Your Go-To Exercises

I know alot of knowledgable people skim these forums, and alot of us like to create or manipulate programs to match our own body types/ goal/ enjoyment

I wanted to put together a list of Go to exercises you always try to include in your own programs. These are exercises i feel i ‘must’ include in my workouts. Any exercise not listed here i feel i dont really need. Plus is i can execute all these exercises in my home garage gym (Farmers walks aside) .

Any you disagree strongly with? Any you think im missing?

Ill start with mine :

Snatch grip High pull - Yoke Delts
Pressups - Pec Tri
Dips - Pec Tri
Football Bar Bench - Pec Tri (With less shoulder strain than a normal bar)
Front Squat / Squat - Full Body
Clean & Press - Full Body
Press - Shoulders
Trap Bar Deadlift - Full Body (I find my body recovers quicker from these meaning i can train these and heavy squats and BJJ in the same week)
Front Rack Lunge - Legs/Core
Lsit/HLR - Core
Abb Wheel - Core
Rev Grip Curl - Grip/Forearms
Hammer Curl - Grip/Foreamrs
Croc Rows - Back Grip
Pendlay BOR - Back
Towel Pullup - Grip Back
Wide Grip Pullup - Back
Rear Delt Fly - Delts
Rear Neck Press - Delts
Hip Thrust - Glutes
GoodMorning - Posterior Back
FG Hangs - Grip
Face Pulls - Delt Trap
Farmers Walks - Conditioning , Full Body
Heavy Bag - Conditioning Full Body
Skipping - Warm Up Full Body

Just to clarify: that’s 26 exercises you always try and include in your programming?

For me personally, the only 2 exercises I can’t imagine writing a program for myself without are squat and bench. I don’t think there’s any other exercises I wouldn’t swap out if I had reason to.

correct

exercise i try to fit in over a 2/3 day exercise cycle (preferably over one week).

For further clarification, you do all those exercises every week over the course of 2 or 3 lifting sessions?

Yes. I try to. However i don’t always clean and press . This or the high pull and a seperate press . Usually the latter tbh , but the other exercises are a staple for me across the week.

Coming from a sports oriented context:

Squat, OHP, Conventional DL (or some other hip hinge), Bench

Pullups/Lat pull downs, some horizontal pull (DB or BB rows or single arm cable rows), face pulls (for rear delts)

As much as possible, the non BB lifts would be unilateral work since sports is already a greatly imbalanced thing.

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For the average dude or dudette? Just seven:

  • Squat
  • Hip hinge
  • Vertical push
  • Vertical pull
  • Horizontal push
  • Horizontal pull
  • Core stability

Hell, even that might be overkill if we’re only using 100% “vital” movements. Someone could probably build a pretty solid base of strength doing nothing but squats and weighted dips/chinups.

Any variations of the above are probably reasonably fine. Disclaimer: I am weak and my opinion isn’t worth a lot.

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Curl movement

Tricep Extension move

Hamstring curl

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I believe that you believe that, but it’s still wrong.

You don’t have to do clean and press and press and “rear neck press” (behind the neck press?!) every week. You don’t have to do snatch grip high pulls and clean and press and trap bar deads and hip thrusts and good mornings every week.

You absolutely don’t have to do reverse grip curls and hammer curls and towel pull-ups and Kroc rows and FG hangs (whatever those are) and farmer’s walks every week.

Your plan is dripping with redundancy, which is weird (or not really so weird) since two months ago you asked Thib about minimalist training, he replied suggesting to do 4 exercises per workout twice a week, then a month later you replied to him saying, “Just so you know, I’m gonna do 10 or 11 exercises twice a week.”

Your plan is setup solely for enjoyment. It has nothing to do with reaching any particular goal. As long as you’re cool with that, have at it.

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Wow, I didn’t even know that many “exercises” existed! Out of curiosity, are there any exercises that are not your “got to”?

Here are mine:

pull ups, dips, squats, presses.

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The movements I need for my goals. Or movements which support the goal movements. I usually try to limit the movements to 5-8 per training cycle. Keeps me focused.

  1. Squat
  2. Rows
  3. Deads
  4. Push Press
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Similar to me. Currently on my 531 cycle:
Bench, Squat, OHP, dips, pull ups, rows, Deads, ab rolls

I like workouts with three things: my main big lift, and two “other types” of assistance moves. So for upper push like bench day, I pick a row and a lower/core move. For squat day or deadlifts, I almost always choose dips and pullups, preferably on rings and weighted.

Holy crap that’s a lot of exercises to feel you “must include”.

Out of curiosity, what are your goals? What influenced your idea that these are all necessary?

Seems pretty similar to Alphadestiny stuff to me. I haven’t watched his stuff in over a year, but I seem to remember a big emphasis on back, forearms, and delts.

How are you planning to progress all these movements?

1)Obviously i want it all, which is impossible at once, but my current order of goal is to loose body fat while maintaining strength and maintaining muscle mass . However before these where my goals i was strictly chasing 1RM goals, and since changing i have hit some good Rep maxes at higher rep ranges and am breaking rep maxes in subsequent weeks

2)Not sure who that is tbh , but Grip , Tricep and Back strength in my eyes can help you get a edge in BJJ against someone who has simular skill levels. I’ve got pretty good leg genetics so i don’t really need any hypertrophy on my legs (apart from calves , didn’t get those genes) but i like doing glute and single leg work for a sport prospective. And who doesnt want big delts

3)I start a session with 2 big lifts (e.g Clean&Press, Deadlift, Squat, Football Bar Bench , Pendlay Row) and follow 5/3/1 template
Next i do 3/4 exercises (e.g. SGrip Highpull, Towel Pullup , Weighted Dips , BNP )for one set of 8 or 12 one set of max . If i surpass 8 or 12 i then increase the weight for the next session.
Finally i then finish up with a little circuit of some of the other exercise (FatGrip Hangs, Farmers Walks , L sits, Abb Wheels) not really bothered on progress with these tbh , more just something i do to get them in and smash out some extra calories

overkill

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superset with putting the unused dumbbells back in order

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Jesus Christ that is a lot of go-to shit right there

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It changes every several weeks. Right now it’s:

High Bar Squat in Oly Shoes

Standing Press

Power Clean from the floor and hang

Zercher Box Squat

I have none. I change things out when they stop working.

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