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Sep 01, 2023
10 Best Exercises for Building Muscle and Strength for Workouts
Forget your TikTok feed. These ten timeless exercises—a mix of old and new gym moves—are all you need to build muscle and strength. THANKS TO TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit, you have a constant stream
Forget your TikTok feed. These ten timeless exercises—a mix of old and new gym moves—are all you need to build muscle and strength.
THANKS TO TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit, you have a constant stream of bajillions of exercises every single day. But which of these moves can help you build the strength and muscle you want? Somehow, the information superhighway that is social media has only made that question harder. Every fitness discipline backs its own staple exercise, and every day another influencer talks up the merits of some blindfolded burpee backflip.
The antidote to that confusion is these ten exercises, which slice through the noise of social media, junk science, and your gym bestie’s best advice to help you forge muscle and strength. You’ll find some classics on this list and a few new moves, too. Somehow, someway, you need to get these ten moves into your regimen.
Every exercise has a purpose, but the very best exercises check many boxes at once. Here’s a look at how we picked our top ten.
To build muscle and strength, you need to increasingly challenge yourself with more load or greater volume.
The best exercises often challenge multiple muscle groups, making those moves time efficient.
If you need a specialized machine for an exercise, you might not be able to do it often enough to make gains. Moves that use your bodyweight, dumbbells, or kettlebells, though, can be done almost anywhere.
Why: Few exercises let you train your abs, shoulders, and back all at once. The half-kneeling windmill does. It’s a complete exercise that also trains you to rotate your torso.
How to Do It:
How to Train It: Do half-kneeling windmills 2 or 3 times a week. Keep the rep slow, doing 2 or 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps, taking your time on each rep. Struggling to touch your elbow to the floor? Start by touching your hand to the floor instead.
Why: This classic is an all-around exercise that builds more than your chest. Unlike more celebrated chest moves (like the bench press), the pushup demands complete core focus, as you’ll need to squeeze your abs and glutes. It’s also an upper-body exercise that travels well but can still grow with you. Searching for ways to make it more challenging? Place a weight plate or backpack on your back to add a bit of load.
How to Do It:
How to Train It: Do 3 or 4 sets of as many good-form reps as you can. “You can easily take pushups to failure,” says MH fitness director Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S. “The worst that will happen is you’ll plop to the ground on your final rep.” You can do pushups daily or with any upper-body workout.
Why: No exercise better duplicates a natural human movement than the trap-bar deadlift, which essentially has you bending down to pick something up from the floor, then standing with that load. You’ll do this extra safely with the trap-bar deadlift, too, stepping inside a bar so you can focus on pushing your butt back and not letting your back round (two common deadlift faults). The move mainly attacks your glutes, hamstrings, and quads—but your forearms, mid-back, and abs will also feel it.
How to Do It:
How to Train It: Aim to do trap-bar deadlifts at least twice a week. Start with a weight you can control; do 3 or 4 sets of 8 to 10 reps. Once you’ve mastered the movement, aim to do 3 or 4 sets of 2 to 4 reps each with heavy weights, working to build serious strength.
Why: “The squat is a fundamental motion that all people should understand,” says Samuel. And no squat is safer for you than the goblet squat, which has you holding a dumbbell or kettlebell at your chest. The position of the weight instantly prevents your torso from leaning forward, a common mistake with other squat variations. In doing so, it also fires up your abs, adding even more total-body benefit.
How to Do It:
How to Train It: Aim to do 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps of goblet squats, and don’t be afraid to go heavy, says Samuel: “Whatever the biggest dumbbells are in your gym, work up to those.” It’s a great way to start a leg workout. You can also use a lighter weight, aim for 15 to 20 reps per set, and do it at the end of your workout.
Why: The reverse lunge is the ultimate entry point into single-leg training, in which you focus on just one limb at a time.
How to Do It:
How to Train It: You can do reverse lunges with only your bodyweight daily, building athleticism and blasting your quads and glutes. To forge serious muscle size and strength, do reverse lunges with heavy dumbbells or kettlebells held at your sides. Aim to do 3 or 4 sets of 6 to 8 reps per side—and complete all reps on one side before going on to the other.
Why: When you think of exercises to develop your lats, the largest muscles in your back, you likely think of pullups, but if you’re not chasing CrossFit dreams, the chinup is superior. By using an underhand grip (instead of the classic overhand grip utilized in pullups), you take stress off your shoulders while also allowing your biceps to assist as you pull yourself up. That’ll help you squeeze out a few more reps, pushing your entire upper body to greater fatigue every set.
How to Do It:
How to Train It: “Chinups are a great move on any back day,” says MH fitness advisor David Otey, C.S.C.S. Aim to do 3 or 4 sets of as many good-form reps as you can at least twice a week.
Why: The farmer’s carry trains your entire body: As you hold a weight and walk forward, your forearms, shoulders, and back muscles get taxed to prevent your torso from tipping forward, and your legs work to keep you balanced. “Lifting that weight with just one arm,” adds trainer Marcus Martinez, C.S.C.S., “also ultra fires up your abs so your torso doesn’t tip to one side.”
How to Do It:
How to Train It: Train the single-arm farmer’s carry for time, not reps: Aim to do 3 one-minute sets per side. Rest 60 to 90 seconds between sets. And go heavy; your abs and grip strength will reap the benefits.
Why: Based on a classic gymnastics training idea, the hollow hold has you lying on your back and pressing your lower back into the floor while lifting both your legs and your shoulder blades. Doing so challenges your abs to fight any urge to arch your back, a principle called “anti-extension.” “This will also hone good posture,” says Samuel, “keeping you from flaring your rib cage when you stand.”
How to Do It:
How to Train It: You can do hollow holds as part of a daily ab routine. Aim to hold the position for 30 to 40 seconds, then rest for 20 seconds. Do 3 or 4 sets—and expect it to be harder than you think.
Why: Few exercises challenge more critical muscle than this one, which tasks you with standing behind a kettlebell, hiking it behind your hips, and then explosively standing and squeezing your glutes to swing the bell forward. Your hamstrings and glutes get a challenge with every rep, and because you’re moving a heavy load, you’ll also train your forearms and light up your abs. The best part: It all happens in the blink of an eye, ensuring that you build not only strength but power, which diminishes as we age.
How to Do It:
How to Train It: The kettlebell swing is a terrific exercise to finish off leg day—and you can actually do them every day at the end of your workout. Aim to do reps for 30 seconds, then rest for 30 seconds; do 4 to 6 sets. The 4-minute series will spike your heart rate and build athleticism, too.
Why: The elevated plank row dares you to do row reps while holding a single-arm plank with your elbow on a bench, a position that simultaneously blasts your mid-back muscles, your lats, your abs, and your glutes. “Your hips are going to want to rotate back and forth as you do these,” says Samuel. “It takes all your ab and glute strength to prevent that from happening.”
How to Do It:
How to Train It: Add elevated plank rows to your workouts on any back day, aiming to do 3 or 4 sets of 8 to 10 reps per side. The best part: You don’t need to rest between sets, meaning you can build back muscle and get a solid cardiovascular workout, too. Want more of this move? Add it to your ab training as well.
Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S., is the fitness director of Men's Health and a certified trainer with more than 10 years of training experience. He's logged training time with NFL athletes and track athletes and his current training regimen includes weight training, HIIT conditioning, and yoga. Before joining Men's Health in 2017, he served as a sports columnist and tech columnist for the New York Daily News.
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