the pecs.”

Below are five moves that, if performed properly, will emphasize the clavicular head of the pec major for most individuals. They come courtesy of Hanson and Bill Shiffler, owner of Renaissance Physique, and a competitive amateur bodybuilder.

1. Low-to-High Cable or Band Flye

One of the problems with dumbbell flyes is the lack of tension at the top. As your arms come up from the outstretched position, the resistance drops off, and at the very top, your shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints are stacked, so the weight is just resting on your arms like they’re pillars. You also can’t bring the dumbbells past the midline of your body at the top, because they’ll clang together. Hanson and Shiffler both argue that full range of motion (ROM) is key to developing the clavicular and upper-sternal pec fibers, so pulling the arms across the body is especially important. With cables, you can keep tension on the pecs throughout the entire arc of a flye.

“Free weights give resistance in one direction, which eliminates the ability to get full range of motion,” Hanson says. “A low-to-high cable flye is going to be your best way to get full ROM—especially the range where the muscles are fully shortened.” 

Other than offering optimal ROM and biomechanics, the low-to-high cable flye will also provide some much-needed variety to a chest program that includes a healthy dose of pressing movements. “When doing machine and free-weight presses for your middle [sternal] pecs,” says Hanson, “you’ll get some overlapping stimulus in the upper chest, but not in the range of motion you get in a low-to-high cable flye.”

Of course, if you don’t have access to cables, bands can be used as a substitute.

How To Do the Low-to-High Cable or Band Flye

Step 1. Set the handles on both sides of a cable crossover station to the lowest pulley setting. Grasp the handles, and step forward to lift the weights off the stack so that there’s tension on the pec muscles. If you don’t have access to cable stations, use elastic resistance bands as shown, attached to a rack or other sturdy object.

Step 2. Stagger your feet for stability, and let your arms extend diagonally toward the floor, in line with the cables—but keep a slight bend in your elbows. Your palms will face forward. Keep your torso upright and stationary throughout the movement.

Step 3. Contract your pecs to lift the handles upward and in front of your body. The upward path of motion should be in line with the clavicular fibers of the upper pecs—think: diagonal.

Step 4. At the top of the rep, your hands should be touching each other in front of you at around face level, wrists in line with your forearms. Squeeze the top position for 1–2 seconds, and then lower the weight under control, back to the start position.

Sets/Reps: 3–4 sets of 8–12 or 12–15 reps, training close to failure, is Hanson’s general recommendation. (For the best results on this and all the exercises below, periodize your sets, reps, and resistance over time—see Hanson’s comments on this topic below in the Tips for Building More Muscle section.)

2. Converging Incline Machine Press

A converging pressing machine is one where the handles come together as you press the weight, rather than remain static on one path of motion. This allows you to perform a movement that’s more of a hybrid press/flye than what you’d get from most pressing machines, better mimicking the range you’d use during a cable or resistance-band flye and keeping tension on the pecs in multiple planes. When doing a barbell or Smith machine incline press, for example, your hands don’t come together as you press because they’re fixed on the bar, and, as explained earlier, a dumbbell incline press offers no tension in the start/finish position. Though not available in all commercial gyms, a converging press can be a great addition to your training arsenal if you have access to it. (PRIME Fitness USA makes an excellent converging incline press machine, as shown below.)

The upward pressing angle combined with converging handles makes this particular type of incline machine press extremely effective for targeting both the clavicular and upper sternal pec fibers, provided you also achieve an optimal arm path through proper setup.

How to Do the Converging Incline Machine Press

Step 1. Set up for the exercise by raising your upper arms to line up with the direction the clavicular fibers of your pecs run. (This should be roughly 45 degrees out from your sides.) Draw your elbows back and retract your shoulder blades—that’s the bottom end of your range of motion. Now set up in the machine so that you can duplicate that end range position, adjusting the seat height as needed.

Set the incline according to your sternum angle—less steep for a flatter sternum, and closer to 45 degrees for an angled one. If your machine’s incline isn’t adjustable, this may require scooting your butt forward on the seat to (ironically) take away some of the incline. If your machine allows it, you can use a neutral (palms facing in) grip, which may feel better for your shoulders or allow a better angle of the arms to hit the upper pecs.

Step 2. Unrack the weight to put tension on the pecs, and then press the handles up to full elbow extension, focusing on driving up and in. Hanson cues the movement by telling clients to think about bringing their armpits up into their clavicles on each side, so you squeeze both ends of the clavicular head together.

Step 3. Lower the weight under control. Stop when your hands are just above chest level (don’t let the weight rest on the stack between reps).

Exercise Variations: To target more of the sternal fibers that make up the middle/upper portion of the pecs, the upper-arm position will be slightly different than what’s described above. Because the sternal fibers run more or less side to side, you’ll want the arms to line up with those fibers. That means your elbows will be up a bit higher and pointed out to the sides, with a path of motion going from out to in, straight across the body. (This is shown better in the first variation used in the video above.)

Hanson shows both variations of the incline converging machine press (sternal and then clavicular pec emphasis) in this video.

Sets/Reps: 3–4 sets of 6–8 or 10–12 reps, training close to failure.

3. Dumbbell Incline Press with Semi-Pronated Grip

According to Hanson, a relatively narrow grip better targets the upper chest because it allows the elbows to stay in closer to the body, and that prevents the front delts from taking over the movement (as is the case on presses done with a wide grip). If you’re pressing with a barbell, he recommends a grip just outside shoulder-width. “However,” he says, “narrower arm paths work better with a neutral grip [palms facing each other] or semi-pronated grip [palms somewhere between facing each other and facing straight forward],” whichever is more comfortable for you. This being the case, dumbbells are a better option than a barbell for targeting the upper pecs.

With dumbbells, you can easily assume a neutral or semi-pronated grip, whereas a barbell locks your hands in a fully pronated position, and, Hanson says, “encourages the elbows to flare out.”

How to Do the Dumbbell Incline Press with Semi-Pronated Grip

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench to a 30–45-degree angle, depending on your sternum angle. Grasp a pair of dumbbells and lie back on the bench, making sure your entire back is in contact with it—do not arch your back so that it causes your lower back to rise off the pad.

Step 2. Start with the dumbbells just outside your shoulders, elbows bent, and your forearms/wrists in a semi-pronated (or neutral) position. 

Step 3. Keeping your elbows pointing at about 45 degrees, press the dumbbells straight up until your arms are just shy of full lockout. Lower the dumbbells back down under control, until they’re just above and outside your shoulders.

Step 4. As you press and lower the dumbbells, establish a natural, comfortable wrist position—something between neutral and semi-pronated. The dumbbells give you the freedom to adjust mid-set.

Sets/Reps: 3–4 sets of 6–8 or 10-12 reps, training close to failure.

4. Swiss-Bar Incline Press

This exercise, also recommended by Hanson, is more or less the barbell version of the incline dumbbell press described above. A Swiss bar (aka “football bar”) is a specialized barbell with handles that offer neutral and sometimes semi-pronated grips. While not typically available at big box fitness clubs, if you can find a hardcore powerlifting or bodybuilding gym, or athlete training facility that has one of these bars, it’s worth trying out.

With the Swiss bar incline press, you get the upper-pec biases of the angled bench and neutral grip with the added bonus of greater overload placed on the muscles because you’re using a barbell (which is more stable than pressing a pair of dumbbells).

If your sternum is fairly flat, go with a 30-degree angle. If the top of the sternum is behind the lower ribs (an inverted angle), go with 45 degrees.

How to Do the Swiss-Bar Incline Press

Step 1. Rack a Swiss bar (or football bar) at an incline bench press station. Lie back on the bench and grasp the neutral or semi-pronated grips (palms facing each other or a little angled) with hands just outside shoulder-width.

Step 3. Unrack the bar, and lower it under control to your upper chest with your elbows tucked in close to your sides, about 45 degrees from your torso.

Step 4. When the bar touches your upper chest, explosively press it straight up to full arm extension, keeping your elbows tucked in as you press.

Sets/Reps: 3–4 sets of 6–8 or 10–12 reps, training close to failure.

5. Incline Dumbbell Flye

The key to targeting the upper chest with a dumbbell flye is the same as with the low-to-high cable flye: establish an arm path that moves in the same direction as the diagonal fibers of the clavicular pecs. Doing a flye with the torso at an inclined position should automatically help you.

If you were doing a flye on a flat bench, the upper arms would more or less be moving in the same direction as the sternal fibers—straight horizontal, not diagonal. (The exception here would be someone with a sternum angle where the clavicles are significantly further forward than the lower ribs, which would put you at a natural incline even on a flat bench.)

An incline bench, on the other hand, puts you at such an angle that the same flye motion has your upper arms moving diagonally upward in relation to your torso—same as the clavicular fibers. Will there still be some sternal fibers activated? Of course. But as mentioned earlier, these fibers reach into the upper chest area, so no harm there.

As for what bench angle to use, again, assess your sternum angle. If your sternum is fairly flat, go with a 30-degree angle. If the top of the sternum is behind the lower ribs, use 45 degrees. As mentioned above, a free-weight flye isn’t quite as effective as one done on a machine or with cables/bands, because the resistance is reduced at the top, but it’s a solid option for those who don’t have access to fancy equipment.

How to Do the Incline Dumbbell Flye

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench to a 30–45-degree angle, depending on your sternum shape. Grasp a relatively light pair of dumbbells, and lie back on the bench.

Step 2. Start with your arms fully extended, perpendicular with the floor, and the dumbbells directly above your upper chest, palms facing each other.

Step 3. With a slight bend in the elbows, lower the dumbbells by opening your arms. Lower the weights slowly with control until you feel a stretch in your pecs.

Step 4. Contract your pecs to lift the dumbbells back up and together, maintaining the slight elbow bend throughout. “Really focus on the stretch at the bottom of the rep, and squeeze the pecs at the top,” says Shiffler.

Exercise Variation: The incline flye can also be done with cables, placing an incline bench in the middle of a cable crossover station and using handles at the lowest pulley settings.

Sets/Reps: 3–4 sets of 8–12 or 12–15 reps, training close to failure.

Upper-Chest Exercise Alternative

If you’re training at home without the luxury of any equipment, you can resort to the classic pushup done with your feet resting on an elevated surface. “This is pretty similar to an incline press in the way it targets the upper chest,” says Shiffler, “with the added benefit of targeting some stabilizer/core muscles while you’re at it.”

Pushup with Feet Elevated

As with other variations, adjust the height of your feet based on your sternum angle—body at around 30 degrees to the floor if you have a flat sternum, and feet up a little higher if your sternum is angled.

How to Do the Pushup with Feet Elevated

Step 1. Place your hands around shoulder-width on the floor, and raise your feet behind you on a bench, box, or other stable surface. Tuck your tailbone slightly so that your pelvis is neutral, and brace your core. Your body should form a long, straight line.

Step 2. Lower your body, tucking your elbows about 45 degrees from your sides, until you feel a stretch in your pecs. Press yourself back up, allowing your shoulder blades to spread at the top. This action is another advantage of the pushup—pressing exercises done on a bench restrict your scapular movement, while the pushup allows these muscles to work naturally to stabilize your shoulders.

Tips for Building More Muscle

Here are a few more tips, courtesy of Hanson, for getting the greatest possible upper-chest growth.

Sets and Reps

“You want to train the pecs with both low and high reps—not necessarily in the same workout, but through periodization,” says Hanson. That is, plan changes in your training over time to keep the muscles responding. “A lot of people perform too wide a range of reps in the same workout, which can confuse the body in terms of the appropriate adaptation.”

Hanson generally recommends doing no fewer than 4 reps per set on presses and no fewer than 6 reps per set on flye movements, unless you’re training for a specific strength goal. “You could spend one block of training doing presses in the 6–8 rep range and flyes in the 8–12 range,” he says. “Then switch to 10–12 and 12–15 reps, respectively, in the next block.”

Tempo

When it comes to the speed with which you perform your reps (which trainers call tempo), Hanson says the biggest key is making sure you control the resistance during your sets. Don’t bounce the weights up, or let them drop as you lower down on a rep.

“Presses can be performed with a wide variety of tempos,” says Hanson. “But you shouldn’t be going super slow or throwing the weight up explosively. For flyes, you’re using your whole arm as a lever, so controlling the eccentric [negative/lowering portion of the rep] is much more important for safety and stimulus.” 

Advanced Techniques

The more experienced you get, the more creative you can get with tempo. For pressing exercises, “adding a two-second pause or an extra quarter-rep at the bottom can be a great variation in stimulus,” says Hanson. “You’ll get more sore with those techniques, and they increase volume, so consider dropping a set or two when using a more advanced tempo, and then progressing back up.”

With cable flyes, Hanson recommends a one to two-second squeeze in the end position, when your hands are close together. “Because you fatigue in the shortest part of the range of motion first, an advanced technique is to use a pause in your early sets and decrease or remove it in the later sets,” he says. This way, you can keep up your reps and not be limited by the weakest part of the movement [as you get tired].”

Sample Upper-Chest Workouts

(See 01:28 in the “Best Upper-Chest Workout for Defined Pecs” video at the top of this article)

Here are two sample workouts you can do that prioritize the upper chest. You can use either routine or both of them in the same week (space them out by four or five days). There are only two upper-chest exercises in each workout, and that’s all you need. Finish out each workout with some work for the middle and/or lower pecs, shoulders, or triceps.

Sample Upper-Chest Workout A

1. Dumbbell Incline Press with Semi-Pronated Grip

Sets: 2 Reps: 6–8

(See 01:49 in the video.)

Perform as many warmup sets as you need until you reach a weight that’s heavy enough for your first work set. Do 6–8 reps to failure, or close to failure, and then reduce the load by 20% for your second set, and aim for the same rep range.

2. Low-to-High Cable or Band Flye

Sets: 2 Reps: 10–12

(See 03:10 in the video.)

Sample Upper-Chest Workout B

1. Neutral-Grip Incline Bench Press

Sets: 2 Reps: 5–7

(See 04:54 in the video.)

Perform as many warmup sets as you need until you reach a weight that’s heavy enough for your first work set. Do 5–7 reps to failure, or close to failure, and then reduce the load by 20% for your second set, and aim for the same rep range.

2. Pushup with Feet Elevated

Sets: 2 Reps: 8–12

(See 06:04 in the video.)

Want to work on lower-chest now? See our Lower-Chest Workouts for the Gym & Home.

The post The Best Upper-Chest Workout for Getting Defined Pecs appeared first on Onnit Academy.

– Dumbbells provide several advantages, including freedom of motion, the ability to correct strength imbalances, safety, and stability.

– Some of the best dumbbell exercises include the paused squat jump, Bulgarian split squat, step-over lunge, Romanian deadlift, single-leg kickstand wall RDL, lateral lunge with reach, front-foot elevated split squat, and goblet squat.

– Dumbbells can be used to add muscle size, strength, power, and mobility to the legs.

A Pro’s Guide To Dumbbell Leg Exercises and Workouts

There aren’t too many things from 700 B.C. that are still in style, but dumbbells are an exception. The use of dumbbells, specifically for leg training, dates back to at least ancient Greece. Records show that athletes swung stone implements while they practiced jumping drills, using the extra weight to add momentum to their leaps. Later, the term “dumbbell” was coined in the 1700s in England, and then migrated to the U.S. where, it appears, the Founding Fathers started clanging and banging. In letters to his son, Benjamin Franklin wrote, “I live temperately, drink no wine, and use daily the exercise of the dumbbell.” (He claimed to have performed a workout consisting of 40 swings.)

Hundreds of years later, dumbbells are still accessible, versatile, relatively easy to use, and highly effective for helping you build muscle, strength, and athleticism. If they were good enough for Spartan warriors and the guy on the $100 bill, they’re good enough for you and me.

I like dumbbells for all kinds of training—especially lower-body work—and if they’re all you’ve got due to your gym being closed or out of your budget, you’d better learn how to make the most of them. Here, I’ll share my favorite dumbbell leg exercises, and give you a workout that ties them all together to build muscular, strong legs that are also capable of explosive speed and agility.

What Are the Benefits of Working Out My Legs with Dumbbells?

Dumbbells offer many advantages over barbells, machines, and other implements for training the legs. Here are some key benefits.

Greater Freedom of Motion

When you use a barbell, the weight is fixed in one position. That can be a problem if you have injuries, or lack flexibility. Dumbbells allow you to adjust where the weight is in relation to your body, and that can let you customize your exercises to perform them more safely.

Take Romanian deadlifts, for example. Using a barbell, the weight moves down the front of your body to your shins as you bend your hips back. The load is displaced in front of you, and that puts a lot of stress on your lower back. With dumbbells, you have the freedom to hold the load further back, closer to your sides and your center of gravity. This keeps more of the stress on the hamstrings where you want it, and less on the low back.

Correction of Strength Imbalances

When you use barbells and machines, it’s difficult to recognize strength imbalances between sides. The strong limb will compensate for the weaker one, and you won’t notice which leg is lagging behind the other. Over time, failing to correct this imbalance can lead to injury.

Dumbbells lend themselves well to unilateral training—working one limb at a time. Lunges, split squats, and single-leg RDL’s are all more practical and user-friendly to do with dumbbells versus other equipment, and they make you aware of your restrictions, both in terms of range of motion and strength. Training one leg at a time, you’ll see which side needs more work, and you can begin to even things out. Unilateral training also allows you to work with greater ranges of motion (you can typically go further down on a single-leg RDL or squat than you can on the two-legged versions), and it’s more in line with how we move in real life—balancing, landing, and pushing off from one leg at a time rather than both together. Get strong unilaterally, and you’ll almost certainly be stronger when you use both legs at once.

Increased Stability

It’s hard to balance on one leg, so unilateral dumbbell training builds more stability than training bilaterally. This alone can go a long way toward helping you break through muscle and strength plateaus.

When your joints lack stability, your brain recognizes it, and won’t allow you to produce the maximum amount of force that you’re capable of. Essentially, it puts the breaks on to prevent you from hurting yourself. In that sense, dumbbell training plays a big role in unlocking your potential to grow from all the training you do.

Greater Safety

With any exercise tool you use, you have to be aware of your body and focus on proper form when you train. But dumbbells are inherently safer than barbells. A) They offer greater freedom of motion (explained above). B) They don’t allow you to train as heavy, and C) they’re easy to let go of if you get in trouble. Hang around a gym long enough and you’re bound to see somebody get stuck at the bottom of a barbell back squat and need to be helped up. But if you can’t complete a rep with dumbbells, you can bail out by simply dropping the weights to the floor. For anyone training at home alone, dumbbells are a must.

Joint-Friendy Training

Whether it’s back squats, deadlifts, or their many variations, barbell leg exercises tend to put a lot of compression and shear forces on your spine. If your form isn’t pristine, the risk of injury goes up dramatically, and many people have mobility and stability limitations that prevent them from doing these lifts safely.

Dumbbell leg exercises don’t load the spine directly. Furthermore, because they’re conducive to safer training, you’ll feel more confident pushing yourself further without fear of your form breaking down. This can mean more intense workouts and faster gains.

What Leg Exercises Can I Do With Dumbbells?

Now I’ll introduce you to eight of my favorite dumbbell leg exercises (Onnit only asked me for five, but I couldn’t help myself!). Together, they cover the gamut of training goals. Some are for straight-up leg mass, and others help to build explosiveness and athleticism. Many of them will really stretch your hamstrings, hips, and adductors, too, expanding your mobility so you can achieve greater ranges of motion in all your lower-body movements and activate more muscle.

*All videos courtesy of Luka Hocevar and Vigor Ground Fitness

#1. Dumbbell Paused Squat Jump

This one is great for developing explosive power and the ability to decelerate your body after a jump or sprint. I use it often with the basketball players I train.

Step 1. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and stand with feet about hip-width apart. Keep your arms locked out and think about squeezing oranges in your armpits to keep the lats under tension.

Step 2. Retract your neck so your head isn’t sticking out in front of your body (think: “packed chin”). Your head, spine, and pelvis should form a long, straight line. Brace your core.

Step 3. Squat down until your knees are bent about 90 degrees (think: “half squat,” not a full squat). The dumbbells should be just outside your legs but not touching them.

Step 4. Pause a second at the bottom, and then explode upward. Apply as much force to the ground as possible, and imagine trying to touch your head to the ceiling.

Step 5. Land like a ninja—with soft knees, and as quietly as you can. Push your hips back as you touch down to help you decelerate. Think about it like this: if you were landing in a puddle, how would you do it so as not to make a huge splash?

Make sure you pause between reps to reset yourself as needed.

#2. Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squat

One of my favorite lower-body exercises, the split squat builds strength, muscle, and stability that transfers over to athletic movements. It also supports gains on big barbell lifts like the deadlift and squat.

Step 1. Stand lunge-length in front of a single-leg squat stand (shown here) or bench. Hold dumbbells at your sides and rest the top of your back foot on the bench. Your back leg should be bent about 90 degrees (use this leg as little as possible throughout the exercise; you should feel almost no tension in it). Keep your arms locked out and think about squeezing oranges in your armpits to keep the lats under tension.

Step 2. Retract your neck so your head isn’t sticking out in front of your body (think: “packed chin”). Your head, spine, and pelvis should form a long, straight line. Brace your core.

Step 3. Hinge your hips back so your torso is angled forward, and lower your body until your rear knee is just above the floor. As you descend, your spine and shin should run parallel to each other.

Step 4. Think about pushing the floor away from you and feeling your whole foot contact it as you come back up to the starting position. Be careful not to fully lock out your front knee—it should be slightly bent at the top of each rep. Complete your reps on that side, and then switch sides and repeat.

#3. Dumbbell Step-Over Lunge

Looking for a “functional” exercise? How about one that works deceleration, acceleration, coordination and just about every muscle in the lower body? The step-over lunge is one of the most challenging lunge variations you can do, but once you’ve got it down, you’ll see huge results.

Step 1. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and stand with feet about hip-width apart. Keep your arms locked out and think about squeezing oranges in your armpits to keep the lats under tension.

Step 2. Retract your neck so your head isn’t sticking out in front of your body (think: “packed chin”). Your head, spine, and pelvis should form a long, straight line. Brace your core.

Step 3. Step backward with a slight hinge/lean in your hips so that you load your glutes. Control your descent, and softly touch the floor with your back knee.

Step 4. Drive through the floor with your front foot and step forward out of the lunge. Try not to put your foot down to rebalance yourself—just step straight into a forward lunge. Complete your reps on that side, and then switch sides and repeat.

Note: It’s OK if your knee travels in front of your toes at the end-range of a lunge. It’s not only safe, it’s actually healthy for the ankles, knees, and hips to develop stability in that range of motion.

#4. Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift

The RDL is the best way to teach a true hip-hinge movement, which is used in all sports and multiple daily activities. Starting the lift from the top rather than the bottom makes it safer, and the dumbbells help you keep the weight closer to your center of gravity than the barbell alternative.

Step 1. Hold a dumbbell in each hand at your sides and stand with feet about hip-width apart. Keep your arms locked out and think about squeezing oranges in your armpits to keep the lats under tension. Draw your shoulders back and down (think: “proud chest”).

Step 2. Retract your neck so your head isn’t sticking out in front of your body (think: “packed chin”). Your head, spine, and pelvis should form a long, straight line. Brace your core.

Step 3. Push your hips back like you’re trying to shut a car door behind you with your butt. Bend your knees slightly, and think about pulling yourself down with your hip flexors (the muscles on the front of your hips that raise your legs up) as you lower your torso. As you go down, allow the dumbbells to move slightly forward and around to the front of your thighs.

Go down until the dumbbells reach mid-shin level, or you feel a strong stretch in your hamstrings, and pause at the bottom. Your eyes should be looking about three feet in front of your toes. If you find yourself looking down at your feet or at the wall in front of you, your neck is out of alignment.

Be sure to keep your long-spine position. Don’t round your back.

Step 4. Extend your hips to come back up, and squeeze your glutes at the top of the rep.

#5. Dumbbell Single-Leg Kickstand Wall RDL

This is an incredible exercise for teaching great hinge form while putting the hip in abduction and internal rotation—skills that keep the hips healthy and athletic while also activating lots of glute muscle.

Step 1. Stand in front of a wall, facing away, and hold a dumbbell in your left hand. Bend the left knee, and push that foot back into the wall. Get a soft bend of the knee on the other leg. Draw your shoulder blades back and down, pack your chin, and get a long spine from your head to your pelvis.

Step 2. Bend your hips back while twisting your torso toward the right leg so that the dumbbell lines up in front of it. Think about getting your belly button to point at the outside of the knee. Go down until the dumbbell is at mid-shin level, or you feel a strong stretch in your hamstrings. Keep the left knee pulled in as you perform the RDL—don’t let it drift outward.

Be sure to maintain your long-spine position. Don’t round your back.

Step 3. Push the floor away as you come back up, and extend your hips fully. Complete your reps on that side, and then switch sides and repeat.

#6. Dumbbell Lateral Lunge with Reach

Most muscle-building exercises are done in the sagittal plane, where the movement occurs forward and back. Lateral lunges break you out of that groove, utilizing the frontal plane, which is so prominent in sports play. Fighters, football players, soccer players, and so on have to be able to move side to side without pulling a muscle or tripping over their feet. This move prepares them for it.

Step 1. Hold a dumbbell in your right hand and stand with feet about hip-width apart. Keep your arms locked out and think about squeezing an orange in your armpit to keep the lats under tension.

Step 2. Retract your neck so your head isn’t sticking out in front of your body (think: “packed chin”). Your head, spine, and pelvis should form a long, straight line. Brace your core.

Step 3. Lunge to your left side, making sure your left foot stays on the same plane as the right one. (Tip: do the exercise on turf, or some other area that has a line painted on it so you get some feedback. Placing a long exercise band on the floor can also work.) Make sure you step far enough so that you feel a stretch on the locked-out leg.

Step 4. Sit back into your hip (it’s a hinge/deadlift movement more than a squat), and make sure your knee aligns with your big toe on the left leg. If this is a problem, imagine pushing a $100 bill into the floor with the inside of your foot. As you lower into the lunge, twist your torso so you can nearly touch the dumbbell to your foot.

Step 5. Push off the lunging leg and come back to the starting position in one fluid motion. Complete your reps on that side, and then switch sides and repeat.

#7. Dumbbell Front-Foot Elevated Split Squat

I love this move for teaching a vertical squat pattern, where your hips and torso move straight down as opposed to more of a hip-hinge motion. This reduces shear forces on the spine. Most of my clients say their hips and low back feel great after doing these, even though their legs are on fire.

Step 1. Hold a dumbbell in your left hand and stand with your left foot on a weight plate or other platform that elevates it about two inches above the floor. Extend your right leg behind you. Keep your left arm locked out and think about squeezing an orange in your armpit to keep the lat under tension.

Step 2. Retract your neck so your head isn’t sticking out in front of your body (think: “packed chin”). Your head, spine, and pelvis should form a long, straight line. Brace your core.

Step 3. Rotate the hip of the rear leg forward so it’s square with the other hip, and begin sitting back into the hip that’s over the plate. Your rear thigh and knee must stay aligned with your right foot, so don’t let the knee turn inward when you rotate the hip.

Step 4. Actively drive your front foot into the plate, making sure your heel stays down, as you slowly lower your body until your rear knee is just above the floor. Stay as vertical as possible—think of your body like a canister. Your front knee will travel forward and you should aim to touch your hamstrings to your calf.

Step 5. Push off the front foot to raise your body back up. Think “elevator, not escalator,” so you push the plate away while staying vertical and not rising back on an angle. Rise until your rear leg is straight—your front leg should be well short of lockout.

#8. Dumbbell Goblet Squat

If you have trouble dialing in your squat form, the goblet squat is a great way to re-train yourself. It teaches you to stay upright and sink into your hips, and often leads to near-perfect squat mechanics right away. The goblet squat not only works your lower body, but requires a lot of strength and stability from your core and upper body as well. It’s great for reinforcing good posture when done correctly.

Step 1. Hold a dumbbell under your chin vertically, with both hands on the end of one bell. Stand with feet between hip and shoulder-width apart and turn your toes out about 30 degrees. Think about squeezing oranges in your armpits to keep the lats under tension. Draw your shoulders back and down (think: “proud chest”).

Step 2. Retract your neck so your head isn’t sticking out in front of your body (think: “packed chin”). Your head, spine, and pelvis should form a long, straight line. Brace your core.

Step 3. Drive your knees forward and pull yourself down into the squat using the hip flexors (the muscles on the front of the hips that raise your legs up). Stay as vertical as you can with your upper body, and go as deep as you can while keeping alignment from your head to your pelvis—your lower back should be neutral at the bottom (not rounded over or hyperextended). Your elbows should be able to touch the medial side of your knees in the bottom position.

Step 4. Push the floor away as you rise back up to stand tall.

Note: On all of the above exercises, it can help to think about keeping your ribs down. This means to avoid any hyperextension of your lower back that would cause your ribs to flare. If you focus on pulling the ribs down toward the pelvis, you’ll brace your core properly and create a neutral spine position. This promotes safety, and will ensure your legs work to the maximum.

What Muscles Will I Be Targeting?

The above exercises combined target every muscle group in the lower body (and a great many muscles in the upper body too, which provide stability), as well as the core. I’ll break down the major muscle groups targeted in each lift.

Dumbbell paused squat jump: glutes, quads, calves

Dumbbell Bulgarian split squat: glutes, quads, hamstrings, adductors

Dumbbell step-over lunge: quads, glutes, adductors

Dumbbell Romanian deadlift (RDL): hamstrings, glutes, spinal erectors, core

Dumbbell single-leg kickstand wall RDL: glutes, hamstrings, adductors, core

Dumbbell lateral lunge with reach: glutes, adductors

Dumbbell front-foot elevated split squat: quads, adductors, glutes, hamstrings

Dumbbell goblet squat: quads, glutes, upper back, core

How To Stretch Before A Dumbbell Leg Workout

An effective warmup should begin with some soft tissue work using a foam roller, lacrosse ball, or other tool that applies some pressure to the muscles to help them loosen up. Roll out your hips, hamstrings, quads, and any other areas of the lower body that may feel particularly tight. After that, try these three combination mobility drills that will open up your hips and knees while raising your core temperature. The goal with these is to further improve your ability to achieve the positions that the exercises in the workout require, so don’t skip them!

If one drill makes you feel tighter than another, spend more time on that one and focus on owning the positions. When you get to an uncomfortable point in the range of motion, take some deep breaths (long exhale, long inhale)—this will help loosen you up as well as help you to stabilize in the position.

Set a timer for 6–12 minutes, depending on how much time you can devote to your warmup, and go through the exercises as outlined until the time is up. It may end up being two rounds of each move, or five; just keep moving. If you’re extra tight/stiff, I recommend putting the timer on for 10 or more minutes.

1. Single-Leg Downward Dog to Spiderman Lunge with Quad Stretch

Reps: 3–5 (each side)

Step 1. Get into pushup position with your hands directly under your shoulders and your body in a straight line from head to toe.

Step 2. Raise your right leg off the floor as you push your body backward and raise your hips into the air. Keep your left leg as straight as possible and your heel flat on the floor. Drive your arms into the floor so that your palms stay flat.

Step 3. Step your right leg forward and plant it next to your right arm. Take a moment to extend your spine and hips so that you realign yourself—your body should form a straight line from your head to the heel of your left foot.

Step 4. Lower the left knee to the floor and bend that leg as you reach back with your left hand to grasp the ankle. Gently pull your heel closer to your butt so you feel a stretch in your quads. Shift your weight forward to intensify the stretch.

Step 5. Let your foot go, and return to pushup position. Repeat on the opposite side.

2. Squat to Stand with Walkout to Downward Dog + Single-Arm Reach

Reps: 3–5

Step 1. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and toes turned out about 30 degrees.

Step 2. Bend over and grasp your toes. Squat down as low as you can, extending your spine as you do so that you end up in the bottom of a squat with your elbows inside your knees and a long spine. You can wiggle your hips around a bit to help you get comfortable in the bottom position.

Step 3. Walk your hands forward until you’re in a pushup position, and push your hips back and into the air.

Step 4. Twist your torso to the right and grasp the outside of your right knee with your left hand. Twist the other direction and grasp the opposite knee.

Step 5. Reverse the entire movement: Return to pushup position, walk yourself back to the bottom of the squat, and then stand up with your hips while grasping your toes.

3. Thai Sit with Shinbox Switch

Reps: 5 (each side)

Step 1. Sit on the floor with both knees bent. Your left leg should be in front of you and your right leg pointing behind. Keep a tall spine, and try to get both your sit bones flat on the floor.

Step 2. Extend your hips to come up on your knees. Extend your arms straight in front of you, and slowly lower your butt back to the floor.

Step 3. Rotate your right leg outward and your left leg inward so that you turn your body and achieve the same sitting position in the opposite direction. Rise up to your knees, and lower back down. Use your hands for balance as needed, but don’t use them for momentum to help you rise up.

How To Choose The Right Dumbbell Weight

On any dumbbell exercise, you’ll need to work up to the right weight gradually by doing what coaches call “ramp up” sets. Choose a very light weight to start, maybe 50% of the heaviest load you think you can handle for your work sets, and perform around 5 reps. Increase the weight by small increments (10–20 pounds) until you reach a load that you’re sure you can use—with good form—for the number of reps that the workout calls for. Take as many ramp up sets as you need, and don’t take any of the ramp up sets to failure—they’re just an extension of your warmup.

Be conservative with the weight you select for your first main work set—you can always increase the weight on your next set if the first one feels too light.

Note that the dumbbell paused squat jump is a power exercise and needs to be done as explosively as possible. Going too heavy will slow you down and thus defeat the purpose. Use your bodyweight alone for your first ramp up set. You won’t need much weight for the work sets.

Complete Dumbbell Leg Workout

This workout includes all the aforementioned exercises to give you a routine that builds athleticism, strength, and muscle size. You can run the program for four to six weeks, adding a work set to a few of the exercises as you see fit in the second or third week (add sets to the remaining exercises in the weeks that follow). You should also aim to increase the number of reps you perform and the loads you use over time. But don’t attempt to make any exercise harder until you’re sure you’ve got the form down properly.

Rest as needed between sets and between exercises. The squat jump will require more rest so you can restore maximum speed and power—maybe 2 minutes—while you may only need a minute or so break between sets of the lateral lunge.

Notice that you have a choice of moves you can do for exercises 2 and 3. You can opt for the Bulgarian split squat and Romanian deadlift if you want more of a muscle-building stimulus, or you can choose the step-over lunge and kickstand wall RDL if you want to prepare your body for better performance in soccer, football, basketball etc.

1. Dumbbell Paused Squat Jump

Sets: 3–4  Reps: 6–8

2. Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squat, OR Dumbbell Step-Over Lunge

Sets: 3–4  Reps: 8 (each side)

3. Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift, OR Dumbbell Single-Leg Kickstand Wall RDL

Sets: 3  Reps: 12 (each side)

4. Dumbbell Lateral Lunge w/ Reach

Sets: 2  Reps: 10 (each side)

5. Dumbbell Front-Foot Elevated Split Squat

Sets: 2  Reps: 10 (each side)

Optional Finisher: Dumbbell Goblet Squat

Sets: 1–2  Reps: 20–25

Follow Luka on Instagram, @lukahocevar.

The post A Pro’s Guide To Dumbbell Leg Exercises and Workouts appeared first on Onnit Academy.