Bench press, deadlifts, squats, barbell curls, military press, dips, chins, pressdowns, lunges, and rows.
These are all tried and true exercises that likely make up the bulk of your sessions (and rightfully so).
But what happens when you’re looking to bring a little flavour and zest to your session? What happens when what you’ve been doing for months doesn’t seem to be working anymore?
You look for unorthodox alternatives and ways to tweak what you’re currently doing to generate excitement and fresh gains.
The past few months of training have blown up and brought new life into my exercise repertoire. Not only have I stumbled upon some incredibly effective variations on tried and true methods, but I’ve been exposed to some long-standing classics that have traditionally been viewed through an unorthodox lens.
Contained in this article are 5 movements that will bring some sizzle and spice into your leg, back, shoulder, and arm training sessions. Let’s get into the movements.
- Cossack Squats
Purpose: Honestly, a large part of programming these into your session is for a varied stimulus, enhanced lower body mobility and an opportunity to expand your exercise repertoire. Having this squat variation come early in your leg day serves as a bit of mobility work, achieves an awesome adductor stretch, and makes for a great pre-pump ahead of the rest of your leg day.
Execution: You can perform these unloaded, holding a dumbbell “goblet” style, or with a barbell on your back. Take as wide a stance as you can while remaining “solid,” with your toes pointed outward (think wide sumo stance). Sink down onto one leg, until the opposite leg is perfectly straight. Keeping your spine neutral, and hips under you, initiate the rep by flexing your glutes, hams, and adductors. Come up in an arc, before sinking down onto the opposite leg.
Sequencing: Due to the high demand placed on your stabilizers, and a need for utmost focus, I like to place these in the first third of a session. Aside from being most effective when you’re able to focus hard on the execution, this movement will also flood your adductors (and the entirety of your legs) with blood. Thus, setting the rest of your session up to be extremely stimulating, and productive.
Optimal Rep Range: 8-12 reps per leg is where Cossack squats feel best. Any heavier and it becomes not worth the risk, given the unstable nature of these squats. Any lighter and the high reps bring a strong feeling of diminishing returns.
Barbells, dumbbells or gorilla bells. You can use ’em all for Cossack Squats. Image courtesy of ONNIT.com
- Stiff Legged Rack Pulls
Purpose: In my training experience, I’ve found that a key to hamstring growth, in particular, is overloading different parts of the strength curve. With traditional stiff legged work, whenever the load becomes heavy enough to crush my hamstrings, my lower back becomes the dominant mover. This is no bueno for targeted hamstring work, or for the painful lower back pump that ensures. Enter, Stiff Legged Rack Pulls. The nature of lowering the bar to pins allows you to use more weight than you could with dumbbells and makes it incredibly easy to remove your lower back from the movement equation.
Execution: Set up as you normally would for rack pulls, except place the pins down a notch or two so you can achieve a greater stretch. Take a narrow stance (feet almost touching), and a shoulder-width grip on the bar. As you would with a stiff legged deadlift, maintain a neutral spine, soft-locked knees and push your hips backward while you embrace the stretch it creates through your hamstrings. Pause for 1-3s when you get to the pins, then initiate the concentric portion of the movement by flexing your glutes and hams to pull the weight back up. If you want, stop short of full hip extension to really hammer your hamstrings and maintain the tension created.
Sequencing: Stiff Legged Rack Pulls feel phenomenal when placed around the mid-point of your session. By that point, your warmed-up and ready to move some heavy loads. The shortened range of motion prevents you from sinking too deep into the stretch, keeping your lower back happy.
Optimal Rep Range: Stiff Legged Rack Pulls make for an excellent opportunity to overload your hammies with training stimulus. While you can effectively use a variety of rep ranges here, the lower end of the spectrum yields great results. Largely because you can take your lower back out of the equation in spite of the heavy load being used. Think sets of 4-8 reps.
- Bent EZ Bar Curls
Purpose: The focus and attention demanded by the execution creates a significant amount of mechanical stress. Add that to the intense contraction you create, and you’ve got an exercise that’s not only excellent for stimulating biceps growth, but one that will bring a stupid amount of blood into your arms.
Execution: Take a shoulder width grip and stand tall. Hinge your hips forward slightly, and bring your elbows out in front of you. As if you’re setting up on a preacher curl bench. Maintain a neutral spine and do your best to keep arms and elbows locked in place. Curl towards your forehead, ideally curling the bar right up until it touches your forehead.
Sequencing: These curls feel phenomenal when you’ve already got a bit of blood in your arms. Either mix them in for some extra biceps stimulation at the end of your back day or in the latter half of your arm session.
Optimal Rep Range: For these curls, I like staying in a traditional hypertrophy range of 8-12 reps. Any lower and the heavier load will cause your back to come into play, any higher and it makes a lot more sense to do a similar motion (like spider or preacher curls) where your elbows are supported.
- Incline Dumbbell Pullovers
Purpose: I stumbled upon this movement by accident, and it feels absolutely incredible. The strength curve is altered from the traditional flat bench or low decline pullovers – you’ll feel the origins of your lats get absolutely toasted. As per usual when it comes to pullovers, the purpose is to create and sink into a deep stretch that pulls from top to bottom of your lats.
Execution: Set up on an incline bench at a 45-degree angle. I’ve found it helps to bring your feet onto the bench as well and squat down on your heels. Lower the dumbbell behind your head (you might have to angle it as you lower to avoid catching the bench), and sink as deep as is comfortable for your shoulders. Pause for a moment, then flex your lats and triceps (if you need a little help) and raise the dumbbell until it’s above your head, stop there to keep the tension on your lats. Rinse and repeat. You will not need much load here.
These have quickly become one of my favourite movements. They also happen to be quite in line with what Arnold, Zane, Robinson and Columbo used to do.
Sequencing: Typically I find pullovers of any form, to be most effective when placed last or second last in your session. By then, your shoulder girdle is warm and loose, allowing for a greater range of motion with reduced injury risk. As well, the intense stretch you can create through a well-pumped muscle is a phenomenal way to wrap up your session.
Optimal Rep Range: Due to the need for shoulder mobility, slow tempo and attention to your range of motion, Incline Pullovers are well suited to sets that are above 10 reps. Being forced to use less weight allows you to slow right down, feel every inch of each rep and obliterate your lats.
- Overhead Dumbbell Lateral Raises
Purpose: In the few weeks that I’ve implemented overhead laterals into my training, I’ve found them to be largely superior to traditional lateral raises. I know side laterals have been a staple bodybuilding movement for years, but they never truly sat well with me. Between the wonky strength curve, less than maximal contraction and limited range of motion, I never felt I was reaping the full benefits from my time spent on laterals. That’s not to say they’re a useless exercise, rather, my biomechanics don’t seem well suited to performing them effectively.
On the other hand, continuing the side lateral motion and turning the movement into an overhead lateral raise changed everything. All of sudden the delt contraction intensified, any sign of creaky shoulder joints vanished, shoulder mobility improved and there became a noticeable, “fuller” look to my delts.
They sure knew how to train back in the day. (Some) things slowly seem to be coming full circle. Image courtesy of how2muscleguide.com
Execution: Stand in front of a mirror so that you can see your pretty face and keep an eye on your form. Begin with a dumbbell in each hand and start by your hips, as if you’re going to slip into a half-assed most muscular pose. Leading with your pinkies, start by performing a traditional side lateral raise. Instead of stopping as your arms reach parallel, keep going with the goal of bringing your arms right up by your ears. Flex in the contracted position for 1-2s and you’ll feel your entire delt tighten up. Take 2-3s to bring the weight back down to your starting position. Rinse and repeat.
Sequencing: Two of the greatest traits of overhead laterals is 1) your form can get a little loose as the reps and sets go on without any ill effects. And 2) you can insert these anywhere in your session, and they’ll feel incredible each time.
At the beginning: Overhead laterals can serve as an awesome first exercise. They allow you to initiate a strong mind-muscle connection, flood your shoulders with blood and loosen up the whole of your shoulder girdle. You can’t ask for much more in a warm-up.
In the middle: Assuming that you’ve warmed up well and moved through 2-3 pressing or “raising” movements for your shoulders, coming to overhead laterals in the midst of your session is a great way to really light up your muscle fibers. Being that your shoulders are already “awake,” mobile and pumped, you’ll be able to get a massive contraction that encapsulates your entire delt. You should be able to use a bit more load here than you would at the start of your session.
As a finisher: Talk about taking your ego down a notch. On the heels of a great shoulder session, overhead laterals make for a great high-rep finisher. In this case, you will not need much load. Go for reps and burn out your delts.
The Final Reps
Implement the movement(s) that make sense within the context of your training program, and your goal. If that’s only one, fantastic. If all five make sense, that’s all the better. I’d love to hear which movements you’re going to add into your training – drop a comment below and let me know what adjustments you’re going to make to your training.
About the Author
Alex is a self-proclaimed anti-meathead and part-time nerd. When he's not working towards Greek God status or learning how to better serve his clients, he can be found exploring how to further crush life, perfect his flair in the kitchen, or pull the perfect shot of espresso. You can learn what he's all about at MASSthetics.net
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