Fitness Tips for Muscle Building

5 Simple Strategies for Bigger Muscles

A few easy tweaks to muscle-building exercises can increase their effectiveness and help you maximize results
By Selene Yeager menshealth
 

Get Back to Basics for Bigger Muscles

5 Simple Strategies for Bigger Muscles // Muscular man doing situp © Margaret Skrovanek

Image: Margaret Skrovanek

Strength training today suffers from the Starbucks effect. Just as it's increasingly difficult to fight off the sprinkles and foam when you order a cup of joe, it's hard to call yourself a modern muscle maker when you do a weight-lifting move without a few added kinks.

8 Weight lifting fixes for more muscle

"It's great fun to watch guys trying to do squats while standing on stability balls," says former Olympic weight-lifting coach Harvey Newton, C.S.C.S., of newton-sports.com. "But the truth is, if they just did the basics better, they'd produce the results they want without involving all the bells and whistles."

Now hold on, Harvey. Those big balls do a lot of good. On the other hand, all these half-caf mocha-latte workouts are starting to get on our nerves. Sometimes you just want to bust a move and make more muscle.

So we asked exercise experts to help us pinpoint ways to make the classic moves we all do—squats, rows, bench presses, and crunches—work better. Follow their advice and see fast results . . . without the sprinkles.

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