Five Essential Weightlifting Exercises

What are the most important exercises you should do in the gym?  That really depends on your goal.  Most young people go to the gym to look better.  Athletes go to increase their strength and overall fitness.  Older individuals go to maintain or strengthen their bodies.  Although these goals may not always overlap, there are some movements that everyone should perform.  I will list them here in order of importance.  Here are The Big Five:

1. Squat- This is by far the most important lift you can do.  It strengthens your legs and core while stimulating muscle growth for your whole body.  However, it is very difficult and make sure you use proper form in order to avoid injury.  Make sure to squat below parallel to get the most out of the movement.

2. Deadlift- The deadlift is the best full-body strength exercise.  Again, make sure you use proper form or you can risk permanently damaging your lower back.  Strongly resist the urge to sacrifice form to put on more weight for this one.

3. Bench press- Although benching is not as important as people make it out to be, it still is the best exercise for developing upper body strength since it strengthens your chest.

4. Bent-over row- To be honest, I was tempted to put this above the bench press or at least have it tied for third on this list.  I find this movement more difficult than the bench press but it is the best move for developing your back.

5. Shoulder press- The press is definitely the best shoulder exercise.  There's just something about lifting weight over your head that makes you feel really really strong!

I know that I probably left out some of your favorite weight exercises.  A lot of guys might complain that I forgot to rank the bicep curl.  As much as I enjoy curls, I have to admit that curling to make your arms bigger is mostly for show.  Curls don't directly develop functional strength the way the press or the row does.  The same goes for leg and tricep extensions, flyes, calf raises, and pull downs.  By all means do them if you want to.  I usually do them too.  I just give The Big Five priority over the others.

A lot of men fall into the trap of only training their upper bodies.  Even then, they only focus on benching and curling.  Trust me, they should focus on developing their lower bodies as well.  They will have a more complete, well-rounded look.  In addition to looking stronger, they will be stronger too.

I began weight training for sports in middle and high school so my focus was initially on developing strength (mostly upper body).  To this day, I confess that I am still more focused on increasing my strength but I do put some emphasis on overall fitness and aesthetics.  I hope this helped.