**5 Fucking Essential Lifts

Everyone's got their pet lifts. For most, these lifts are comprised of the bench press in all of its permutations, and curls, in all of their variations. For me... well, I recently had a bodybuilder retort, after having me break his balls about his endless arm workouts, "What are YOU doing today? Shrugs and front squats?"

The best part? Yup, I fucking was, haha.

As such, I think it behooves you fuckers to discover what I consider to be the most effective lifts on planet Earth, in order of awesomeness.

1) The Behind the Neck Push Press/Jerk.

I still haven't decided what the official name of this fucking exercise is, but no matter, it fucking rocks. In case you're one of the sad motherfuckers who has not yet attempted this gem, allow me to list all of the shit that it hits, in order of stress applied by the movement.

• Shoulders
• Traps
• Upper Back
• Midsection (No, it's not your fucking core, unless you're reading a shitty book by a useless trainer, you're on a swiss ball, or you're in a pilates class. It's your fucking midsection- all of it component parts). This exercise will make you into a goddamned abdominal and lower back Tyrannosaurus, especially if you hold the weight at lockout for a couple of counts.
• Triceps
• Thighs
• Calves

Yes. It literally works your entire body. You need this exercise in your workout, desperately.

Now, I know a few of you have asked me if you should even bother doing this exercise if you have no access to bumper plates and you cannot ditch the weight. The answer, unequivocally, is yes. If you cannot dump the weight, work with an increased rep range (6x5, for instance), or cut the rest periods down to virtually nothing and go 10x3, fast. Additionally, you can occasionally see how many reps you can do with your bodyweight in 30 mins, or a percentage of your bodyweight. I did that once as part of a DragonDoor challenge, and every single part of my body hurt for days, including the arches of my feet. Super brutal.

In case you've missed my previous blogs about this exercise, you start with the bar on your back, as if you were starting a squat. You then drop to a quarter squat and explosively drive with your legs, THROWING the bar off your back overhead. Hold the lockout for a second, and then drop it back to your traps.

2) The Front Squat

An amazing exercise, the front squat contributes mightily to both leg and abdominal strength. I can attribute the following to my recent focus on the front squat:

• increased back squat. This came as a direct result of using the improved leverages of the front squat and a departure from constant hammering on the back squat. I defeated staleness and got far stronger simultaneously.
• increased deadlift. Because the front squat necessarily uses a closer stance than the powerlifting back squat, I found a better crossover to conventional deadlifting and saw a marked jump in my pulls as I got stronger in the front squat.
• better leg development. Look at any Olympic weightlifter. Their legs are fucking sick, and I'll bet dollars to doughnuts it has to do with the fact that they front squat on the regular. The front squat shifts the focus of the movement onto your quads, rather than your glutes and hamstrings in the PL squat, due to the closer stance and altered leverages. Thus, you get better quad separation and development out of the movement.
• better shoulder strength. This is due to the fact that I do them crossed-arms bodybuilder style, owing to the fact that I have some of the worst wrist flexibility in history.
• better abs. Once you get lean enough, you'll see what I mean. My abs look like fucking bricks, and I do a hell of a lot more front squatting than ab work.

3) The Power Clean

I know, most of you are probably silently cursing me for this, but I like it more than the deadlift. Why? Because I can do it all the fucking time, with no ill effects. Deadlifting more than once a week, or once every two weeks, completely fucks my mid back, crippling me for the front squat and btn push press. Thus, I focus more on the power clean. Doing the quick pulls in the power clean, in conjunction with ultra-heavy shrugs, grants me the ability to pull 605 literally whenever I want, with wiggle room if I feel like going up some. As such, I'm going to keep pounding the power cleans and shrugs as often as I can, and throw in deadlifts as an occasional change of pace. Additionally, the use of 90-95% of my 1RM for a ton of reps leaves me pretty much fresh as a daisy, whereas just a few reps with 95% of my 1RM on deads has me pretty much fucking crippled thereafter.

4) The Ab Wheel.

Ross Enamait ushered in the resurrection of the single best piece of abdominal equipment on the planet, and for that, he's the man. Just do the fucking things with good form, and you'll know what I'm talking about. Check out his website to see what good form looks like.

I'd typically go a bit closer than this, but it's close for him, apparently. And fucking HEAVY.

5) Close Grip Bench Press
No, not the regular bench. I like hand position wherein my index finger is on the edge of the knurling, or over it. I then suck in my elbows to my sides, and my hands are just over my elbows if viewed from the top.

In my opinion, the close grip bench press is superior to the regular flat bench press for a couple of reasons:

1. it stresses the triceps more than the regular bench, which means that it will have more crossover than the traditional flat bench press.
2. the weighted dip is a superior chest exercise to the flat bench press in any event, so it stands to reason that the exercise with the most crossover should be the one you choose.
   

There you have it. These are, in my opinion, the five most essential lifts in any workout. With just these 5, you can build a brutal physique worthy of the admiration of guys and the lust of women. In other words, using these exercises, you can be the balls, just like Ron Burgundy.

He has very little time to get to the gym, so he has to sculpt his guns at work.

Get after it, motherfuckers.

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