Words: Gentleman's Journal
A common lie we tell ourselves nowadays is that we are getting a workout by just being in the gym. Everyone knows what I’m talking about, and everyone has been a victim of this lie at one point or another during his or her lives. It’s the common misconception that being in close proximity to exercise equipment and sweaty people is actually making us fitter. It sounds ridiculous when you see it written down doesn’t it? Even so, every single gym on the planet has a few of these ‘exercise pretenders’ around.
The reality of course, is that you must do something with the equipment. Once you have done that, you have taken the first step. The second step is knowing what to do with it. The human body is made up of over 600 muscles, and they all need a workout every once in a while. It’s important to exercise every muscle, as they aren’t just an array of individual pieces that work independently but more of a puzzle that make up one full picture. If there’s one piece missing then the full picture is compromised right? Right.
So, on to the good stuff. We are very lucky in this day and age in the fact that we have quite an in-depth understanding of how our muscles work and what are good and bad exercises to do to exercise them effectively. With all the media hype and all the speculation, it really only comes down to one thing: hard workouts. As I said before, and as we all know, no one ever got big standing next to the weights. The exercises that will be mentioned today are hard, and they actually involve doing something with the weights (sorry to disappoint). They are the most effective exercises one can do to build that natural athletic physique that every man and woman desires. They exercise every muscle fiber in the human body, whilst maintaining muscle balance throughout, thus preventing overexertion of one muscle group – which in turn may lead to injury.
The Bench Press, The Pull up, The Squat, The Shoulder Press, The Dead Lift, The Dip.
Note that all these exercises are what you would call ‘combine movements’, meaning that they involve motion around more than one joint. They highlight how your main muscle groups co-ordinate naturally. All exercises must be done once a week and improved on consecutively in order to gain size and strength. This can be done by increasing the amount of weight once the required amount of sets and repetitions can be completed.
Advised Exercise Spilt:
Monday:, Bench Press / Pull ups – 3 sets of 5 repetitions.
Wednesday:, Squats / Shoulder Press – 3 sets of 8 repetitions.
Friday:, Dead Lifts / Dips – 3 sets of 5 repetitions.
Rest On the Weekend, then repeat, until you are big.
See the diagrams below to see which exercises do what:
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