Are Compound Movements The Best Muscle Building Exercises?

When it comes to selecting the best muscle building exercises from the thousands of different bodybuilding exercises that are popular, it can be a difficult task to cut the list down to a reasonable number of only the best free weights exercises. What you find with most of the exercises that are making the rounds in the gyms these days, is that each movement is either knock off of one of the basic muscle building exercises or a unique movement designed to target a specific muscle group. If your goals include building muscle mass naturally, then it's vital that you put together a short and manageable list of the muscle building exercises that have been proven to stimulate muscle growth.

While it's true that nearly any body building exercise will induce muscle growth up to a certain point, there is one type of weight training in particular that has managed to stick around for a long time, basic free weight compound exercises. While certainly not jaw dropping compound movements are the most basic free weight exercises around and are very effective at helping you gain muscle mass and increase your strength levels simultaneously.

The beauty of free weight compound exercises lies in the fact that they allow you to train through a complete range of motion with a very heavy weight that typically includes multiple muscles and multiple joints. This allows you to stimulate muscle growth in more than one body part by only having to perform one exercise. If you stick with these types of free weights exercises you are all but guaranteed to get the most out of your time in the gym.

That being said, there are a ton of free weight compound exercises and variations of those exercises, so which exercises are the best for inducing muscle growth? As with anything in the bodybuilding and fitness realm, the specific free weights exercises that you choose to incorporate into your workouts will be based completely upon your personal preferences. What works well for you may not work at all for me, so make sure to take the time to identify the best muscle building exercises for you and get to work!

Here is my go-to list of the most effective body building exercises. These are the exercises that make up about 95% of all of my weight training\muscle building workouts. While simple, focusing on these body building exercises most of the time allows me to continue to progress in a steady fashion over time, rather than peaking right away and hitting a wall

My Favorite Muscle Building Exercises

Overhead Triceps Extensionsr
Barbell Curlsr
Alte
ating Dumbbell Curlsr
Barbell Squatr
Lunges (Barbell or Dumbbell)
Barbell Rowsr
Dumbbell Rows
Pullupsr
Lying Triceps Pressr
Bench Press (Barbell or Dumbbell)
Incline Press (Barbell or Dumbbell)
Standing Barbell Shoulder Pressr
Seated DB Shoulder Pressr
Barbell Shrugsr
Weighted Step Upsr
Dead liftr
Stiff Legged Dead lift

You probably noticed that a few of these exercises are not really compound movements. In order to target certain muscle groups (like your traps and shoulders), you will need to perform some isolation movements. Whenever I need to work any isolation exercises into my workouts, I always try to choose the ones that allow me to train with the heaviest possible weight. Any exercise that limits my range of motion too much will not allow me to train heavy enough.

Stop piecing together your workouts with less effective isolation movements and start getting more out of your time in the gym. If you incorporate these basic yet effective free weight exercises into
your workouts and put a decent amount of effort into training as intensely as possible, you'll begin to build muscle mass and increase your strength faster than you ever thought you could.