Various forms of biking are gaining popularity, either outdoors in the real world or on a stationary bike in the gym, so why not experiment with cycling your way to more muscular legs?

RELATED: Best Exercise Bikes

Spin instructors have nice legs and the muscle burn you feel from cycling can be comparable, or even more intense, than some traditional strength-training leg workouts. So let’s breakdown this unconventional approach to see how, or if, you can pedal your way toward thicker legs.

Does Cycling Build Muscle

• Cycling for Muscle Growth
• Low Intensity vs. High Intensity
• Does Cardio Burn Muscle?
• How to Cycle for More Muscle

Cycling For Muscle

Fundamentally, cycling is a form of cardio. It taxes your endurance and it doesn’t have the traditional benefits of strength training exercises like squats and lunges. Cycling also doesn’t have coordinated “lifting and lowering” phases of movement (i.e. the involved muscles don’t undergo a contraction phase against resistance followed by a muscle-lengthening phase against resistance).

However, the pedaling required to cycle forces multiple concentric muscle contractions — working against resistance — along many major leg muscles. There is hip flexion, knee extension, and some knee flexion going on with each stroke of the pedal, so it’s valid to wonder if muscle growth can occur. This is all a fancy way of saying that, when cycling, your muscles still produce force to contract, fundamentally similar to strength training.

Muscular Contractions and Tension

Technically speaking, all you need for muscle growth is mechanical tension. (1) This is active force along muscle fibers until they reach involuntarily slow contraction speeds. It’s why the last few reps of a set of squats are the hardest and, generally, the slowest moving.

It’s also why training close to, up to, or beyond failure builds muscle. Those final, highly challenging reps are what triggers hypertrophy.

So while you don’t calculate training volume or count reps on a bike the same as with a weight training exercise — nobody jumps on a bike for “650 pedals” — mechanically speaking, there is potential for cycling to trigger growth if your muscles are sufficiently challenged.

We’ll talk more about optimizing this later, but let’s go over some cardio myths first. Cycling is, after all, still primarily an endurance-based exercise which can be a conflict of interest for getting jacked.

Low Intensity vs. High Intensity Cardio

Similar to strength training, cardio can be performed at various intensities. For simplicity’s sakes, let’s focus on low intensity, steady-state cardio (LISS) and high-intensity interval training (HIIT). While there are other cardio training methods, comparing these ends of the spectrum will help you understand the key differences.

You can sustain relatively lower intensity cardio for longer periods of time, hence the “steady state” designation. Examples include walking, jogging, slowly swimming laps, casual biking, or anything done at a relatively sustainable pace.

Higher intensity cardio is typically broken up into intervals of work alternated with periods of lower intensity cardio or complete rest. (2) You can’t sustain a near-maximum sprinting speed for too long, or else it wouldn’t really be a sprint.

The Right Cardio for Muscle Growth

While both methods have cardiovascular components like improving your resting heart rate and VO2 max (the amount of oxygen your body uses during exercise), high intensity interval training can potentially stimulate some muscle growth. HIIT requires you to perform for durations and intensities closer to traditional strength training.

Therefore, if the goal is using cycling to build muscle, you need to crank up the bike’s resistance. If you’re cycling for 20 minutes or more, the resistance is likely too low to achieve a true muscle-building stimulus even if your legs “burn” a lot. Similarly, if you were to curl three-pound dumbbells for 20 minutes without stopping, sure that would feel the burn, but it’s not efficient or effective at building muscle.

Does Cardio Eat Muscle?

If you’ve heard tales about cardio dwindling your muscle away, there’s some truth to this, but it’s not what you think.

Cardio, whether LISS or HIIT, is providing your body a stimulus to adapt to. Outside of undereating and not exercising at all, your body doesn’t “lose muscle.” However, while cardio doesn’t eat away your precious glutes and biceps, the stimulus that you are imposing is a bit conflicted.

Think about it. When you lift heavy weights and try to get stronger, you’re telling your body it should grow muscle to lift heavier weights. But when you cycle or run, you’re telling your body to get more efficient at moving longer distances, and one way to be more efficient is to prevent building significant muscular body weight.

This is why endurance athletes, like marathon runners, are typically slimmer and strength athletes, like powerlifters, are reliably more muscular. When you try to focus on excelling in both during a training routine, there is a compromise called the interference effect. (3)

The interference effect doesn’t necessarily cause muscle loss, but it can compromise the adaptations and positive results made on both ends — muscle growth and building endurance — unless you take care to design the plan with very targeted programming.

So while we established that cycling can build muscle under certain conditions, you won’t build as much as someone who prioritizes their training and recovery toward conventional leg exercises like squats and deadlifts. This is the principle of specificity — specific activities will trigger specific adaptations in your body.

How to Cycle For Muscle Growth

If you’re planning to hop on the spin bike just because you enjoy it, and you’re still hoping to build some muscle, no worries. That’s an acceptable trade-off and here’s how you would go about it.

The pedaling technique is pretty simple. As long as you’re pedaling with your foot secured, you will be training your quadriceps, glutes, and hamstrings. Since building muscle requires progressive overload — a consistently increased challenge from workout to workout — an in-gym stationary bike will be better than getting outdoors on a road bike. This will let you more easily track, monitor, and adjust the majority of variables.

If you insist on cycling out in the wild, try to accurately track variables by selecting the same distance route with the same elevation changes, and monitoring your pedal output, including cadence and total time.

Switching routes constantly is like switching between dumbbells, kettlebells, and cables every week. You’re constantly changing things, but actual progressive overload might not be occurring.

Cycling Frequency

Next is the placement of your cycling session. Schedule it at the end of a leg workout or on the training day after working your legs. This ensures that your legs are fresh enough to focus on traditional strength training, which will grow the most muscle.

Doing your cycling the day after will also allow your legs to be slightly pre-fatigued, which can help you get relatively more stimulus with relatively less work. After a hard leg session, your legs won’t need as high a degree of cycling intensity to reach fatigue.

In any case, never place your cycling session right before your leg workout. Your leg workout will negatively affected and you will not end up triggering much muscle growth. Remember, cycling to build muscle is already a compromised approach. Don’t compromise it further by ruining your regular leg workouts.

Cycling Intensity

You need to cycle with intensity. For cycling to build muscle, it cannot be preformed at a leisurely, steady-state pace. It will need to be intense enough to nearly resemble a set of strength training.

Intervals of 20-60 seconds of work against a high resistance is a good goal. Aim for eight to 10 sets, which should be plenty if you are doing this hypertrophy-focused cycling session once or twice per week.

Aim for a consistent resistance setting and time for each set. At the end of your workout, check to see how much distance you covered. To ensure muscle growth and provide progressive resistance each week, you need to increase that distance in the same timeframe using the same resistance.

As the weeks go on, keep pushing for more total distance with the same resistance and time per set. Once you get to a comfortable distance, increase the resistance slightly and start all over.

If you’re cycling out in nature, your best approach is to find a hill and ride up for 10 sets. Use the ride down as part of your rest between each set. But you’ll still need to progressively overload this routine. This could mean cycling uphill while wearing a weighted vest or backpack, or searching to find a steeper or longer hill to increase the challenge.

Deloading

Building muscle with cardio is, in some ways, similar to building muscle with strength training. Sure, one method is far more effective for this goal, but the same general principles apply. Essentially, you apply mechanical tension and you keep consistently apply more so the body adapts.

If you can’t apply more, which will inevitably happen, you need to plan a deload. This is extremely important because cycling at high intensities can be quite fatiguing, especially when performed in addition to your normal strength training workouts.

You might run into a plateau or a drop in performance within a few weeks depending on your overall plan and your general conditioning. A plateau doesn’t mean you need to push harder, it means you need to take a deload week where entire training is significantly lighter and relatively lower resistance.

In strength training, this would mean using lighter weights and/or doing fewer reps per set. On the bike, it means dialing back the resistance and taking some relatively easier rides. This allows any accumulated fatigue to dissipate, so you can comeback in a week or so to push for more PRs and build more muscle in the long-term.

Skip Leg Day, Add Bike Day?

Some people might now be wondering if it’s OK to exclusively cycle to build their lower body muscles. Technically, you could, but it’s quite inefficient, especially if you’re more advanced in your overall fitness. But, you can certainly do what you want and train however you’d like. And it’s still better than not giving your legs any type of training stimulus. If you’re ready to add cycling to your leg-building plans, save this guide as a reference for the best way to pedal a little closer to thicker thighs.

References

1. Schoenfeld B. J. (2010). The mechanisms of muscle hypertrophy and their application to resistance training. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 24(10), 2857–2872. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e840f3
2. Atakan, M. M., Li, Y., Koşar, Ş. N., Turnagöl, H. H., & Yan, X. (2021). Evidence-Based Effects of High-Intensity Interval Training on Exercise Capacity and Health: A Review with Historical Perspective. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(13), 7201. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18137201
3. Methenitis S. (2018). A Brief Review on Concurrent Training: From Laboratory to the Field. Sports (Basel, Switzerland), 6(4), 127. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports6040127

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It’s an incredibly straightforward approach that has “fitfluencers” and followers sweating buckets as they supposedly lose weight using the workout protocol. However, fitness trends can be hit or miss. And, given the general state of social media and its low barrier of entry, there are usually more misses than hits.

It’s time to review the pros and cons of the 12-3-30 workout to find out if it’s a temporary trend or if it could become a time-tested routine.

The 12-3-30 Workout

• 12-3-30: Why?
• The Fat Loss Workout
• Drawbacks of the Plan
• How to Improve the Routine

Why 12, 3, and 30?

When it comes to fitness, numbers can be relatively arbitrary. The 12-3-30 routine can work, but if you set the incline to 11% and the speed to 3.2 mph, and you only do the workout for 27 minutes, it would not make much difference and you could expect nearly identical results.

So while specific numbers can be useful for getting trends to catch on, and they can be a convenient way to keep things standard for everyone in the gym, there is no particular magic about “12-3-30.”

Then what’s the merit of the 12-3-30 program? Well, the steep incline and relatively quick pace make it challenging enough, and it’s long enough in duration, that you’ll almost certainly break a sweat and burn a fair amount of calories.

The significant incline adds a level of intensity that translates well to improving your hiking and endurance abilities. The speed is fast enough to push most people, but generally not “too fast” to trigger major fatigue which might cause you to end the workout early. The 30-minute time limit encourages you to see the workout through, while also getting an appreciable number of steps.

As beneficial as it could be, it’s important to remember that you can and should tailor it to your individual needs, which will be explained in-depth later in the article. The exact programming numbers are less important than simply getting through a tough cardio workout for an effective length of time.

12-3-30 for Fat Loss

Workouts like 12-3-30 can be great in aiding fat loss. You will see lots of progress photos online crediting the workout plan. The fundamental mechanism for fat loss is always the same for every individual — achieving a consistent caloric deficit. If you perform a daily cardio workout that burns a lot of extra calories, it can naturally be great for fat loss.

However, not everybody is guaranteed to lose fat with this plan. For example, if you are inconsistent with training, you might not actually be burning that many calories each week. The same applies if you “water down” the workout too much. While the particular “12-3-30” numbers don’t matter that much, if you devolve the workout to something closer to 6-2-15, it’s not even close to the same workout anymore. Remember, the workout needs to be challenging and it needs to be done for a decent amount of time.

Furthermore, fat loss isn’t always certain because, while you might burn plenty of calories during a 12-3-30 workout, it still might not be enough to make up for the calories you’re eating. Regardless of your training program, your nutrition needs to be designed for fat loss if you want to see results.

There is a massive overeating problem when it comes to the classic Western diet and trendy social media workouts are not going to solve that. (1) As cliché as it may sound, you can’t outrun or, in this case, out-incline-walk your diet if you’re taking in too many calories.

The Drawbacks of 12-3-30

The main drawback of 12-3-30 is, frankly, that it is simply a cardio workout. Some fitness influencers actually go so far as to claim the treadmill routine is “all you have to do” to lose weight. But it’s not.

This brings up a massive issue. Not only do many people face an overconsumption issue when it comes to calories, but there is also a lack of strength training in many populations. Gone are the days where lifting weights is only for bodybuilders and powerlifters.

Countless anecdotal evidence (from long before 12-3-30 existed) along with abundant scientific research all demonstrate the same thing: optimal fat loss and significant body composition change requires strength training. (2)

Strength training is the only way to provide the stimulus your body needs to retain lean muscle mass. This is important because, when you’re in a caloric deficit, you are deliberately burning more energy than your body is taking in. This makes your body want to “eat away” your tissues — muscle and stored body fat alike — to fuel its basic function.

If your body doesn’t have the ability to hang on to muscle tissue, which is stimulated through strength training, you will lose a combination of body fat and muscle tissue. This is why some people don’t end up looking “lean” or defined when they lose weight. They simply look “skinnier,” saggy, or even frail. Furthermore, losing muscle reduces your metabolism and makes your bones weaker. (3)(4)

While seeing the number on the scale go down is often a good thing, you want that reduced body weight to be primarily from body fat, not lean muscle. Muscle retention requires a foundation of strength training. This is especially true for leaner and more trained individuals who are more prone to muscle loss, due to beginning with relatively lower body fat levels.

If you’re currently at a relatively heavier body weight or if you’re new to fitness, you might be able to get away with solely doing 12-3-30 without muscle loss… for a little while. Eventually, though, everybody benefits from strength training.

This is not so much a knock on the 12-3-30 workout plan, as much as it’s a comment on how it’s being “marketed” or widely promoted. For the best overall and long-term results, using 12-3-30 as your only form of exercise is not an effective plan.

The look that you are likely after will require you to lose fat while retaining precious muscle tissue, so let’s talk about how to get there without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Tailoring 12-3-30 to Your Goals

The textbook approach to 12-3-30 can be a productive cardio workout. It can help you burn some calories while improving general cardiovascular health and endurance. Another plus is that it’s not so intense that you can’t watch YouTube videos or pay attention to a podcast during the workout. Those kinds of strategic distractions can make a half-hour go by quickly.

However, it’s important to remember that you don’t need to stick exactly to the 12-3-30 prescription. That incline, speed, and duration could be pretty hard for beginners, so start slightly lower, slower, and/or shorter before gradually working your way up.

And please, for the love of all things good, do not make the 12-3-30 workout the foundation of your exercise plan. Many fitness trends are cardio-based, which will have some merit, but no matter how trendy they might seem, they don’t trump the foundations of strength training and proper nutrition.

So, while 12-3-30 can be simple enough for almost anyone to start, it’s ultimately a supplemental training method. The base of a fat loss plan should revolve around weight training and a good diet.

This means you should be lifting weights three to five days per week before worrying about tacking on any trendy cardio workouts. But, once you do add a plan like 12-3-30 (or something like 8-2-25, to get started), you might boost fat loss because it can burn quite a bit of calories for some people.

If you’re not finding measurable success on your plan after a few weeks, it’s OK. It simply means you need to reassess your nutrition. It is a reminder that strength training triggers muscle retention, but nutrition triggers your fat loss, and any clever cardio programming will always be, at best, an accessory to all that.

And if you simply don’t have time for 12-3-30, that’s OK, too. Despite the viral popularity, it’s not the only option for cardio training. You can do a “condensed” version for just 15 minutes with a higher incline or faster speed to make up for abbreviated time. Or you can try a different approach like a high intensity interval workout.

The Final Verdict

12-3-30 isn’t necessarily a fad. Using a treadmill-based workout that’s a challenging intensity for a significant duration can be effective. But, like all trends, it needs context. It may seem intriguing and tempting to hear about losing fat with a simple, straightforward workout, especially as you see already fit influencers following the plan.

It’s appealing to think that fat loss is as simple as getting on a machine for X incline at Y speed for Z time and results will just roll in. But the physiological foundations remain the same.

No matter your chosen workout, you need to be in a caloric deficit by managing your nutrition and, to ensure that deficit strips away primarily body fat while retaining lean muscle, you will need to strength train consistently.

If 12-3-30 has caught your eye, consider it as one part of an overall fat loss program. Don’t hang your fat loss hopes on one workout just because it has a high follower count on socials.

References

1. Kopp W. (2019). How Western Diet And Lifestyle Drive The Pandemic Of Obesity And Civilization Diseases. Diabetes, metabolic syndrome and obesity : targets and therapy, 12, 2221–2236. https://doi.org/10.2147/DMSO.S216791
2. Bellicha, A., van Baak, M. A., Battista, F., Beaulieu, K., Blundell, J. E., Busetto, L., Carraça, E. V., Dicker, D., Encantado, J., Ermolao, A., Farpour-Lambert, N., Pramono, A., Woodward, E., & Oppert, J. M. (2021). Effect of exercise training on weight loss, body composition changes, and weight maintenance in adults with overweight or obesity: An overview of 12 systematic reviews and 149 studies. Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 22 Suppl 4(Suppl 4), e13256. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.13256
3. Kim, G., & Kim, J. H. (2020). Impact of Skeletal Muscle Mass on Metabolic Health. Endocrinology and metabolism (Seoul, Korea), 35(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.3803/EnM.2020.35.1.1
4. Bettis, T., Kim, B. J., & Hamrick, M. W. (2018). Impact of muscle atrophy on bone metabolism and bone strength: implications for muscle-bone crosstalk with aging and disuse. Osteoporosis international : a journal established as result of cooperation between the European Foundation for Osteoporosis and the National Osteoporosis Foundation of the USA, 29(8), 1713–1720. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00198-018-4570-1

Featured Image: Khakimullin Aleksandr / Shutterstock

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On a more serious note, personal training is not always a lucrative career choice, especially in the beginning. This doesn’t mean you can’t be relatively successful — and you’ll soon learn key steps to increase your odds. But, in general, personal training isn’t a fast-track to a six–figure salary.

Many people quit early because they don’t end up making as much money as they expected or they discover that being in a gym for 10 to 12 hours a day isn’t as fun or easy as it sounds. The daily process is often quite hard and it doesn’t live up to the fantasy of “getting paid to lift weights all day” while miraculously attracting celebrity clients.

Loving fitness is a great start, but you need to also love helping people and doing all the work that goes into it. We’re talking about cleaning the gym floors, getting up early, and staying late at the gym.

You’ll face plenty of obstacles in your early years as a personal trainer, so make sure you clearly define why you’re in it. If you want to really be successful, you will need to be in it for the long haul. Here’s a look at what it really takes, from A to Z, if you want to make a living as a trainer.

How to Become a Personal Trainer

• Education and Skills
• Getting Your First Job
• Building an Online Presence
• Training Private vs. In-Gym vs. Online
• Tricks of the Trade

The Necessary Education and Skills

To become a successful personal trainer, it’s first necessary to define what a personal trainer is, and then work backward. A personal trainer is somebody who provides fitness training services to a paying client. Simple as that. The most practical way to get a paying client is to start at a commercial gym.

Some trainers transition out of the gym and train clients privately, but one thing that all experienced personal trainers can agree upon is that you must start your journey as an employed personal trainer at a gym, ideally a well-known commercial gym. There are some trainers that are exceptions to the rule but, statistically, you’re likely not one of them.

So to “reverse engineer” further, you need to determine which gyms you would like to work at. Again, commercial gyms are usually going to be your best bet compared to a relatively small-scale private gym.

Find a busy gym you like that has a thriving community. If it’s close to where you live, that’s even better, but don’t overthink this step. Most trainers will “outgrow” their first gym quite quickly if they play their cards right.

Certification

Once you choose a gym, you need to figure out which personal trainer certifications they accept. You can find this information by searching online or by talking with a manager in person. Smile and look confident while you’re at it, because that will likely be your first boss before you know it.

Next, you need to obtain one of the certifications they accept. The more accredited and recognized the certification, the more likely your desired gym will require it. This is also why accredited certifications are more expensive.

So save up and study hard to get your first certification. The National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA), or the American Council on Exercise (ACE) are all reputable, time-tested organizations that would be a great choice for your first certification — nearly all gyms will accept these credentials. If you have some sort of higher education degree in the sports and fitness field, even better.

When you’re just starting out, getting any certification credential is frankly more important than how much you actually know. This is not to say education isn’t important, but it’s urgent that you get your foot in the door so you can get started gaining hands-on experience.

Ensure that you study the material thoroughly. You can usually take practice tests online to be confident before taking your official certification test.

Sales and People Skills

Even though training is fundamentally about exercise, the ability to “close a sale” is still incredibly important to being a successful trainer. You might be lucky to have a gym that gives you some clients freely, but you can’t depend on this. You need to make a living and build a client base fast. Not to mention, gyms are primarily looking for your sales and people skills when hiring you.

To build your toolbox, learn about human psychology and practice selling. It will take you much further as a personal trainer than reading another PubMed paper on protein or arguing online about biomechanics. Ultimately, your salesmanship and people skills will help you attain and retain clients, which will allow your service to help more people.

Learning more about people also allows you to target their emotional pain points, empathize, and find ways to improve the client on their own terms. Many clients don’t really care that you have a scientific six phase warm-up or that you can lecture them about deadlift technique. They simply want to get into a decent exercise routine and have a relatable person hold them accountable along the way.

Most of your clients will want to look better, but they’re not often trying to compete. So it’s certainly a line to walk when it comes to understanding the individual’s desire for physical changes without steering them toward bodybuilding or powerlifting. If you can communicate the perfect balance, you should be able to build a reliable clientele.

You’re Not a Trainer Until You’re Hired

Once you pass your certification test, congratulations, you’re now a certified personal trainer… on paper. To be an actual personal trainer, you need at least one paying client. This is where you start applying for a training position at the gyms you were scouting earlier.

This also circles back to why commercial gyms are so important. Sure, they’re an industrialized conglomerate that will take over 50% of your paycheck, but the benefits still outweigh the drawbacks.

When you’re first starting off, the benefits that a commercial gym offers are critical:

• Mentoring you through the process of selling, attaining, and training clients.
• Directing new members to your training services.
• Providing more foot traffic for you to apply your sales and people skills.
• Delivering consistent pay for all the hours you work, even when clientele is slow. This may mean additional responsibilities such as walking the gym floor and cleaning up or doing new member assessments and gym orientations.
• Creating other potential income opportunities like teaching group fitness classes, doing paid member assessments, or filling in as coverage when other trainers are sick.
• Depending on the gym, they may even cover the cost of your continuing education credits or recertification (presuming you succeed as a trainer long enough to need recertification).

In 2023, the personal training industry took a big hit from COVID-19 as gym shutdowns led to many trainers leaving the field. (1) This can actually work in your favor, as many reopened gyms are looking for new trainers.

Some gyms can even give you a decent stream of clients or leads, if the gym is busy enough. Years ago, you had to earn clients by trying to cold sell each member individually, even after you were hired by the gym.

Say Goodbye to “Normal” Hours

Your everyday life will change drastically, and this could be why many personal trainers quit. For starters, your income won’t be great and it likely won’t even be the same amount from week to week. That means vacations, fancy living, and social outings will all be put on hold.

In addition, you will work unconventional hours. Most of your potential clients will be working 9-5 jobs, meaning their available time to train with you will either be early in the morning or later in the evening.

You may eventually be able to transition away from this, but the more sacrifices you make earlier in your training career, the more likely you will succeed in the long-term. That’s why this nasty split-shift is almost always inevitable.

As you work your shift, you will essentially be training any client that you can schedule a session with. If you have few or no clients — which is understandable and expected as a new trainer— you will be doing lots of sales, new member orientations, and odd jobs like tidying up the gym or re-racking weights.

During the middle of the day, the typical gym will be slow. This is a great time to get your own workout in, text any clients to check up on them, or create business-related social media content.

Early on, it’s important to take as many opportunities as you can because it’s a hard business and there’s a lot of painful internal growth that needs to take place. If you are feeling burnt out, you’re probably doing something right. As politically incorrect or unsustainable as it might sound, nobody has ever truly crushed their career without beginning with disproportionate sacrifice.

Training in the Age of Social Media

Like it or not, it’s extremely important to have an online presence in the fitness industry. It can be another avenue for getting clients but, most importantly, it allows you to have your own business card in the background. It’s (literally) free advertising that only costs a bit of time and effort.

Making content and building your social media following is a long-term play. Most of your first personal training clients will be your friends, family, and people you talk to a lot at the gym because they’re the most readily available to you.

But if you invest time into your social media, eventually strangers (meaning: potential clients) from across the internet can start to know, recognize, and trust you as a fitness authority. And if they happen to live in your area, or anywhere reasonably close, they could contact you for paid personal training services.

Dedicate 30 to 60 minutes per day to make content, post, and engage with your audience using your professional social media account. It will also set you up to potentially take your business online in the future.

Commit to as many platforms as you can handle, but be realistic. You don’t need to film a 45-minute video for YouTube, and then pull a quote to post on Threads, and then turn a video clip into a gif for TikTok. If you can make a simple, quality post each day on Instagram, great. Consistency is the most important part of your online presence.

Again, approach it as a massive long-term play. All of the crazy “fitfluencers” you see with thriving businesses training celebrities, while they apparently waste time doing viral dances in the gym, are far and few in between.

That’s not the norm for 99% of trainers. You will likely bust your butt building an online presence with little to no return for at least a year or two. You will have to film stuff at odd hours and squeeze in content-making between clients. Sometimes you’ll work while you eat lunch and sometimes you’ll work instead of eating lunch.

Leaving the Gym

Once you’ve built up a stable clientele and you’ve moved up the ranks for higher pay as an employed and experienced personal trainer, there’s nothing wrong with staying at a commercial gym. If you’ve developed an effective pattern to find and retain clients, that’s great.

However, that is not the end game for many personal trainers. They often don’t like the restrictions of working at a commercial gym — whether it’s interpersonal drama with other trainers or just dealing with limited equipment. And many trainers certainly don’t like splitting their pay with the gym management, since the gym will always take a portion of the trainer’s fees.

Trainers Going Solo

Most personal trainers would rather be their own boss, so here’s how you transition from training in a commercial gym to working with clients privately.

First, you need a new space for the workouts. The most common option is to seek out local private gyms that rent out space to trainers. Usually, you either pay for each hour you actually work with clients or you pay a monthly fee to use the space regardless of your client load.

The good news is, you can now charge your clients whatever you want and keep the rest. So any added costs can be rolled into your rates.

Alternatively, you can build your own space somewhere, like making your own garage gym. This generally takes a lot more money upfront, but you can save down the road by avoiding overhead like commercial gym fees and gas for travel.

Whichever method you choose, build as big of a clientele as possible before officially transitioning to private training. If you’re considering this step, you should be making a pretty good income with a steady stream of clients.

You also need to have a backup marketing strategy in place because you won’t be able to rely on leveraging the commercial gym for new members. This is where social media, referrals, and new leads can become increasingly valuable.

But when you’re ready to make the transition, let management know. You should also be the one to tell your clients where you’re headed. Let them know the benefits of training with you privately. In addition, inform them that the gym will try to retain their business by giving them to another trainer.

If you’ve built enough rapport with your clients, at least half should transition with you. Naturally, some will want to stay because of logistics like pricing, gym proximity, etc. That’s normal and you certainly shouldn’t try to coerce anyone to go. That would also build a bad relationship with the gym, which is not good for your long-term reputation.

So you will likely take a big hit in income as you lose roughly half your clientele with any transition, but if your systems for referrals and attracting new business are in place, you should build up your clientele again within a few months. And now, you’re in a position to thrive on your own terms without being locked down as an employee at a commercial gym.

Transitioning Online

Most personal trainers eventually get worn down trying to physically train as many clients as possible. You only have so many hours a day to be face to face. With the rise of social media, everybody is transitioning to online coaching.

It allows you to have even more freedom and not be bound by location. It’s a natural desire for many personal trainers to free up most, or all, of their in-person hours by going virtual. If you absolutely love personal training, you can still keep a small roster of in-person clients.

Transitioning online is all about social media. This is where the long-term accumulation of an established online presence can help.

To first make the transition online, you should offer free or discounted online coaching to your friends, family, and social media audience. In return, they have to give you a testimonial and their before/after transformation (should they make one).

This allows you to build your online coaching systems and get familiar with online coaching because it’s a lot different than personal training. Get organized on what you offer, how to communicate with clients, and how to help them reach their goals.

From there, you market those before and afters and start building a clientele online. Clients’ progress photos will be your number one marketing tool, but you should still consistently ask for referrals. And always keep making content on social media.

Once your online income starts to outweigh your in-person income, you can decide how much you want to transition over. If you want to fully transition online, you’ll need to give your in-person clients notice.

About half might follow you online and the other half will likely prefer the familiar in-person coaching. As you can see with any transition you make as a trainer —from commercial gym to private or private to online—  it’s generally safe to assume around half of your clients will be retained.

For your remaining clients who don’t want to transition online, you should find another reputable local personal trainer who would be a good fit. Negotiate a deal with the trainer where you’ll direct your clients toward them for a referral fee.

Tricks of the Trade

With the rise of online coaching, many people don’t realize your best bet in the fitness industry is to lay your foundation as a personal trainer. Between the pandemic, the general state of the economy, and the competitiveness of the fitness industry, personal training is more challenging than ever.

But this can be good news. If you do your job well, you will stand out. Here are some first-hand tricks of the trade that can make your personal training journey even more successful.

• Client retention is critical. A majority of your success comes down to retaining your clients, not attaining clients. Fortunately, the only two things clients care about is progress and rapport. Make sure they see progress and, along the way, build plenty of genuine rapport with them.
• Care about your clients. In a world where everybody is always trying to do less, the best thing you can do is more. Really pay attention to your clients. Make yourself available outside of the training session. Check up on their fitness and their personal life. Remember their birthdays. Take them out to lunch randomly. Go the extra mile. This point cannot be stressed enough.
• Keep learning. Take your education seriously and always try to improve your craft.
• Get organized. Organize your schedule. Organize your client files. And have a good accountant to keep your finances in order.
• Be professional. Stay in shape — research shows this absolutely matters, especially in the eyes of prospective clients. (2) Show up on time. Wear clean clothes. Don’t check your phone or eat during sessions. These may sound obvious, but they’re not always so obvious to a lot of new trainers.
• Be unique. Give exercises funny names. Have inside jokes with your clients. Offer beverages. Print out a picture of your client’s celebrity crush to motivate them during the session.

The Next Generation of Personal Training

Personal training is becoming rarer because the personal side of life is dying in society. Everything is digital, automated, and impersonal. But these issues are exactly what can make good personal trainers even more successful. They focus on the personal side of things rather than the training side.

What you know is certainly important, but how much you care about your clients is so much more important. When they notice that you text back faster than most of their close friends, it means much more to the client than how many bench variations you know.

References

1. Bratland-Sanda, S., Mathisen, T. F., Sundgot-Borgen, C., Sundgot-Borgen, J., & Tangen, J. O. (2020). The Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic Lockdown During Spring 2020 on Personal Trainers’ Working and Living Conditions. Frontiers in sports and active living, 2, 589702. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2020.589702
2. Boerner, P. R., Polasek, K. M., True, L., Lind, E., & Hendrick, J. L. (2021). Is What You See What You Get? Perceptions of Personal Trainers’ Competence, Knowledge, and Preferred Sex of Personal Trainer Relative to Physique. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 35(7), 1949–1955. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000003027

Featured Image: PeopleImages.com – Yuri A / Shutterstock

The post How to Become a Personal Trainer in 2023 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Creatine is so popular among gym-goers because it’s one of the few supplements with seemingly endless science behind it. It’s arguably the most proven and data-supported supplement out there, especially when it comes to supporting strength and hypertrophy gains. So it can help you lift heavier and pack on muscle. Who could ask for more? Here’s a closer look at how to use creatine to maximize those tantalizing results.

Creatine Monohydrate

• Creatine Benefits
• How to Take Creatine
• Potential Side Effects

What is Creatine and How Does It Help?

In recent decades, creatine has gained considerable popularity as a dietary supplement among athletes and fitness enthusiasts. (1)(2)(3)

Creatine is a naturally occurring compound found in the body, and it’s also found, in relatively small amounts, in everyday foods like beef, chicken, and eggs. The benefits of creatine supplementation have been extensively studied over the years. Caution: There’s some scientific discussion ahead, but it’ll all make sense by the end.

Creatine is synthesized from the amino acids glycine and arginine in the liver, pancreas, and kidneys. Once synthesized or consumed, creatine is primarily stored in your muscles as phosphocreatine (PCr).

One of the fundamental ways creatine functions in your body is by aiding in the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) — the primary source of energy for cellular processes. During high-intensity exercise, such as weight lifting or sprinting, the demand for ATP increases. However, ATP stores are limited and they deplete rapidly. This is why intense exercise can only be sustained for so long.

That’s where creatine comes into play. It “donates” its high-energy phosphate group to adenosine diphosphate (ADP), converting it back into ATP through a process called phosphorylation. This replenishes the ATP stores, allowing muscles to continue contracting forcefully and perform at a higher intensity for longer periods. (4)(5)(6)(7)(8) In a nutshell, this powerhouse supplement gives you the edge needed to push harder in the gym.

Muscle Growth and Volume

Creatine also plays a vital role in promoting muscle growth and increasing muscle volume. When creatine is ingested, it leads to an increase in creatine stores within your muscles. This increased creatine availability enhances cellular hydration by drawing water into the muscle cells. Consequently, muscles appear fuller and larger, contributing to a more pronounced muscular appearance. (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)

This is why you’ll likely see the scale go up a little bit within your first few weeks of taking creatine. You are “retaining water,” but in a good way. The water is enlarging your muscle cells, not your love handles like after a salty Chinese buffet.

Furthermore, creatine supplementation has been shown to stimulate protein synthesis — the process by which new muscle tissue is built. It also reduces muscle protein breakdown, aiding in the preservation of existing muscle mass. This dual action of promoting muscle protein synthesis and inhibiting protein breakdown creates an anabolic environment that supports muscle growth and development.

Improved Exercise Performance

Creatine has consistently demonstrated its ability to enhance exercise performance across a wide range of activities. By increasing the availability of ATP, creatine supplementation allows for improved strength, power, and endurance during high-intensity, short-duration activities.

Athletes engaged in activities such as lifting weights, running, and jumping may benefit from creatine supplementation due to its potential to increase performance in explosive movements.

Additionally, creatine has shown positive effects on repeated bouts of high-intensity exercise with short recovery periods, like interval workouts or circuit training. Creatine helps to replenish ATP stores more rapidly, reducing fatigue and enabling athletes to maintain their performance during successive bouts of intense exercise.

Neuroprotective Effects

Beyond its benefits for physical performance, this “meathead” supplement is also good for your brain. Creatine is actively transported into the brain, where it acts as an energy buffer, providing neurons with a readily available source of ATP. (14) This energy support may help protect brain cells against damage and improve overall brain function. (15)(16)

Furthermore, studies have indicated that creatine supplementation might have potential therapeutic applications for neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and Huntington’s disease. (17) While more research is needed in this area, the neuroprotective properties of creatine are promising and warrant further exploration.

Some research has also indicated that low creatine levels may correlate with higher rates of depression and anxiety, especially in vegetarian/vegan populations which are typically lacking in creatine from food sources. (18)

How to Take Creatine

When it comes to selecting a creatine supplement, there are several options available. The most common and well-researched form is creatine monohydrate. It’s the most cost-efficient, highly effective, widely used, and most thoroughly researched form of creatine.

In fact, creatine monohydrate has the ability to fully saturate your muscles. More expensive forms of creatine — creatine hcl, creatine ethyl ester, etc. — can range from being “as good as monohydrate” to simply worse, despite promising to saturate your muscles more than monohydrate. This claim is just not possible. Creatine monohydrate already fully saturates your muscles efficiently. There’s not a “more efficient” form available.

While creatine monohydrate is still a relatively inexpensive supplement, its price has increased in recent years due to popularity. Your best bet is to buy it in bulk when possible and avoid proprietary blends — pure micronized creatine monohydrate is all you need. That’s the form that is most commonly studied in research.

Loading Phase vs. Maintenance Phase

To quickly saturate your muscles with creatine, a “loading phase” is often recommended. During this five to seven-day period, take 20 grams of creatine monohydrate per day, divided into four equal doses of five grams each. This loading phase allows your muscles to reach maximum creatine levels and deliver optimal results more rapidly.

After the loading phase, switch to a maintenance dosage of three to five grams per day. It’s essential to note that creatine has been shown to be safe for long-term use, so there is no need to “cycle” on and off by stopping use of the supplement for several weeks (or months) at a time. (19)

Keep in mind that you can simply start with a maintenance phase to get your muscles fully saturated within three to four weeks and still end up with the same net benefits. This option is better for those who might potentially experience GI distress from the relatively high daily dosing involved with creatine loading.

Hydration and Timing

Creatine works best when the body is adequately hydrated. Therefore, it’s crucial to drink plenty of water throughout the day, every day, when supplementing with creatine. Aim to consume at least 8-10 glasses of water daily — at least 64 ounces per day — and always take it with water. No “dry scooping” like your favorite fitfluencer slamming a pre-workout.

Timing is also an important consideration. While creatine can be taken at any time during the day, consuming it post-workout may provide additional benefits. Most research finds this to be the optimal time because your muscles are highly sensitive to insulin, allowing them to absorb more nutrients and water. This is why it’s ideal to take creatine with your post workout meal. (20)

If you prefer to take it at another point in the day for convenience, that is fine too. Consistency to keep your muscles fully saturated is most important, which leads to the next point: If you exercise regularly, be sure to take creatine daily even on your rest days. There are still non-exercise related benefits to taking creatine, including brain health and cognitive function as explained earlier.

Potential Side Effects

As with any supplement, it’s essential to monitor your progress and be aware of any potential side effects. The most common side effect of creatine supplementation may include mild gastrointestinal distress. However, this side effect is typically minimal and temporary. Reducing the daily dose often resolves the issue.

If you do notice GI distress: don’t do a loading phase, be sure you’re taking micronized creatine (which dissolves more thoroughly and may digest easier), and take creatine with a meal. Overall though, GI distress is relatively rare.

Some people claim water retention as another side effect, but this is actually a good thing. It shows that creatine is working and being absorbed into your muscle stores. The scale going up when initially taking creatine is affirming, especially if you’re already carrying a degree of muscle mass.

The more muscled you are, the more water your body should absorb. If you are not gaining any weight after beginning creatine use, it’s likely not as detectable or you simply don’t yet have significant muscle mass to benefit from the muscle-related benefits.

Lastly, hair loss is another commonly touted side effect, but this is more fear-mongering than reality. In the decades of creatine research, there has only been one study on this — rugby players taking creatine experienced higher levels of DHT, an androgen that potentially increases hair loss. (21)

However, it’s understandable that this androgen is higher to explain the benefits of creatine. Intense exercise, itself, can increase DHT levels. Not to mention, the high-level rugby players in the study could have potentially been taking additional supplements, or performance enhancing substances, which could provide a more significant underlying cause.

There has never been research showing creatine directly impacting hair loss. Anecdotally, I’ve never encountered this either even after working with hundreds of male clients taking creatine.

Research generally finds creatine has a great safety profile. (22) If you have any underlying medical conditions, it’s crucial to consult with your healthcare provider before starting creatine supplementation (or any supplementation, for that matter). They can provide personalized advice based on your potential individual circumstances.

That being said, creatine supplementation will raise creatinine levels in your bloodwork, which might worry your doctor a bit if they don’t lift and aren’t aware that elevated creatinine levels are not, on their own, an indicator worth ringing any alarm bells. (22) All your other metrics should be relatively unchanged though.

Creatine – Simply the Best for Body and Mind

Creatine is a remarkable compound with myriad benefits. By enhancing ATP production, promoting muscle growth, and improving exercise performance, creatine has become one of the most widely-used supplement in the sports and fitness communities. Its potential neuroprotective properties further contribute to its growing significance in scientific research. However, it is crucial to approach creatine supplementation responsibly, adhering to recommended dosages and seeking professional guidance when necessary. But outside of rare exceptions, most people can and should plan on taking it until they join the big gym in the sky, so put a permanent spot for creatine monohydrate in your budget.

References

1. Baker, J. S., McCormick, M. C., & Robergs, R. A. (2010). Interaction among Skeletal Muscle Metabolic Energy Systems during Intense Exercise. Journal of nutrition and metabolism, 2010, 905612. https://doi.org/10.1155/2010/905612
2. Cholewa, J., Trexler, E., Lima-Soares, F., de Araújo Pessôa, K., Sousa-Silva, R., Santos, A. M., Zhi, X., Nicastro, H., Cabido, C. E. T., de Freitas, M. C., Rossi, F., & Zanchi, N. E. (2019). Effects of dietary sports supplements on metabolite accumulation, vasodilation and cellular swelling in relation to muscle hypertrophy: A focus on “secondary” physiological determinants. Nutrition (Burbank, Los Angeles County, Calif.), 60, 241–251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2018.10.011
3. Kaviani M, Shaw K, Chilibeck PD. Benefits of Creatine Supplementation for Vegetarians Compared to Omnivorous Athletes: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2020; 17(9):3041. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17093041
4. Branch J. D. (2003). Effect of creatine supplementation on body composition and performance: a meta-analysis. International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism, 13(2), 198–226. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.13.2.198
5. Chilibeck, P. D., Kaviani, M., Candow, D. G., & Zello, G. A. (2017). Effect of creatine supplementation during resistance training on lean tissue mass and muscular strength in older adults: a meta-analysis. Open access journal of sports medicine, 8, 213–226. https://doi.org/10.2147/OAJSM.S123529
6. Engelhardt, M., Neumann, G., Berbalk, A., & Reuter, I. (1998). Creatine supplementation in endurance sports. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 30(7), 1123–1129. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005768-199807000-00016
7. Cooper, R., Naclerio, F., Allgrove, J. et al. Creatine supplementation with specific view to exercise/sports performance: an update. J Int Soc Sports Nutr 9, 33 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1186/1550-2783-9-33
8. Stares, A., & Bains, M. (2020). The Additive Effects of Creatine Supplementation and Exercise Training in an Aging Population: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials. Journal of geriatric physical therapy (2001), 43(2), 99–112. https://doi.org/10.1519/JPT.0000000000000222
9. Chilibeck, P. D., Kaviani, M., Candow, D. G., & Zello, G. A. (2017). Effect of creatine supplementation during resistance training on lean tissue mass and muscular strength in older adults: a meta-analysis. Open access journal of sports medicine, 8, 213–226. https://doi.org/10.2147/OAJSM.S123529
10. Farshidfar, F., Pinder, M. A., & Myrie, S. B. (2017). Creatine Supplementation and Skeletal Muscle Metabolism for Building Muscle Mass- Review of the Potential Mechanisms of Action. Current protein & peptide science, 18(12), 1273–1287. https://doi.org/10.2174/1389203718666170606105108
11. Burke, D. G., Candow, D. G., Chilibeck, P. D., MacNeil, L. G., Roy, B. D., Tarnopolsky, M. A., & Ziegenfuss, T. (2008). Effect of creatine supplementation and resistance-exercise training on muscle insulin-like growth factor in young adults. International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism, 18(4), 389–398. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.18.4.389
12. Willoughby, D. S., & Rosene, J. M. (2003). Effects of oral creatine and resistance training on myogenic regulatory factor expression. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 35(6), 923–929. https://doi.org/10.1249/01.MSS.0000069746.05241.F0
13. Saremi, A., Gharakhanloo, R., Sharghi, S., Gharaati, M. R., Larijani, B., & Omidfar, K. (2010). Effects of oral creatine and resistance training on serum myostatin and GASP-1. Molecular and cellular endocrinology, 317(1-2), 25–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mce.2009.12.019
14. Avgerinos, K. I., Spyrou, N., Bougioukas, K. I., & Kapogiannis, D. (2018). Effects of creatine supplementation on cognitive function of healthy individuals: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Experimental gerontology, 108, 166–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exger.2018.04.013
15. Dolan, E., Gualano, B., & Rawson, E. S. (2019). Beyond muscle: the effects of creatine supplementation on brain creatine, cognitive processing, and traumatic brain injury. European journal of sport science, 19(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2018.1500644
16. RAWSON, ERIC S.1; VOLEK, JEFF S.2. Effects of Creatine Supplementation and Resistance Training on Muscle Strength and Weightlifting Performance. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 17(4):p 822-831, November 2003.
17. Bakian, A.V., Huber, R.S., Scholl, L. et al. Dietary creatine intake and depression risk among U.S. adults. Transl Psychiatry 10, 52 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-020-0741-x
18. Bender, A., Klopstock, T. Creatine for neuroprotection in neurodegenerative disease: end of story?. Amino Acids 48, 1929–1940 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-015-2165-0
19. Kreider, R. B., Melton, C., Rasmussen, C. J., Greenwood, M., Lancaster, S., Cantler, E. C., Milnor, P., & Almada, A. L. (2003). Long-term creatine supplementation does not significantly affect clinical markers of health in athletes. Molecular and cellular biochemistry, 244(1-2), 95–104.
20. Antonio, J., & Ciccone, V. (2013). The effects of pre versus post workout supplementation of creatine monohydrate on body composition and strength. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 10, 36. https://doi.org/10.1186/1550-2783-10-36
21. van der Merwe, J., Brooks, N. E., & Myburgh, K. H. (2009). Three weeks of creatine monohydrate supplementation affects dihydrotestosterone to testosterone ratio in college-aged rugby players. Clinical journal of sport medicine : official journal of the Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine, 19(5), 399–404. https://doi.org/10.1097/JSM.0b013e3181b8b52f
22. Kim HJ, Kim CK, Carpentier A, Poortmans JR. Studies on the safety of creatine supplementation. Amino Acids. 2011 May;40(5):1409-18. doi: 10.1007/s00726-011-0878-2. Epub 2011 Mar 12. PMID: 21399917.

Featured Image: RHJPhtotos / Shutterstock

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Both of these exercises use a “hip hinge” movement to build muscle while developing the kind of practical, real-world strength that makes you the go-to person when your friends need help moving. Both exercises also have unique characteristics that could make each one an effective choice under certain conditions and training contexts.

There is no “right” or “wrong” answer when it’s time to choose your deadlift. You simply need a better understanding of what these two hinging movements can offer. So if you’re in a certain “one deadlift rules the world” camp, your eyes are about to be opened to a new way of thinking about these powerful pulls.

Deadlift and Romanian Deadlift

• Exercise Differences
• Exercise Similarities
• How to Do the Deadlift
• How to Do the Romanian Deadlift
• How to Program the Best Deadlift for You

Exercise Differences

For consistency’s sake throughout the article, “the deadlift” refers to the conventional deadlift, while the Romanian deadlift refers, clearly, to the Romanian deadlift variation. If you’re curious about sumo deadlifts, sorry, but they’re not part of this conversation. However, they do share many of the same characteristics as the conventional deadlift.

Muscle Activation

Both the deadlift and Romanian deadlift involve hip extension, your glutes and hamstrings are activated and trained effectively. However, the deadlift starts from the floor and involves a more significant knee bend aka knee flexion.

This factor alone makes a huge difference because it’s what gives you more leverage to lift more weight with the classic deadlift. This is also why it’s a preferred stance for competitive powerlifters.

The improved leverage increases quadriceps activation, making the deadlift one of the most comprehensive lower body exercises by involving the glutes, hamstrings, and quads as one unit. The relatively heavy load and overall stability requirements also increase the demands on your core and back muscles.

Contrastingly, the Romanian deadlift is performed without significant knee flexion. This limits your leverage while involving many of the same muscles — except for the quadriceps. This is why the RDL is often considered a primary hamstring exercise. (1)

Eccentric Emphasis

The Romanian deadlift starts from the top, while you are standing upright, and it focuses on controlling the lowering phase (eccentric). This controlled eccentric emphasis is what gives you relatively more control over the movement.

Generally speaking, many people do not control their eccentrics during conventional deadlifts. They typically lift the weight explosively before dropping the weight nearly as quickly. This drop is often (and unfortunately) accompanied by a celebratory scream after each successful lift regardless of gym etiquette.

This difference in the eccentric emphasis, or lack of, can make the cadence and overall effect of the exercises quite distinct. With the higher degree of eccentric control, Romanian deadlifts may be better for training muscular deceleration (crucial for athleticism) as well as hip and hamstring flexibility-related adaptations.

Range of Motion

In a deadlift, the added knee flexion reduces the necessary range of motion at hip extension — because you’re bending at your knees, you can lift the weight without bending significantly at your waist. This also limits the range of motion for your glutes and hamstrings, especially in their stretched position (at the bottom of the exercise).

The goal of a Romanian deadlift is to push your hips back and not perform any large degree of knee flexion. Combine this with the eccentric control mentioned earlier and you get a much longer range of motion with your glutes and hamstrings, especially in the stretched position which recent research is finding to be incredibly anabolic. (2)

Strength Potential

Between the two movements, the deadlift is often more popular because its nature and overall technique allow you to lift relatively heavier weights. That’s why it made the list as one of the three movements performed in competitive powerlifting.

For non-powerlifters, conventional deadlifts can simply feel invigorating and motivating because of the sheer strength-building potential they offer.

Romanian deadlifts allow for less absolute load because of their mechanics. No knee flexion means fewer muscles involved and less loading potential. They’re still a potentially heavy exercise, but Romanian deadlift PRs are not bragged about nearly as often. When people ask how much you deadlift, it’s safe to assume they’re talking about conventional deadlifts from the floor.

Fatigue

This is one of the main differences that many people overlook. Not only is the level of fatigue different, but the type of fatigue is different between the two movements.

Because deadlifts involve more muscles and are often performed heavier, they’re generally more fatiguing. Whether you train with relatively higher reps or low reps, you can often count on feeling pretty beat up after doing deadlifts.

Especially as you get more advanced, one or two sets of deadlifts with a challenging weight or significant volume can leave you fried. This is often described as “systemic fatigue,” where your whole body is affected. Anecdotally, some people also tend to feel more joint stress with deadlifts.

Romanian deadlifts are typically performed with relatively lighter weights, so they trigger less joint stress and are less systemically fatiguing. This makes Romanian deadlifts generally easier to recover from. However, they can produce more fatigue and muscle soreness in the local muscles specifically involved in the exercise.

Romanian deadlifts also involve lots of eccentric stretching. This type of stress through a longer range of motion inflicts a higher degree of muscle damage. After you’ve pushed yourself with Romanian deadlifts, you can feel a clear difference where your glutes and hamstrings may even feel like they’re tearing. This causes your glutes and hamstrings to be more sore.

Exercise Similarities

Both exercises have differences that can be a factor, depending on your goal. However, they also share fundamental similarities and crossover. Most people in the gym, aside from competitive powerlifters, would likely not notice a drastic difference in long-term progress if they were to substitute one for the other.

Hip Hinges

The deadlift and Romanian deadlift are both “hip hinges” — your body primarily moves by bending at the hips. This action trains many muscles throughout your body by coordinating strength, force transfer, and stability from your lower to upper body.

This comprehensive effect allows you to build strength, muscle, and athleticism. Fulfilling these roles is often more important than some of their unique differences.

Posterior Chain Development

Your glutes and hamstrings, along with your low back, are all targeted with both the deadlift and Romanian deadlift. In other words, these exercises develop that backside many people are after.

You need some sort of basic hip hinge in your training program to efficiently target those eye-catching glute and hamstring muscles, while also strengthening your low back.

Building a powerful posterior chain has also been shown to help maintain strength and potentially decrease the general risk of injury and incidence of back pain. (3)

How to Do the Deadlift

The deadlift is often considered one of the foundational lifts that every beginner in the gym should learn. While that may or may not be true, the deadlift (as a hip hinge) remains a fundamental movement pattern that targets a variety of muscles from your hamstrings to your upper back.

This makes it an efficient and effective exercise for several goals, and mastering this exercise should likely be on the to-do list for the majority of gym-goers.

• Stand before a bar with your feet hip-width apart and the bar lined up over the middle of your feet. Grab the bar with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Adjust slightly to get your shins close to the bar.
• Bend at your hips and knees, lowering yourself down while maintaining a neutral spine. Your shoulders should be slightly in front of the bar and your gaze should be focused on a spot on the floor a few feet in front of the bar.
• Engage your core and lat muscles to stabilize your spine. Grip the bar hard, take a deep breath, and brace your core. Drive through your legs, while extending (straightening) your hips and knees simultaneously.
• Keep your chest up. The barbell should move in a vertical path, staying in contact with your legs as you stand up.
• Drive through your heels until you reach a fully upright position. At the top of the movement, squeeze your glutes to achieve a strong lockout. Your hips and knees should be fully extended.
• To lower the bar, hinge at your hips, push your hips back, and bend your knees slightly. Avoid rounding your back or letting the barbell drift away from your legs. Lower with control — don’t simply drop the bar.
• Once the barbell is back on the ground, take a moment to reset your starting position before beginning the next repetition.

How to Do the Romanian Deadlift

The Romanian deadlift may have a reputation as being more “for muscle” rather than “for strength,” but that’s not really accurate. The increased glute and hamstring recruitment can definitely benefit muscle-building, but you can still gradually work up to relatively heavy weights in the lift if you choose to train for strength.

Alternatively, some lifters focus on the longer range of motion and increased stretching offered by the Romanian deadlift. In any case, it’s a versatile exercise that can be a key player in any workout routine.

• Grasp a barbell using an overhand grip, with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Stand with your feet hip-width apart, allowing the bar to rest against your upper thighs. Either begin with the bar in a rack or deadlift the bar into position.
• Engage your core. Push your glutes backward and hinge at your hips to begin the movement. Keep a slight bend in your knees but avoid excessive knee flexion. Maintain a straight back as you move.
• Lower the barbell along the front of your thighs. Continue descending until you feel a stretch in your hamstrings. Avoid rounding your back during the descent.
• To find the bottom position, if mobility allows, aim for your torso to reach almost parallel to the ground with the barbell somewhere between your knees and ankles.
• To return upright, drive your hips forward and squeeze your glutes. Keep your back straight and focus on feeling your hamstrings and glutes lift the weight. As you stand up, maintain control and avoid any jerking motions.

When to Program the Deadlift vs. Romanian Deadlift

For most people, the most effective way to program these exercises is to simply switch from using the conventional deadlift to the Romanian deadlift. The Romanian deadlift is superior for building lean muscle on your glutes and hamstrings, which is often a higher priority than lifting heavy weights.

In general, if you’re looking to build the highest level of strength and you want a more comprehensive exercise that recruits the maximum number of muscles, consider programming the deadlift.

However, the Romanian deadlift is the better choice for a posterior chain hypertrophy exercise. It takes the glutes and hamstrings through a longer range of motion with a muscle-building stretch.

Both are demanding compound exercises that should be programmed early in your leg day, ideally as your first or second exercise. To reduce cumulative stress and fatigue on supporting muscles, avoid programming anything too demanding on the lower back in the next workout, like back squats or direct back extensions.

Pick Your Heavy Hinges

The deadlift and Romanian deadlift are both highly effective hip hinges that will get you strong and build plenty muscle. While this might sound oversimplified, it’s not entirely wrong to think of the deadlift as a “high leverage lift that cuts range of motion to move big weights” while the Romanian deadlift is a “more controlled, long range of motion muscle-builder for the glutes and hamstrings.” You can’t go wrong with either, but one might edge forward depending on your specific needs.

References

1. Martín-Fuentes, I., Oliva-Lozano, J. M., & Muyor, J. M. (2020). Electromyographic activity in deadlift exercise and its variants. A systematic review. PloS one, 15(2), e0229507. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229507
2. Nunes, J. P., Schoenfeld, B. J., Nakamura, M., Ribeiro, A. S., Cunha, P. M., & Cyrino, E. S. (2020). Does stretch training induce muscle hypertrophy in humans? A review of the literature. Clinical physiology and functional imaging, 40(3), 148–156. https://doi.org/10.1111/cpf.12622
3. Tataryn, N., Simas, V., Catterall, T., Furness, J., & Keogh, J. W. L. (2021). Posterior-Chain Resistance Training Compared to General Exercise and Walking Programmes for the Treatment of Chronic Low Back Pain in the General Population: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports medicine – open, 7(1), 17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-021-00306-w

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Due to their prevalence within gym culture and notable performance-boosting effects, everybody has their go to pre-workout supplements whether it’s a simple cup of coffee (aka “caffeine”) or a scoop of the latest tropical punch-flavored, ultra-secret-ingredient formula.

The world of pre-workouts can be intimidating, sometimes rightfully so. You don’t want to spend more money than you have to. You don’t want to choose an ineffective formula. And you definitely don’t want to take something that makes you so jittery, you end up doing push-ups on the floor of the emergency room.

Here’s what to know about some of the most popular pre-workouts available, so you can approach your pre-training supplementation with a better idea of what should and shouldn’t be in there.

What Does a Pre-Workout Do?

• Potential Benefits
• Potential Drawbacks
• 10 Most Common Pre-Workout Ingredients
• How to Use a Pre-Workout 

Potential Benefits of Using a Pre-Workout 

Pre-workout supplements can be a game changer for many people. It’s a staple supplement category for many lifters, whether it’s something used before every workout or only when the planned session calls for it. It’s not necessary, but for lifters who want a high-performance edge, having a go to pre-workout is ideal.

Increased Motivation and Focus

A good pre-workout can help to get you in the right mindset on days when you’re paying more attention to the playlist in your headphones than the barbell in your hands. Even the most dedicated lifter has days when they’re just not feeling it, and a good pre-workout may be able to fill the gap.

Certain pre-workout ingredients have been shown to improve focus, concentration, even your mood. (1)(2) This can carry over to greater general energy levels, allowing you to attack the training session with higher intensity, as well as potentially better attention to technique.

You might also notice a better mind-muscle connection during certain exercises, which can help to recruit more muscle fibers and trigger greater muscle growth. (3)

Improved Strength, Power, and Endurance

Physiologically, a pre-workout can directly boost your performance in the gym by improving strength, increasing power output, or increasing endurance and delaying fatigue — all of which can translate to better training adaptations and improved results. (4)(5)(6)

Whether it’s a stimulant to create a stronger muscle fiber contraction or an ingredient to decrease your required rest periods, pre-workouts can have some significant and impactful influence on your training session. (7)

Cumulatively, these performance benefits can yield greater results from training. However, that doesn’t mean you should, or need to, rely on pre-workouts consistently to perform at a high level.

Even when used sporadically, these benefits can trigger responses that yield better results than you might otherwise find without strategic supplement usage.

Potential Drawbacks of Using a Pre-Workout

Here are the major concerns you should be on the look out for when purchasing a pre-workout supplement.

Proprietary Blends 

The term “proprietary blend” describes a mixture of ingredients that is unique to a particular supplement brand. Unlike more transparent labeling practices which list the specific amounts of each ingredient, proprietary blends only list the total amount of the blend without specifying how much of a given ingredient is included in the formula.

This means that you’re not being told exactly how much of each ingredient you are getting. Imagine being served a hamburger: Would you rather be told it’s made of “meat mixture,” 20% ground beef and 80% ground hot dogs, or 100% ground beef? That’s basically the situation with proprietary blends.

With proprietary blends, you don’t know if you’re getting the ingredients you desire in a safe or effective dose. Supplement company take advantage of this gray area and often fill proprietary blends with cheap fillers and less effective ingredients, compared to relatively more expensive and more useful ingredients, to improve their profit margins while compromising on efficacy.

Many supplements also require some degree of troubleshooting, so it might take you one or two (or more) different pre-workout purchases to find a formula your body responds well to. If you are not responding well to a pre-workout, it can be hard to pinpoint an exact reason when you’re dealing with a vague proprietary blend. Learning which ingredients help and hurt you is crucial to finalizing your pre-workout choice.

Stimulant Overload

Stimulants, such as caffeine or yohimbine (and ephedrine before it was banned), are commonly found in pre-workout supplements. These substances work by increasing heart rate, blood pressure, and metabolic rate. While this can provide a temporary boost of energy, it can also put a strain on the cardiovascular system and increase the risk of potentially adverse health effects.

The very ingredients that make pre-workouts useful can also be abused by some individuals, especially if you’re prone to the side effects of stimulants. If you already have a high-level of caffeine intake, are anxiety prone, have high blood pressure, struggle with sleep, you should exercise care when it comes to stimulant-laden pre-workouts.

If you’re not careful with your pre-workout blend or the doses you use, you might not have the most pleasant experience. Palpations in the gym can land you on viral tik tok video or in the hospital. Nobody wants either of those. Always start with a half serving of any pre-workout and increase if appropriate.

10 Most Common Pre-Workout Ingredients

Whether you’re searching for a useful pre-workout formula or are looking to create your own by hand-picking specific compounds, here are some of the most reliable, science-based, effective pre-workout ingredients.

Caffeine

Caffeine is a well-known stimulant that is commonly found in coffee, tea, and other beverages. It is also added to many pre-workout supplements because of its ability to increase alertness and reduce fatigue. (8) Caffeine works by blocking the action of adenosine, a neurotransmitter that promotes sleepiness and relaxation. By blocking adenosine, caffeine makes you more alert. (9)

Without caffeine, many pre-workouts might not even feel like they are working. It’s the primary stimulant that leaves you feeling, “Whoa, I’m not as tired anymore. Time to hit the squat rack.”

Some pre-workout supplements may contain as little as 50 milligrams of caffeine per serving, while others may contain as much as 400 milligrams or more. For context, an “average” cup of coffee contains about 100 milligrams of caffeine.

Generally, you want to err on the lower end when using caffeine as a pre-workout, especially if you’re caffeine-sensitive or prefer a stimulant-free pre-workout (when training later in the day, for example, to avoid interrupting your sleep).

Don’t overlook the compounding effect caffeine can have over the course of a day. Because caffeine has a half-life of roughly five hours, if you have, for example, a large cold brew coffee with an extra shot at 9 a.m., you’re taking in roughly 325 milligrams of caffeine.

By 2 p.m., you’ve still got around 160 milligrams circulating in your system, so re-consider throwing back a pre-workout loaded with another 200+ milligrams of caffeine before your lunch break workout.

Synephrine 

From the depths of Southeast Asia, synephrine is a compound derived from bitter orange. It’s been used to treat digestion and congestion issues, but can also be a stimulant in pre-workout.

Synephrine is a stimulant that is similar in structure and function to ephedrine — another stimulant that was commonly used in dietary supplements before being banned by the FDA in 2004. Like ephedrine, synephrine is thought to increase energy expenditure, reduce appetite, and enhance athletic performance. (10) However, synephrine is considered to be safer than ephedrine because it has a weaker effect on the central nervous system and is less likely to cause adverse side effects.

In pre-workout supplements, synephrine is often combined with caffeine and other ingredients that are intended to increase energy and focus during exercise. These supplements are marketed as a way to improve athletic performance, increase muscle strength, and reduce fatigue. (11)

Research has shown high doses up to 100 to 200 milligrams per day are tolerable depending on body weight, but more common effective doses are closer to 50 milligrams per day.

While synephrine may provide some benefits for exercise performance, it is important to be aware of the potential risks and side effects associated with its use. Some studies have suggested that synephrine can increase blood pressure and heart rate, which can be dangerous for people with certain medical conditions, such as hypertension or heart disease.

Yohimbine

Yohimbine is a potent stimulant that works by blocking alpha-2 adrenergic receptors in the body. This action can increase blood flow which is why many tout it as being helpful with treating erectile dysfunction.

But nonetheless, some people swear by the muscle pumps from yohimbine. Mechanistically, yohimbine has also been shown to increase the release of norepinephrine, a hormone that can stimulate fat metabolism and promote weight loss. Although, actual fat loss recorded in studies seems minimal. (12)

Doses from 10 to 20 milligrams are generally effective, but, similar to other stimulants, yohimbine can pose blood pressure and cardiovascular risks when combined with other stimulants.

Beta-Alanine

Beta-alanine is a non-essential amino acid that is naturally produced by the body. Beta-alanine has gained popularity among athletes and bodybuilders, due to its potential to enhance athletic performance and increase muscle endurance. (13)

Beta-alanine works by increasing the concentration of carnosine in the muscles. Carnosine is a dipeptide found in high concentrations in fast-twitch muscle fibers — the fibers responsible for explosive power and strength. Carnosine acts as a buffer, helping to prevent the build-up of lactic acid in the muscles during exercise.

In layman’s terms, it allows you to push longer and endure higher intensities because it delays muscle-burning. (14) This can lead to improvements in athletic performance, especially in activities that require extended bouts like endurance work or high-rep sets with minimal rest periods. It’s also known for producing a “tingly” feeling which can be hit or miss for people. Two to five grams per day have been shown to be effective.

Highly Branched Cyclic Dextrin

Highly branched cyclic dextrin is essentially pure carbohydrates for performance. Unlike many other types of carbohydrates, cyclic dextrin is “highly branched” which simply means it is rapidly absorbed by the body.

It provides your body fast-acting carbs to replenish muscle and liver glycogen while maintaining blood glucose levels. The ergogenic effects of carbohydrates are well-established, especially for high intensity interval training or endurance training. (15)

For some of your more intense workouts, this is a useful ingredient, especially when you don’t want to stomach carbohydrate-dense foods like potatoes or rice near your training session. As a carb source, as little as 15 grams per workout have been shown to be beneficial.

Citrulline 

Citrulline is a non-essential amino acid found in watermelon and certain other fruits. If you’ve ever overheard locker room advice about drinking watermelon or pomegranate juice before a workout, there is actually some truth to that.

Citrulline is known to stimulate nitric oxide, which improves blood flow, increases aerobic performance, and gives you those tremendous pumps everybody talks about. (16)

Citrulline has ergogenic properties making it a seemingly perfect pre-workout ingredient. To increase nitric oxide production, six grams is the minimum recommended dose. Depending on your body weight and individual metabolism, you might need doses as high as eight or 12 grams to get noticeably bigger pumps.

BCAAS or Amino Acids 

Many pre-workout supplements will have amino acids or branched chain amino acids. While these amino acids can be useful, most people already get plenty in a protein-sufficient diet.

Having incomplete amino acids will always be inferior to a complete protein like whey. These standalone amino acid formulas in pre-workouts often significantly spike the price of your pre-workout while providing little benefit.

If you want extra calories in your pre-workout, you’re better off opting for carbs like highly branched cyclic dextrin instead, which will bring along improved performance.

L-Tyrosine 

L-tyrosine is a non-essential amino acid that is found in many protein-rich foods, including meat, fish, and dairy products. It has gained popularity as an ingredient in pre-workout supplements due to its potential to enhance mental and physical performance. (17)

L-tyrosine works by increasing the production of neurotransmitters in the brain, such as dopamine and norepinephrine. These neurotransmitters are important for mood, motivation, and focus, and they play a key role in regulating the body’s stress response. By increasing the production of these neurotransmitters, L-tyrosine can help to improve mental focus during exercise.

However, L-tyrosine seems to primarily have a noticeable effect in stressful, anxious, or sleep-deprived scenarios. It could be considered the “sleep-deprived saver” — it might not make a big difference in your usual routine on days when you have sufficient sleep, but if your night’s sleep pattern is disrupted, it may be more beneficial. The effective dose seems to be between 500 to 2,000 milligrams depending on your body weight.

L-Theanine

L-theanine is an amino acid commonly found in certain tea leaves. L-theanine works by increasing the production of neurotransmitters in the brain, particularly gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). (18) GABA is a calming neurotransmitter that helps to reduce feelings of anxiety and stress.

It has many cognitive benefits as well. It doesn’t sedate or make you tired, but it could be seen as more of a “downer,” compared to over-the-top stimulants working as “uppers” as they ramp up your nervous system. Theanine generally provides a more mellow energy and is often added to pre-workouts to serve as a way to add more performance clarity while reducing the jittery side effects of stimulants like caffeine.

L-theanine also has a relatively positive safety profile at any dose, but around 300 milligrams is recommended as a minimum effective dosage.

Creatine Monohydrate

Creatine is an extremely popular ingredient, considered one of the most thoroughly researched sports supplements in the field, known for its ability to enhance physical performance and muscle growth. (19)(20) It is a naturally occurring compound that is found in several animal products such as red meat and fish.

Creatine works by increasing the body’s levels of phosphocreatine, which is used to produce energy during high-intensity exercise. By increasing the body’s stores of phosphocreatine, creatine can help to improve athletic performance, increase strength, and reduce fatigue. It’s even been shown to boost cognitive function and general brain health. (21)

It also draws water into your muscles cells, signaling for anabolic processes. It’s almost like the strength and hypertrophy version of beta-alanine. Despite its common everyday use and scientific reliability, creatine only works once your muscles are fully saturated. This process takes a couple weeks of consistent use.

If you don’t take your pre-workout daily, you will have a hard time leveraging creatine’s benefits. Many brands also add creatine to spike up the price of their pre-workout, due to the “name recognition” of the ingredient, even though creatine on its own is relatively inexpensive.

While it might be more convenient to have it in your pre-workout, a better approach is to supplement with creatine separately, using a standalone creatine monohydrate powder. This is a way to save money while maximizing creatine stores within the muscles, since you can take creatine daily without any additional pre-workout ingredients.

How to Use Pre-Workouts

One of the most overlooked aspects to pre-workouts is taste. Make sure it tastes good, so you’ll actually want to take it, and make sure you feel energized without your blood pressure exploding or your sleep-quality tanking.

Be on the lookout for a pre-workout that has the ingredients you want in the doses you need, and be careful about the number of stimulants in them. Whenever possible, avoid proprietary blends.

For most ingredients to work well and be properly digested and absorbed, take your pre-workout 30 to 60 minutes before your workout. Most people just take it before they leave for the gym, regardless of timeframe. Worse, they might quickly down a pre-workout in the gym’s parking lot while they’re loading up their favorite playlist.

The only other thing you have to consider is how often you take a pre-workout. For some lifters, taking a pre-workout boost before every workout has become a part of gym life — just another ritual like packing your gym bag or filling your water bottle.

Others prefer to take a pre-workout only on days they’re dragging and need a good pump or an extra boost to hit a new PR. This latter approach should help to make sure you don’t desensitize yourself to any of the ingredients, especially stimulants like caffeine, which can quickly lose it’s effects if taken too often in high doses. (22)

Pre-workouts can also be useful if you train fasted, and they may be less needed if you train well-fed. The carbohydrate, sodium, and nutrient component of your pre-workout meal can improve your performance, mental alertness, and muscle pumps even without the stimulating jitters.

Like anything else in fitness, you have to experiment with what works best for you when it comes to taking a pre-workout. As you find with most things in the gym, a bit of patience, combined with well-informed periods of trial and error, should gradually steer you in the right direction of safe and effective goal-focused results.

References

1. Jung, Y. P., Earnest, C. P., Koozehchian, M., Galvan, E., Dalton, R., Walker, D., Rasmussen, C., Murano, P. S., Greenwood, M., & Kreider, R. B. (2017). Effects of acute ingestion of a pre-workout dietary supplement with and without p-synephrine on resting energy expenditure, cognitive function and exercise performance. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 14, 3. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12970-016-0159-2
2. Curtis, J., Evans, C., Mekhail, V., Czartoryski, P., Santana, J. C., & Antonio, J. (2022). The Effects of a Pre-workout Supplement on Measures of Alertness, Mood, and Lower-Extremity Power. Cureus, 14(5), e24877. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.24877
3. Calatayud, J., Vinstrup, J., Jakobsen, M. D., Sundstrup, E., Brandt, M., Jay, K., Colado, J. C., & Andersen, L. L. (2016). Importance of mind-muscle connection during progressive resistance training. European journal of applied physiology, 116(3), 527–533. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-015-3305-7
4. Martinez, N., Campbell, B., Franek, M., Buchanan, L., & Colquhoun, R. (2016). The effect of acute pre-workout supplementation on power and strength performance. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 13, 29. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12970-016-0138-7
5. Schwarz, N. A., , PhD, & McKinley-Barnard, S. K., , PhD (2020). Acute Oral Ingestion of a Multi-ingredient Preworkout Supplement Increases Exercise Performance and Alters Postexercise Hormone Responses: A Randomized Crossover, Double-Blinded, Placebo-Controlled Trial. Journal of dietary supplements, 17(2), 211–226. https://doi.org/10.1080/19390211.2018.1498963
6. Beck, T. W., Housh, T. J., Schmidt, R. J., Johnson, G. O., Housh, D. J., Coburn, J. W., & Malek, M. H. (2006). The acute effects of a caffeine-containing supplement on strength, muscular endurance, and anaerobic capabilities. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 20(3), 506–510. https://doi.org/10.1519/18285.1
7. Martinez, N., Campbell, B., Franek, M. et al. The effect of acute pre-workout supplementation on power and strength performance. J Int Soc Sports Nutr 13, 29 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12970-016-0138-7
8. Ruxton, C.H.S. (2008), The impact of caffeine on mood, cognitive function, performance and hydration: a review of benefits and risks. Nutrition Bulletin, 33: 15-25. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-3010.2007.00665.x
9. Delleli, S., Ouergui, I., Messaoudi, H., Trabelsi, K., Ammar, A., Glenn, J. M., & Chtourou, H. (2022). Acute Effects of Caffeine Supplementation on Physical Performance, Physiological Responses, Perceived Exertion, and Technical-Tactical Skills in Combat Sports: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Nutrients, 14(14), 2996. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14142996
10. Stohs, S. J., Preuss, H. G., & Shara, M. (2012). A review of the human clinical studies involving Citrus aurantium (bitter orange) extract and its primary protoalkaloid p-synephrine. International journal of medical sciences, 9(7), 527–538. https://doi.org/10.7150/ijms.4446
11. Ruiz-Moreno, C., Del Coso, J., Giráldez-Costas, V., González-García, J., & Gutiérrez-Hellín, J. (2021). Effects of p-Synephrine during Exercise: A Brief Narrative Review. Nutrients, 13(1), 233. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13010233
12. Ostojic S. M. (2006). Yohimbine: the effects on body composition and exercise performance in soccer players. Research in sports medicine (Print), 14(4), 289–299. https://doi.org/10.1080/15438620600987106
13. Trexler, E. T., Smith-Ryan, A. E., Stout, J. R., Hoffman, J. R., Wilborn, C. D., Sale, C., . . . Antonio, J. (2015). International society of sports nutrition position stand: Beta-Alanine. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 12(1), 30. doi: 10.1186/s12970-015-0090-y
14. Derave, W., Everaert, I., Beeckman, S., & Baguet, A. (2010). Muscle carnosine metabolism and beta-alanine supplementation in relation to exercise and training. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 40(3), 247–263. https://doi.org/10.2165/11530310-000000000-00000
15. Furuyashiki, T., Tanimoto, H., Yokoyama, Y., Kitaura, Y., Kuriki, T., & Shimomura, Y. (2014). Effects of ingesting highly branched cyclic dextrin during endurance exercise on rating of perceived exertion and blood components associated with energy metabolism. Bioscience, biotechnology, and biochemistry, 78(12), 2117–2119. https://doi.org/10.1080/09168451.2014.943654
16. Pérez-Guisado, J., & Jakeman, P. M. (2016). Citrulline malate enhances athletic anaerobic performance and relieves muscle soreness. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 30(10), 2937-2942. doi: 10.1519/jsc.0000000000001591
17. Stecker, R. A., Harty, P. S., Cottet, M. L., & Jagim, A. R. (2019). The effects of tyrosine supplementation on clinical and healthy populations under stress or cognitive demands – a review. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 16(1), 1-14. doi: 10.1186/s12970-019-0318-5.
18. Nobre, A. C., Rao, A., & Owen, G. N. (2008). L-theanine, a natural constituent in tea, and its effect on mental state. Asia Pacific journal of clinical nutrition, 17 Suppl 1, 167–168.
19. Wu, Shih-Hao, et al. “Creatine Supplementation for Muscle Growth: A Scoping Review of Randomized Clinical Trials from 2012 to 2021.” Nutrients, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 16 Mar. 2022, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8949037/
20. Chilibeck, P. D., Kaviani, M., Candow, D. G., & Zello, G. A. (2017). Effect of creatine supplementation during resistance training on lean tissue mass and muscular strength in older adults: a meta-analysis. Open access journal of sports medicine, 8, 213–226. https://doi.org/10.2147/OAJSM.S123529
21. Rawson, E. S., & Venezia, A. C. (2011). Use of creatine in the elderly and evidence for effects on cognitive function in young and old. Amino acids, 40(5), 1349–1362. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-011-0855-9
22. Quiquempoix, M., Drogou, C., Erblang, M., Van Beers, P., Guillard, M., Tardo-Dino, P. E., Rabat, A., Léger, D., Chennaoui, M., Gomez-Merino, D., Sauvet, F., & Percaf Investigator Group (2023). Relationship between Habitual Caffeine Consumption, Attentional Performance, and Individual Alpha Frequency during Total Sleep Deprivation. International journal of environmental research and public health, 20(6), 4971. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20064971

Featured Image: MARKOFIT PRODUCTION / Shutterstock

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However, if done improperly, the deadlift can lead to frustration or even injury. Neither of those results are good for your long-term performance, let alone your spinal health, so it’s time to go over the key components of proper deadlift form. Here’s what to do and when to do it for a stronger, safer deadlift.

Perfect Your Deadlift Form

• Setup Tips
• Performance Tips
• How to Do the Deadlift

Deadlift Setup Tips

A strong and efficient deadlift begins before the weight even leaves the ground. Here’s how to make the most from each individual repetition.

Take Time to Set Your Stance

The first step in perfecting your deadlift form is to approach the bar and set your stance. For a typical conventional deadlift stance, you want your feet relatively close together, about shoulder-width. You can make slight adjustments to be able to reach the bar and pull upright while keeping good positions at your shoulders, through your back, and into your hips.

Position the barbell directly over the middle of your feet, roughly where your arches are. Your shins should be close to the bar, but not touching it. You shouldn’t need to roll the bar toward you or away from you before beginning the repetition, it should be in a good spot from the start.

If the bar is in front of your toes, it will be too far from your centerline and you’ll have poor leverage to pull the weight. If it’s too close to your ankles, the bar won’t be able to follow a powerful, vertical path because your shins and knees will be in the way.

Point your toes straight ahead and keep your feet flat on the ground as you bend down to grip the bar.

Choose the Right Grip

Your grip is a crucial part of the deadlift as it helps control the weight and generate the force you need. Without a stable grip, you can say bye-bye to most of your motor unit recruitment because your grip is the place where power transfers from your body to the weight.

There are four grip variations you can potentially use, depending on your experience and goals: the double-overhand grip, the mixed grip, the hook grip, and the double-overhand with lifting straps.

The double-overhand grip involves both hands gripping the barbell with your palms facing down. This is a good grip for beginners, as it allows for even distribution of weight across your body and it helps to build grip strength.

This is also the most common grip for most lifters. If you can use the double-overhand grip, use it. It doesn’t have any significant injury risks and it keeps the weight of the bar evenly distributed. However, some people might “outgrow” the double-overhand grip as they progress in strength. Then it might be time to use a mixed grip.

The mixed grip involves gripping the barbell with one palm facing down and the other palm facing up. These mechanics allow you to hang on to more load. This grip is commonly used by experienced lifters in the gym and competitive powerlifters, as it allows for a more secure overall grip and better control of heavier weights.

However, the mixed position is inherently unbalanced and you do put yourself at risk for a biceps tear with the supinated (palm up) side because your elbow joint is more directly exposed to stress and the biceps muscle is put into a significant stretch. (1) It also gives the bar the potential to “spin” or rotate away from your body because the force isn’t evenly distributed across the bar.

If you’re deadlifting for multiple reps per set, switch your mixed grip hand position every set or even pausing briefly to flip your grip with each repetition. If you’re maxing out, listen to your body to avoid a potentially serious biceps injury.

The next alternative is the hook grip. This is a variation of the double-overhand grip where your thumb is on the inside of your fingers as opposed to the outside. If done right, it can be one of the strongest grips compared to either a double-overhand or mixed grip.

Because the hook grip uses a double-overhand position, it allows you to keep the weight evenly distributed and not have to worry about mixed-grip related injuries. However, one big drawback to the hook grip is that it is unavoidably painful because the barbell is bearing down on the side of your thumb. In fact, if your thumbs or hands are too small, it might not even be possible to hook grip because your fingers need to reach fully around the bar and your thumb.

But hook grippers swear by it, even though their thumbs are often taped for support. Nonetheless, it’s an option and the consensus among avid hook grip fans is that the pain does decrease as you adapt to using this specialized grip.

Finally, you can use a double-overhand grip with lifting straps. Straps offer maximum support and allow you to use the heaviest load, but they take your grip strength out of the equation. This is great for people with smaller hands, when their grip is limiting the performance of their glutes and hamstrings.

If you’re not concerned with building grip strength, or if you’re a competitive strength athlete who can compete with lifting straps (for example, strongman and strongwoman athletes), using straps is a great option without having the potential injury risk of a mixed grip or the required pain tolerance for a hook grip.

Get Your Body in Position

Once you’ve established your grip and stance, it’s time to focus on your overall body position. Start by bending your knees slightly and “wedging” your hips into the bar, as if you were getting ready to sit down in a chair. Keep your arms straight and get your shoulder blades back and down to keep your chest up, rather than caving forward.

You should start to feel your body naturally get tighter due to tension building from your grip, up your arms, across your shoulders and upper back, through your torso, and down your glutes and hamstrings.

If you’re unsure about your position, or if something feels off, record a brief video or take a picture from the side for some immediate feedback. The top of your lats (back muscles) should be over the bar. Your shoulders slightly in front of the bar and higher than your hips. The bar should be close to your shins with your leg slightly bent (not in a deep squat position).

If you don’t feel tight, imagine squeezing oranges underneath your armpits. That messy but accurate visualization should help you to cue upper body tightness where it’s most needed — your upper back, shoulder blades, and shoulders.

Consider Switching to Sumo

If you notice your lower back is rounding despite setting up in an otherwise ideal position, or if you experience discomfort in your hips or spine with conventional deadlifts no matter how you adjust your setup, consider switching to a sumo stance.

No, sumo deadlifts are not “cheating.” That joke is getting old and was never that funny to begin with. There’s actually hard research showing deadlift stance comes down to your structure. (2)

Based on your torso, femur, and tibia ratios, a sumo stance might be better suited for you. You’ll be able to build more strength with less joint strain by changing your stance. This might mean being weaker at it when you first start, though. Don’t let a short-term learning curve turn you away from a decision that’ll yield long-term results.

With sumo deadlifts, your grip should be about shoulder-width, instead of being outside of shoulder-width with conventional deadlifts. Furthermore, your stance is wider — with your feet well-outside your shoulders — with your toes slightly pointed out. How wide you go is based on your comfort, leg length, and hip mobility.

If you need to take a very wide stance, which may compromise your range of motion, you can put a weight plate under each foot to add a deficit. Other than the grip and stance being slightly different, every other lifting cue is the same as the conventional movement.

Deadlift Performance Tips

Once you’re in a good position, from your hands to your feet and everything in between, it’s time to finally get the weight off the ground. Here are some cues for the concentric (lifting) phase and the eccentric (lowering phase) of the deadlift.

Lifting the Weight

When it comes to actually lifting the weight, there are several cues you can use to ensure proper form to maximize strength and safety. Keeping you back in a neutral position should go without saying, since that’s a fundamental form tip to reduce your risk of a lower back injury.

Focus on driving through your feet and pushing your hips forward. This will help activate your quads, glutes, and hamstrings. This two-tiered approach, using your feet and hips, will let you focus on the most efficient way to produce force with good form.

If you know your way around the gym, a strong deadlift is like leg pressing the bar off the floor — you want to use a powerful, flat-footed leg drive to break the plates off the ground — followed by a hip thrust into the bar once the barbell crosses above your knees. This lets you fully recruit your glutes to finish with a strong lockout.

Exhale at the top of the rep when you’ve locked the weight, and take an all too brief moment to shift focus onto the next phase of the repetition — returning the weight to the ground.

Lowering the Weight

Most people slam the weights down quickly on the eccentric portion of the rep. This can be fine under certain conditions, but it comes from the world of powerlifting. If you are not planning to deadlift in a powerlifting competition, there is no need to do this.

Generally, you want to lower with control, not because it’s necessarily that much safer but, like any exercise, there’s still some training stimulus during the repetition when you lower with control. (3) Dropping the weight reduces the amount of work your muscles are doing and could cut into your potential results.

Lower the bar as if you were doing a Romanian deadlift, keeping the bar close to your body with your knees slightly bent. Feeling your muscles stretch as the weight approaches the ground could even contribute to some extra gains. (4) It should also keep the bar in the perfect position at the bottom for an easy transition into the next rep.

Once the weight is on the ground, let it settle for at least a split-second. Do not bounce into your next rep. It will not stimulate much tension for your muscles and, worse, could lead to injury by allowing creating momentum which prevents you from properly bracing for each repetition.

Brace, Brace, Brace

Due to it’s generally heavy nature, deadlifting performance and safety hinges on your ability to brace. (5) Pun intended. It’s important to keep your core braced from the moment you set up, hold it into lockout, and maintain a good brace as you lower the weight.

Fortunately, bracing, or keeping your core tight and stable while manipulating the weight, is relatively simple. It comes down to breathing air into your stomach rather than breathing deeply into your chest. As you take a breath in, think about expanding your abs, obliques, and lower back in 360-degrees.

If you’re wearing a lifting belt, you should feel your body expand “into” the belt. Once you feel tightness and pressure around your entire midsection, maintain that tightness as if you are expecting to get punched in the stomach. This keeps your spine in a stable position and helps to prevent your low back from rounding, which can be injurious.

There’s a subtle but crucial difference between bracing your core and simply “flexing your abs.” A braced core is solid from front to back and side to side, and promotes a safe, strong, and stable upper body. Flexed abs are simply contracted ab muscles on your midsection and can sometimes encourage a rounded torso position, which is the last thing you want during a heavy deadlift, since the abs are responsible for spinal flexion (bending your torso forward).

How to Deadlift

Here’s a concise review of how to display maximum strength and efficiency with crisp technique during the conventional deadlift.

Step One — Find Your Stance

The conventional deadlift needs your feet roughly shoulder-width apart for a stable and efficient platform. If the sumo deadlift feels more comfortable, take a stance much wider than shoulder-width. In either case, get the barbell over the middle of your feet, not in front of your toes and not touching your ankles.

Step Two — Pick Your Grip

Unless you’re a competitive strength athlete, use a double-overhand grip (both palms down), with or without lifting straps depending on your need to develop grip strength. Squeeze the bar hard even if you are using straps. Keep your arms straight throughout the entire exercise.

Step Three — Brace Your Core

Start your brace before the weight leaves the ground. Maintain a 360-degree braced core throughout the entire rep, during the lifting and lowering phases. A strong brace will reinforce power transfer from your lower to upper body and help to keep your back in a neutral position.

Step Four — Lift the Barbell

Get tight before the weight even leaves the ground and stay tight throughout the entire repetition. Keep your feet flat and think about performing a leg press to drive the weight up. As the bar passes your knees, imaging doing a hip thrust to activate your glutes and lock out the weight in a standing position.

Step Five — Lower with Control

After you’ve locked out the weight, quickly refocus and lower the weight at a deliberate, not excessively slow, pace. Avoid dropping the weight without tension. The bar should end up where it began, above your midfoot. Pause briefly in the bottom to settle the weight and minimize momentum. Reset your brace and repeat the process for additional repetitions.

As They Say: Grip It and Rip It 

The deadlift can initially feel awkward, especially if you don’t really know what you’re doing. Even after reading this deadlift technique lesson, it might still feel like there are so many cues to think about. But like any exercise, learn it right instead of having to learn it twice. With some practice, it will become second nature. Eventually, getting a good setup will take just a few seconds and resetting between reps will take even less than that. From there, you can build a massive deadlift and dominate the world (or just hit a PR. That’d be good, too).

References

1. Kapicioglu, M., Bilgin, E., Guven, N., Pulatkan, A., & Bilsel, K. (2021). The Role of Deadlifts in Distal Biceps Brachii Tendon Ruptures: An Alternative Mechanism Described With YouTube Videos. Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine, 9(3), 2325967121991811. https://doi.org/10.1177/2325967121991811
2. Cholewa, Jason M, et al. “Anthropometrical Determinants of Deadlift Variant Performance.” Journal of Sports Science & Medicine, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 Aug. 2019, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6683626/.
3. Roig, M., O’Brien, K., Kirk, G., Murray, R., McKinnon, P., Shadgan, B., & Reid, W. D. (2009). The effects of eccentric versus concentric resistance training on muscle strength and mass in healthy adults: a systematic review with meta-analysis. British journal of sports medicine, 43(8), 556–568. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsm.2008.051417
4. Nunes, J. P., Schoenfeld, B. J., Nakamura, M., Ribeiro, A. S., Cunha, P. M., & Cyrino, E. S. (2020). Does stretch training induce muscle hypertrophy in humans? A review of the literature. Clinical physiology and functional imaging, 40(3), 148–156. https://doi.org/10.1111/cpf.12622
5. Tayashiki, K., Maeo, S., Usui, S., Miyamoto, N., & Kanehisa, H. (2016). Effect of abdominal bracing training on strength and power of trunk and lower limb muscles. European journal of applied physiology, 116(9), 1703–1713. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-016-3424-9

Featured Image: Rocksweeper / Shutterstock

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The unfairly overlooked front foot elevated split squat is gaining quite the popularity surge, especially from its use in rehab and athletic settings. This upgraded split squat variation is typically a little more comfortable to set up than the rear foot elevated option and it can skyrocket your lower body muscle, strength, and athleticism. Here’s a closer look at this unique exercise.

Front Foot Elevated Split Squat

• How to Do the Front Foot Elevated Split Squat
• Front Foot Elevated Split Squat Mistakes to Avoid
• How to Progress the Front Foot Elevated Split Squat
• Benefits of the Front Foot Elevated Split Squat
• Muscles Worked by the Front Foot Elevated Split Squat
• How to Program the Front Foot Elevated Split Squat
• Front Foot Elevated Split Squat Variations
• Frequently Asked Questions

How to Perform the Front Foot Elevated Split Squat

The front foot elevated split squat, or FFESS, requires a high-level of stability across a long range of motion, which can make the exercise difficult to master. Follow these technique cues to tackle this single-leg exercise.

Step 1 — Set Up Your Platform

You will notice a massive benefit from even the slightest elevation. Any platform that is at least two to four inches high will be sufficient. A small aerobic step or one or two weight plates work nicely. Use bumper plates, if possible, to prevent sliding. If your gym has an Olympic lifting platform with a raised edge, that can work too.

Form Tip: A staircase might seem like a convenient option, but it’s likely too high to start with and can make the movement too awkward. It will end up feeling more like an indecisive hybrid between a split squat and a step-up while delivering the results of neither.

Step 2 — Elevate Your Front Foot

Having a strong and stable front foot is, obviously, key to the front foot elevated split squat. Stand upright and set one foot flat on the platform. Keep your entire foot in contact throughout each repetition. Don’t raise up onto your toes or heel.

Form Tip: Supportive shoes can play a surprisingly significant role in your mobility, stability, and force production. (1) Old school Chuck Taylor sneakers, dedicated weightlifting shoes, or any stable-soled shoe is preferable. Super-floppy, extremely cushioned running shoes are not ideal because stability will be compromised as your foot compresses into the cushioning.

Step 3 — Set Your Back Foot

Your back foot should be as secure and stable as your front foot. Keep your front foot in place and step back a comfortable distance for you, depending on your leg length and general mobility.

Depending on your ankle mobility, your back foot will likely be on the ball rather than flat on the ground. This is acceptable because this foot is primarily for support and balance, and will not be producing much force into the floor.

Form Tip: For maximum balance and stability, make sure your back foot is in its own “lane,” not directly in line with your front foot. You shouldn’t feel like you’re perched on a thin balance beam. You should feel stable and grounded.

Step 4 — Lower Yourself With Control

Take a deep breath and feel both feet securely in place before descending into the rep. Feel your lower body and your core being still before descending. Keep your upper body upright with your shoulders pulled back.

Bend your front leg and lower yourself with control. Descend as low as possible, ideally reaching your back knee to the ground.

Form Tip: Depending on your mobility, your back knee should gently graze the ground — with an emphasis on gently. Some lifters fail to pay attention during the descent and quickly smash their back knee into the ground. Don’t do that.

Step 5 — Drive Up to the Starting Position

When you’ve reached the deepest position your hip and leg mobility allows, push through your front leg to drive up to a standing position

Keep your upper body close to vertical as you drive up. Don’t allow yourself to bend forward at the waist. Repeat all repetitions with one leg before switching sides.

Form Tip: It can be tempting to bounce out of the bottom by leveraging the stretch reflex — a muscle’s ability to “rebound” during the transition from a stretched position to a full contraction for increased momentum and power. (2) Avoid it to allow your glutes and quads to do all the work. This will build more muscle by increasing the time under tension, while keeping you safer by reducing ballistic forces.

Front Foot Elevated Split Squat Mistakes to Avoid

This exercise can feel tricky, especially when you’re awkwardly setting up for the first time. Here are some common mistakes to avoid.

Not Being Mobile Enough

While this exercise can be great for building mobility, if your hip and ankle mobility resemble the Tin Man, you will struggle to go deep enough to reap the muscle- and strength-building benefits. (3)

If you’re unable to descend near full-depth, the exercise won’t be any different for building size or strength than a standard split squat, but it can still be beneficial as a mobility drill if you focus on improving your depth instead of adding reps or weight.

Avoid it: To perform the exercise efficiently, do a dynamic warm-up prior to your leg workout to ensure your hips and ankles are thoroughly mobilized and prepared for training. Over time, this should help to get into the deeper positions of knee flexion and hip flexion needed to reach the bottom position.

Not Going Low Enough

The purpose of the platform elevation is to increase the range of motion. It lets you get into degrees of knee and hip flexion that you couldn’t access with other exercises.

However, it’s common to see people do the first few reps with a perfect deep reps but, when the pump sets in, they start to compromise the range of motion. Soon enough, the “front foot elevated split squats” appear to be using less range than traditional split squats with both feet on the ground.

Avoid it: Choose an elevation level that works for you and keep every rep consistent. Try to lightly touch your back knee to the ground each rep, or at least get close. Using a folded towel or padded mat under your back knee can serve as a reliable target as long as it allows your back knee to reach lower than your front foot.

Being Too Wobbly

The elevated front foot-position will make balance more challenging. The more wobbly you are, the less muscle-building force you can generate. Not to mention, you’ll feel self-conscious if you topple over while holding a pair of light dumbbells.

If you’re focused on maintaining balance more than you’re focused on actually training your legs, the overall stimulus will be reduced and you’ll waste energy.

Avoid it: Take your time to secure your foot position before doing a couple of warm-up sets. Even if your working weight will be relatively light, a warm-up set or two with only your body weight can be a game changer in preparing your nervous system and core musculature to stabilize the load effectively. 

How to Progress the Front Foot Elevated Split Squat

Consider including the FFESS in your program because it’s simple to progress. It also never runs out of progression because, if you do manage to run out of weights, your legs will be beyond elite status at that point.

Begin with Bodyweight

The bodyweight-only FFESS can be quite humbling. Even for some advanced lifters, the exercise can be challenging especially when done toward the latter part of a workout. Performing the exercise as a “finisher” when your legs are pre-fatigued from heavy training can be an eye-opening, leg-burning experience.

The bodyweight FFESS is also an excellent go-to exercise when you have limited equipment, like when you’re training at home or on the road.

Loading with Dumbbells

Once you master bodyweight FFESS, consider adding load via dumbbells. This is the easiest and most common setup for loading — simply hold a pair of dumbbells at your sides.

Using a narrow platform helps prevent the dumbbells from clashing with the platform, especially if you have longer arms and reach maximum depth. Controlling the weight and not allowing the dumbbells to hit the platform works fine, as well.

As the weights get heavier, and as you’re able to do more reps per set, your grip will likely fatigue quite a bit over the course of multiple sets. Once you feel it kick in, you should use lifting straps or some sort of assistance to eliminate your grip as a weak link.

Barbell Front Foot Elevated Split Squat

Barbells allow for the most loading, but they are also the most time consuming to set up along with adding more instability. However, this is a necessary compromise once you get strong.

Make sure you have a strong, stable platform to support the added weight. Set up in a rack with safety pins, similar to performing squats. Progress like most barbell exercises, adding a little more weight and a few more reps from week to week.

Benefits of the Front Foot Elevated Split Squat

This exercise has some unique ways of delivering its benefits. Here’s why you should incorporate the FFESS as soon as possible.

Hypertrophy and Strength

The front foot elevated split squat will produce single-leg strength and hypertrophy thanks to a long range of motion and unique positioning compared to other exercise options. The front foot elevation allows you to push your center of mass forward, bringing your hamstring against your calf without compromising torso position.

This stretches the muscles of the quads and glutes under load and increases mechanical tension compared to bilateral squat variations. The unilateral (single-leg) nature helps with addressing potential imbalances and also maximizes range of motion, which increases hypertrophy. (3)

The strength you gain from this exercise translates efficiently to many other exercises. You’ll notice your single-leg and bilateral (two-leg) lower body exercises getting stronger after focusing on the FFESS as an accessory movement. 

Pain-Free Training

One of the main benefits people explore this exercise in the first place is to find pain-free alternatives to barbell squatting. If your joints are achy, this exercise can be a perfect option.

It allows you to lighten the load while achieving ranges of motions you likely didn’t have access to. Over time, you achieve pain-free muscle building. In addition, the FFESS reinforces new degrees of hip, knee, and ankle mobility. 

Muscles Worked by the Front Foot Elevated Split Squat

The FFESS prioritizes your lower body muscles — perfect for your favorite leg day. Some core stability and upper body stability is trained as well, especially when using added load.

Quadriceps 

The front foot elevated split squat primarily trains your quads. The front thigh muscle gets worked through a long range of motion as you get into deep angles of knee flexion (bending). With your front foot elevated, you have the opportunity to drive your knee forward for a deep weighted stretch in the quads. 

Glutes

Similar to many squat variations, your glutes are also going to get a significant stimulus during the FFESS, especially in the bottom stretched position.

You’ll likely feel more glute soreness, especially if you’re used to a relatively shortener range of motion from traditional squats and split squats.

Adductors

The FFESS will also nail your inner thighs (adductors), particularly in your front leg. This muscle gets a high degree of stabilizing action during the exercise, along with some dynamic contraction to extend your hips at the top of the movement.

How to Program The Front Foot Elevated Split Squat

Generally speaking, it’s best to do unilateral exercises after heavier bilateral exercises to avoid fatiguing important stabilizers. You can program the FFESS after your heavy sets of squats, possibly as the second or third exercise of a lower body day.

However, the stimulus from the FFESS is effective and comprehensive for the quads, glutes, and adductors, so it’s can also be valid to program them as your first exercise. This is ideal, for example, for lifters with achy knees who don’t do well with heavy bilateral movements early in the workout. Prioritizing the front foot elevated split squat allows your hips, knees, and ankles to be more thoroughly warmed up before proceeding to relatively heavier lifting.

Moderate to Light Weight, High Reps

This exercise is best suited for moderate to light weight. This allows for less joint strain and connective tissue stress, and allows you to better control the weight which can give you a better mind-muscle connection.

Most people will prefer to do these with relatively light weight and higher reps to create a strong pump and an even stronger mind-muscle connection. With this approach, some lifters may even be able skip any warm-up sets, depending on how they feel and how their body responds. Pick a load you can do for at least 12 reps, and crank out two or three sets of 10 to 20 per leg.

Heavy Weight, Low Reps

If you do FFESS early in the workout, you can go heavier. Your nervous system will be fresh and you can stabilize heavier loads. Three or four sets of five to 10 reps (per leg) is already pretty heavy for this exercise. You will still need one or two warm-up sets, especially if you’re strong and plan on approaching your limits.

Using extremely heavy weights for very low reps is not advisable because the stability required for them may not be worth it. It’s not the type of exercise to test your one-rep max because the risk:reward just isn’t worth it.

Front Foot Elevated Split Squat Variations

There’s a couple of effective variations of the front foot elevated split squat for those that are more adventurous or want to progress beyond the standard movement.

Heel-Elevated Split Squat 

Instead of just elevating your front foot, add an additional plate or ramp to elevate your heel even higher. This puts your foot into a steep angle, creating even more knee flexion and makes an already quad-dominant split squat even more quad-dominant.

This is great for those in need of serious quad growth or for athletes who want to get used to deeper ranges of knee flexion, including combat sports athletes, strength sports athletes, football players, or sprinters.

Double-Elevated Split Squat

If you want to maximize your mobility and range of motion, you can elevate both the front and back foot. Essentially, you are combining the FFESS with a Bulgarian split squat. More range of motion for both the front leg and the back leg can help to skyrocket your quad and glute gains.

Setting this up can be cumbersome and requires some extra space, but once you’ve determined a good set up and know an effective distance to set each platform, it should be pretty smooth each time you’re in the gym.

Frequently Asked Questions

Put Your Best Foot Forward

Single-leg training is often overlooked in many training routines. Performing exercises with an increased range of motion, even moreso. The FFESS is a straightforward solution to both of these deficiencies. This comprehensive exercise will payoff with more size, more strength, better mobility, and improved all-around performance. You just need to step up to the challenge.

References

1. Legg, H. S., Glaister, M., Cleather, D. J., & Goodwin, J. E. (2017). The effect of weightlifting shoes on the kinetics and kinematics of the back squat. Journal of sports sciences, 35(5), 508–515. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2016.1175652
2. Seiberl, W., Hahn, D., Power, G. A., Fletcher, J. R., & Siebert, T. (2021). Editorial: The Stretch-Shortening Cycle of Active Muscle and Muscle-Tendon Complex: What, Why and How It Increases Muscle Performance?. Frontiers in physiology, 12, 693141. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.693141
3. Schoenfeld, B. J., & Grgic, J. (2020). Effects of range of motion on muscle development during resistance training interventions: A systematic review. SAGE open medicine, 8, 2050312120901559. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050312120901559

Featured Image: Balance in Motion / YouTube

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Even when your biceps aren’t getting a major stimulus from some back exercises, they’re getting warmed up and slightly pre-fatigued for the latter part of the workout, when you can finish them off with some direct biceps training.

It’s a match made in heaven and many body part split programs would be incomplete without a solid back and biceps day. Here are some of the best back and biceps workouts to add size and strength whether you’re new to the gym or think you’ve tried it all.

Back and Biceps Workouts

• For Beginners
• For Intermediate Lifters
• For Advanced Lifters
• Benefits of Back and Biceps Training
• Muscles Trained During Back and Biceps Workouts

Beginner Back and Biceps Workout

The goal with beginner-level training is to get strong and do so with a low barrier of entry, using exercises that can be relatively easily mastered. Many lifters who are new to the gym gravitate toward training their back using barbell rows. While the barbell can be a great tool for back training, it’s often skill-intensive and highly fatiguing, especially for beginners.

Base-Building Back and Biceps

This back and biceps workout routine uses exercises that are relatively simple to learn and more appropriate for establishing a base of strength and muscle. When you focus on the target muscles and apply strict technique, you’ll also give your  pulling muscles a gnarly pump by the end of the session. Technically, if you had to label your workout in detail, it could be considered a “back, biceps, and shoulders workout” because you’re also giving some direct attention to the rear head of the shoulder muscle.

Bent-Over Dumbbell Row

The bent-over dumbbell row delivers a strong back-building stimulus without taxing your spinal erectors (lower back) like a barbell row often can. Avoid swinging your torso to move the weight.

How to Do it: Stand with a dumbbell in each hand, with your arms straight down by your sides. Bend your legs slightly and hinge forward at your hips while keeping your back neutral, not rounded. Let the weights reach toward your toes with your hands facing each other. Drive your elbow back past your ribs and try to feel a contraction in your back muscles. Return the weights to the stretched position before repeating. Maintain the same hip angle throughout the exercise.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 8-12

Rest Time: 60 to 90 seconds between sets

Close-Grip Lat Pulldown

The close-grip lat pulldown will help stretch your lats and hit them in a way the row didn’t. Mixing vertical pulling (like the lat pulldown) with horizontal pulling (like rows) is a very effective way to target the multiple muscles of your back.

How to Do it: Attach a neutral-grip (palms facing each other) to the pulldown cable. Grab the handles and sit, allowing your arms to straighten and stretch overhead. Plant your feet flat and secure your knees under any available pad. Keep your upper body nearly vertical, with a slight backward lean. Drive your elbows down until the bar is generally near your face or chin. Control the stretch as you return to the arms-overhead position.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 8-12

Rest Time: 60 to 90 seconds between sets

Machine Reverse Flye

The machine reverse flye will torch your rear deltoids. Although the rear delts are technically part of your shoulder muscle, the rear muscle head is involved in many back exercises. Training them directly as part of a back and biceps routine makes sense because your rear delts, like your biceps, are pre-fatigued after training your back.

How to Do it: Sit with your chest braced against the pad in a reverse flye (or “reverse pec-deck”) machine. Grab the handles with a thumbs-up grip with your hands at shoulder-level in front of you. Keep a slight bend in your elbows. Pull your hands back until they’re in line with your shoulders to the side. Don’t “overpull” to reach your hands behind your body. Return your hands to the forward position without letting the weights slam onto the stack.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 8-12

Rest Time: One minute between sets

Alternating Dumbbell Curl

The alternating dumbbell curl lets you focus on each arm individually, so you get some serious bang for your biceps training buck. The slight supination (turning of the wrist) helps to recruit more overall biceps muscle, including your brachioradialis, making the exercise a top notch biceps-builder.

How to Do it: Stand with a dumbbell in each hand with your arms hanging down at your sides. Bring your left hand up in a thumbs-up position. As your hand passes your hips, turn your hand palm up and continue curling until the weight is near shoulder-level. Reverse the motion to return the weight to your side. Repeat the movement with your right hand. Alternate arms with each repetition.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 10-20 per arm

Rest Time: 45 to 60 seconds between sets

How to Progress

As a beginner, your goal is to learn proper form with simple movements while getting stronger. As long as your compound (multi-joint) exercises get stronger while using good technique, you should be building muscle in all the right places.

Keep pushing each set until you eventually reach the end of the rep range. Once you reach that ceiling, increase the load and repeat the process, but only do so if your form remains strict. Don’t develop a habit of cheating just to move the weight. Once your loads have increased significantly, roughly 30% or more, you can jump into the next program.

Intermediate Back and Biceps Workout

Once you’ve reached the intermediate stage — you’re feeling more skilled in the gym and your shirts have filled out with a bit of muscle — it can be tempting to start “ego lifting,” especially if you start to notice the bigger lifters in the gym swinging around weights when they row. Don’t do that. It can get you injured and, actually, doesn’t stimulate your back well as using crisp, strict technique.

Keep your form dialed in and you should feel your back working deeply across the targeted muscle fibers, allowing you to trigger growth. The same principle applies to your biceps — no swinging. Let your biceps do the work, not your ego. Elbow flexion, not momentum, will grow arms.

Back and Biceps Workout with New Angles

As you transition to an intermediate lifter, you can likely handle some more volume as long as you’re eating enough nutrients to recover and grow. It’s also a good time to introduce some variety to prevent overuse injuries while also stimulating muscle regions in different ways. (1) This back and biceps gym workout uses a few different movements to target your muscles.

The chest-supported row is a great first exercise of the day. It’s stable and doesn’t require as much warming up as a free-standing row. The stability helps you focus on your back. The single-arm rows allow you to take advantage of unilateral (single-arm) strength-building, because you can lift more with one arm than trying to lift two dumbbells together. This unilateral focus also helps to correct any imbalances you may have.

The incline dumbbell curl stretches your biceps more than the standing movement, which elicits a large growth response. (2) The stretched movement may also impose more soreness due to the increased range of motion, but you should be able to handle that now that you’ve got more experience under your belt.

Chest-Supported Row

This movement fully supports your upper body and essentially removes your lower back from the equation, making it a strict back-building exercise with few limitations. The chest-supported row is an excellent way to begin a back-focused training day because your lats and larger back muscles are doing the work without fatiguing your low back.

How to Do it: Lay chest-down on a supported bench and grab the handles with a palm-down grip. Unrack the weight before pulling the bar up as high as possible. Pause briefly in the contracted position before lowering the weight to a full stretch.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 8-12

Rest Time: 60 to 90 seconds between sets

Wide-Grip Pulldown

This movement is one of the most fundamental pulldown variations. The emphasis on a long overhead stretch with a strong contraction makes the wide-grip pulldown an essential player is many back workouts.

How to Do it: Attach a long bar to a pulldown station. Take a grip slightly wider than shoulder-width and sit down. Secure your knees under any pads and allow your arms to extend straight overhead. Keep your torso mostly upright and drive your elbows down, pulling the bar to nearly chin level. Pause briefly before returning to an overhead position.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 8-12

Rest Time: 60 to 90 seconds between sets

Single-Arm Dumbbell Row

The single-arm dumbbell row is a classic back-training exercise. Mastering this movement is an essential for long-term back development. It allows you to target your back muscles, one side at at time, while drastically reducing lower back stress.

How to Do it: Grab a dumbbell in one hand, with your palm facing in toward your body. Brace your non-working hand on a flat bench or on the same side knee. Drive your arm up and back until the dumbbell is near your ribs. Pause briefly for a maximum contraction before lowering to a full stretch. Perform all reps with one arm before switching sides.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 8-12

Rest Time: No rest between arms, one minute between sets

Cable Rear Delt Flye

Targeting your rear delts with cables instead of a machine increases the time under tension, which can improve the muscle-building stimulus. (3) This unique movement lets you get more benefit from relatively less weight.

How to Do it: Stand in the middle of a double cable station with a high pulley with each hand grabbing the cable from the opposite side. Flex your abs and bend your knees slightly. Keep a slight bend in your arms as you draw your elbows down and back. In the full contraction, your arms should be slightly behind your torso. Return to the stretched position, with your arms crossed in front of your body.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 10-15

Rest Time: 45 to 60 seconds between sets

Incline Dumbbell Curl

The incline dumbbell curl is a powerful choice for a biceps exercise. The intense stretch and focused contraction creates a major trigger for muscle growth. Be sure to prioritize technique over heavy loads — if done properly, relatively light weights can feel extremely heavy. Resist the urge to cheat.

How to Do it: Set an adjustable bench to roughly 45-degrees. Lay back while holding a dumbbell in each hand. Rest your head, shoulders, and back on the bench pad. Allow your arms to hang straight with your palms facing forward. Curl the weight up while moving only your hand and the dumbbell — don’t let your elbow, upper arm, or head move. When you’ve reach the highest position possible without moving your elbow or upper arm, slower lower the weight to a full stretch.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 10-15

Rest Time: 45 to 60 seconds between sets

How to Progress 

Once you are able to hit the end of the rep range for an exercise, increase the load in the next workout. It’s basic, bread and butter progression. There’s no need to overcomplicate things. You keep form strict and, as long as you eat enough while getting stronger, your arms will expand and your back will eventually get its own zip code.

Advanced Back and Biceps Workout

Now that you are even stronger, you need to periodize to new variations along with adding lifting straps. What often happens with advanced lifters is that their grip and forearms can become a limiting factor during back exercises, leaving progress-building reps untapped in each set.

At this stage of development, your back should be significantly stronger than your smaller forearm muscles. Strategically using lifting straps can prevent your forearms from fatiguing while allowing you to impose more stimulating reps to your back and biceps.

Back and Bi’s for Experienced Lifters

As an advanced lifter, you need to be more specific about hitting all regions of your back. The barbell row is extremely comprehensive and skill-intensive, so it becomes the first exercise in the workout. Vertical pulling is next to more thoroughly target your lats. At this point, you should be strong enough to do at least five strict pull-ups. If not, stick to lat pulldowns and figure out whether it’s a lack of strength or an excess of body weight hindering your pull-up progress.

The Jefferson curl is a unique movement added to train your spinal erectors from top to bottom. This unconventional exercise sometimes gets a bad rap because it requires a rounded back, which is usually warned against, but your spine was designed to move and these types of controlled, dynamic contractions grow your muscles best.

If you want a thick, back-dominant look in both your upper and lower back, Jefferson curls can be a secret weapon. It should go without saying, do them with control and don’t load your ego. The workout wraps up with the addition of the barbell wrist curl. Since you’ll be using straps, which supplements your gripping strength, your forearms will benefit from some isolation to keep them growing.

Barbell Row

Sometimes considered the definitive back exercise, the bent-over barbell row can be a key player in building size and strength. Don’t let the ability to move heavy weight tempt you into cheating the technique. Keep your form strict and don’t bounce or swing weight.

How to Do it: Stand in front of a loaded barbell with a stable shoulder-width stance. Hinge at your hips and grab the bar with an overhand grip, slightly wider than shoulder-width. Brace your core and explode the weight up toward your lower ab region, below your belly button. Try to pause very briefly before lowering the weight with control.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 8-12

Rest Time: Two minutes between sets

Pull-Up

The pull-up is a classic bodyweight exercise. In many training circles, your pull-up performance is second only to your bench press ability as a measure of your true experience and aptitude in the gym.

How to Do it: Grab an overhead pull-up bar using a shoulder-width grip, with your palms facing away from your body. Flex your abs and keep your body in a generally straight line — resist the urge to “kick” your legs up as you lift. Pull your chest toward the bar and lean slightly back. When your mouth or chin is near bar-level, lower yourself to full extension (a straight-arm stretched position) with control. Don’t free fall into the bottom.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 5-10

Rest Time: Two minutes between sets

Jefferson Curl

The Jeferson curl is performed contrary to one overriding weight training rule — here, you’re supposed to allow your back to round during the exercise. During most other movements like squats, deadlifts, and rows, proper technique usually involves keeping a stiff and neutral spine. During the Jefferson curl, the goal is to deliberately round your spine (under full control, of course).

How to Do it: Stand with a light barbell in your hands, with straight arms resting in front of your body. Lean forward at the waist and imagine curling each individual vertebrae down as you reach toward your feet. Keep your arms straight and keep the bar close to your legs. When you’ve reached the end of your flexibility, “uncurl” slowly to return to a standing position.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 5-10

Rest Time: One minute between sets

Cable Rear Delt Flye

The cable rear delt flye remains a reliable, high-intensity way to finish off your rear deltoids at the end of your workout for back and biceps. Keep your form strict and focus on feeling your delts doing the work.

How to Do it: Stand in the middle of a double cable station with a high pulley with each hand grabbing the cable from the opposite side. Flex your abs and bend your knees slightly. Keep a slight bend in your arms as you draw your elbows down and back. In the full contraction, your arms should be slightly behind your torso. Return to the stretched position, with your arms crossed in front of your body.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 8-12

Rest Time: One minute between sets

Incline Dumbbell Curl

Blast your biceps with the incline dumbbell curl. The intense stretch and hard contraction make it an excellent choice for zeroing in on your arms.

How to Do it: Set an adjustable bench to roughly 45-degrees. Lay back while holding a dumbbell in each hand. Rest your head, shoulders, and back on the bench pad. Allow your arms to hang straight with your palms facing forward. Curl the weight up while moving only your hand and the dumbbell — don’t let your elbow, upper arm, or head move. When you’ve reach the highest position possible without moving your elbow or upper arm, slower lower the weight to a full stretch.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 8-12

Rest Time: One minute between sets

Barbell Wrist Curl

Work your forearms (specifically, your wrist flexors) with the barbell wrist curl. The targeted movement will give some attention to your forearm muscles, which could potentially be understimulated when using lifting straps during heavier back exercises.

How to Do it: Set up on a flat bench with an underhand (palm-up) grip on a barbell. Support your forearms across the bench. Extend your wrists down to lower the weight, allowing the bar to roll toward your fingertips. Curl your hand closed and bring your wrists up without lifting your forearms from the bench. It’s a relatively short range of motion, so focus on applying tension without swinging.

Sets and Reps: 3 x 10-15

Rest Time: 45 to 60 seconds between sets

How to Progress 

Progression is the same as before — Train hard, don’t swing any weights, and add reps or load each week.

If you can match or beat your rep performance, that’s great. Once you get to the highest end of the rep range, add load the following week. If you’re lifting heavy, but find yourself getting fatigued and losing performance, you may need to deload at some point.

But for the most part, continual growth comes down to continual strength increase with constant nutrient intake. Just be cautious when it comes to progressing pull-ups. It’s tempting to justify reps that swing around, which can end up adding load hastily.

Focus on your form most weeks and only count reps that are performed under controlled. Once you get to 10 strict pull-up reps, add five to 10 pounds, reduce the reps back to five, and keep going.

Benefits of a Back and Biceps Workout

While each type of body part split or potential workout setup can have its own benefits, there are a few distinct reasons to consider planning a back and biceps day in your weekly training split.

Happier Joints and Better Posture

People with strong backs who do more pulling exercises have happier, healthier joints. When you bench or overhead press excessively and don’t balance your musculature with rows, pulldowns, or pull-ups, your shoulders can get cranky. (4)

Your joints and connective tissues begin to beg for more rowing and a stronger back. This can create a healthier spine, improve joint function, and promote better posture.

You Get Good at Moving Stuff

Sure, nobody wants to be “that friend” everyone in the group hits up when they need help moving, but the alternative is worse — being the friend nobody contacts to help them move because they’re scared you’ll snap in half.

That’s where a consistent back and biceps day comes in. You’ll simply be more capable through everyday life, and moving furniture will feel like child’s play. Beyond the practical benefits, building strength in your back, biceps, and grip can carry over to boost performance in the gym — everything from more obvious exercises like farmer’s walks and deadlifts to overhead pressing, where a stronger back helps to provide upper body stability.

Build Some Eye-Catching Muscle

Many people rightly associate biceps training as being essential for a more aesthetic physique. While the chest, abs, and even shoulders are often considered other contenders for attention-grabbing body parts, a well-muscled back can take your muscularity to the next level and create an undeniably athletic and powerful look.

By training your back and arms, you fill out any T-shirt better, as opposed to looking like a malnourished college freshman swimming in baggy clothes. A big back can also make your waist look relatively smaller in comparison, in case you’re still working to shed a bit of extra fluff.

Back and Biceps Basic Anatomy

Here’s a brief rundown of all the muscles you’ll be hitting with each back and biceps workout. Yes, you’re training “the back” and “the biceps,” but there’s a bit more detail to consider.

Trapezius

The traps are a diamond-shaped muscle that takes up a large part of your upper back. It spans from your mid-neck to just below your shoulder blades. The trapezius has many muscle fibers and several “sections” — the upper traps, mid-traps and lower traps — but a variety of horizontal and vertical pulling will hit the muscle in its entirety. The main function is scapular retraction (pulling your shoulder blades together), so rowing exercises will be particularly useful.

Lats

The latissimus dorsi, or lats, are another big muscle group. It takes up the outer parts of your mid-back, spanning up to your armpits and down toward the start of your lower back. The lats are often notorious for giving you that wide look.

Some lifters regard the lats as the wingspan muscle because people can see your back gains from the front thanks to your lats. Not to mention, it makes your waist look smaller as well. Any vertical pulling exercises, like all pulldown exercises, hit the lats with a strong contraction and long stretch.

Spinal Erectors

These are two long, thick beams that run from the top of your back to the bottom, including what’s typically referred to as your “lower back”. Similar to the traps, your spinal erectors get stimulated with nearly every back exercise because they’re involved in controlling posture near the hips. They’re trained directly as the primary focus during Jefferson curls or any pulling or hip hinging exercise where you are actively arching your back.

Rhomboids

Your rhomboids are relatively smaller back muscles that attach at your mid-spine and sit partially under your scapula, creating part of your upper back musculature. The rhomboids aid in scapular retraction, in a similar role to the traps, and they help your posture look better. All horizontal rowing will hit the rhomboids well, especially if you focus on pulling your elbows back to allow your scapulae to squeeze together.

Rear Deltoids 

The rear deltoids are the back head of your shoulders. Developing this relatively smaller muscle can makes your overall back look more complete, along with “rounding out” the appearance of your shoulders.

People who often ignore or underappreciate back training usually have lagging shoulders, as well. All pulling exercises where your elbow travels behind your body, like many types of rows, will hit the rear delts.

Some lifters argue that the rear delts don’t really need direct training as long as you have enough back volume each week, but well-planned isolation work never hurts, especially if you want to focus on building a specific body part.

Biceps

Your “biceps” actually consists of three related muscles: the biceps brachii, brachialis, and brachioradialis.

The biceps brachii is the spotlight “biceps” muscle consisting of two heads, a long head and short head. Both are visible and create what most people consider the biceps on their upper arm. You can’t see any distinct separation between the two heads unless you’re incredibly lean or incredibly muscled.

The brachialis is a smaller muscle that sits between your biceps and triceps. It’s rarely ever visible due to its anatomical location, but it creates arm size by “lifting” your biceps. Unless you’re very heavily muscles or as lean as a competitive bodybuilder, you’re not likely to see the muscle itself.

The last big player in the biceps game is the brachioradialis. It sits at the top of your upper forearms and rotates your wrists to a neutral (thumbs up) position, along with helping to flex your elbows. It’s more visible than the brachialis and, when developed, can help to fill out your sleeves, especially near the forearm area.

All of the aforementioned biceps muscles primarily work at elbow flexion (bending your arms), so these muscles get trained with every row and pulldown, as well as with any type of curl. This is why, if you’re getting stronger on a variety of back exercises and adding some hard curls, you don’t need many sets of biceps training to see big results.

Time For Some Back and Biceps

Time to start applying these workouts for back and biceps. Take an honest assessment of your experience level and get working on your rows, pulldowns, and curls. You’ve seen the most efficient ways to plan these back and biceps exercises, so get into the gym and get growing. Your back will widen and your arms will expand. Your upper body will look more impressive, and you might even notice that your physique is getting a few you extra admirers as a side effect.

References 

1. Kassiano, Witalo1; Nunes, João Pedro1; Costa, Bruna1; Ribeiro, Alex S.1,2; Schoenfeld, Brad J.3; Cyrino, Edilson S.1. Does Varying Resistance Exercises Promote Superior Muscle Hypertrophy and Strength Gains? A Systematic Review. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 36(6):p 1753-1762, June 2022. | DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000004258
2. Oranchuk, D. J., Storey, A. G., Nelson, A. R., & Cronin, J. B. (2019). Isometric training and long-term adaptations: Effects of muscle length, intensity, and intent: A systematic review. Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 29(4), 484–503. https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.13375
3. Burd, N. A., Andrews, R. J., West, D. W., Little, J. P., Cochran, A. J., Hector, A. J., Cashaback, J. G., Gibala, M. J., Potvin, J. R., Baker, S. K., & Phillips, S. M. (2012). Muscle time under tension during resistance exercise stimulates differential muscle protein sub-fractional synthetic responses in men. The Journal of physiology, 590(2), 351–362. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.2011.221200
4. Cools, A. M., Witvrouw, E. E., Mahieu, N. N., & Danneels, L. A. (2005). Isokinetic Scapular Muscle Performance in Overhead Athletes With and Without Impingement Symptoms. Journal of athletic training, 40(2), 104–110.

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