Put on MASS muscle with power moves

LEGS

Reverse Hack Squats – In past years football players were taught to do this exercise facing into the hack squat machine to better stimulate the legs-wide, low-to-the-ground tackling motion. You will notice right away that you have to put your feet wide, slightly angled out, and all the way at the bottom of the platform to be centered correctly. Once you get going, you’ll see that your top weight on regular hack squats feels like a warm-up here. What’s more, you’ll be hitting places like the inner thighs that regular hacks do nothing for. One word of caution: Since your back isn’t supported, be sure to wear a sturdy lifting belt and keep your lower back from rounding. A spotter is also recommended to help you rack the weight from this awkward position. Work up to the bigger weights over a course of weeks, always keeping the lower back tight. Don’t be scared off by all the precautions. This is on kick-ass power move for the legs.

Hamstring Hyperextensions – Many people have trouble with stiff-leg deadlifts and good mornings. For those with previous lower back injuries, suing heavy weights is like skating on thin ice. Relax that lower back for a second, or go too low, and snap! Its all over but the Kleenex for your tears. Fortunately a little twist to hyperextensions makes them a perfect substitute. By simply keeping the lutes tensed, you will shift the workload from the lumbar region to your hamstrings. Best of all, you wont need to add much resistance. Even someone who can use 300 pounds for stiff-leg deadlifts will get a great workout on hamstring hypers holding an 80 or 90 pound dumbbell. If you use this exercise with leg curls, you’ll have a complete hamstring workout with zero risk to your lower back.

DELTS

One-Arm Laterals – Using one arm at a time, you will be able to handle roughly 30 percent more weight than in the standard two arm version. Strap your working hand int the dumbbell handle, and hold onto something steady with the other, such as an adjustable incline bench or the uprights of a power rack. Leaning into the working shoulder and away from what your holding onto, use just a touch of body English to power up the dumbbell until its level with your shoulder. Try to bring it to a full stop before lowering slowly. This exercise is unrivaled for slapping meat onto the all important side deltoid heads.

TRAPS

Armpit Rows – Armpit rows are a perfect exercise to superset with any kind of shrug for and intense trapezius workout. After doing a set of heavy barbell or dumbbell shrugs, grab a pair of dumbbells that are slightly more than half of what you can shrug. Beginning with the bells at your hips, pull each one straight up, trying as hard as possible to pull them into your armpits. Because the traps are pre-exhausted from the shrugs, the pulling power of your fresh biceps and delts will allow you to drive them into the ground. Armpit rows are superior to barbell upright rows because they put the arms in a much more powerful pulling position close to your torso. The only problem you may experience is your traps growing into your ears, making hearing difficult.

TRICEPS

Decline Smith-Machine Close Grip Presses – We always read about how one of the very top exercises for packing mass onto the triceps is the close-grip bench press. Surprisingly, I don’t see too many people ever doing it. I wonder, ‘Why is that?’ No, actually I know why. It will cause excruciating strain on the wrists for most trainers. I certainly couldn’t do it. The solution is to change the angle of push by lying on a steep decline rather than a flat bench, and also to take away the strain of balancing a very heavy bar with a narrow grip by moving to a Smith Machine. This equipment allows you to push the weights and concentrate on working the muscle instead of doing a circus balancing act.

Rope Kickbacks – Dumbell kickbacks are a great exercises for working the back head of the triceps, but they lose potential effectiveness by missing resistance in the bottom one-third range of motion as a result of gravity. A cable kickback would be a superior choice because it provides equal resistance along the entire range of motion. The preferred neutral or hammer grip becomes tricky with a cable handle. A better choice is with a stopper at each end. Slide the rope through so that all its length is on one side of the attachment, and you will have the perfect grip. Point your elbow so that your foreman is slightly higher than parallel, and go to town with a new quality of searing pump and burn in your triceps.

BICEPS

Spider Curls – Millions of lifters rep away on the sloped side of preacher benches all over the world, not knowing that a better exercise is just 180 degrees away. By turning the pad around and doing spider curls on the straight-edged side of the bench, you get almost twice the range of motion. Spider curls allow you to lower the bar all the way to the bottom of the movement, giving you a stretch that will equate to more productive reps. Seeing as just about everyone wants bigger biceps, spider curls deserve to bump preacher curls off the list of mandatory arm exercises.

Drag Curls – They are much like reverse curls in that they isolate the brachialis, a muscle on the outer head of the biceps which adds width when the arm is seen from the front. The brachialis appears as a freaky, knotted muscle in the rear double-biceps pose. To do drag curls, keep your elbows behind you rather than pinned at your sides. Using and overhand grip, curl the bar up and at the same time keep it in contact with your torso. In effect, you are dragging it up. Be sure not to let your elbows or shoulders rise, or the motion can turn into a half ass upright row real fast. You wont need much weight to make your brachialis burn and ache as if you had lumps of liquid fire buried within your outer biceps.

There you have them- exercises you almost never see done in the gym, yet all of which have the potential to improve your physique tremendously. Give each one a try over the next few weeks and see if one of them doesn’t become a new favorite or the solution to a stalled bodypart that hasn’t grown in months. They might be obscure, but these power moves will definitely help put your body in the limelight it deserves.