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If your goal is to increase your bench press then don’t overlook the details specifically accessory lifts. In this video I’m going to show you the top three exercises for increasing your bench press without focusing solely on the actual bench press. Joining me in the gym for today’s video is accomplished powerlifter and overall strong dude KC “That 1 Legged Monster” Mitchell. KC shares some of his favorite accessory lifts that he’s been using to smash records and build a monster bench press. We’ve covered the concept of true strength vs compensatory strength on this channel before. Many lifters, especially young lifters, are so focused on chasing numbers that they become less concerned about proper performance of the movement. This is a sure formula for not only developing compensations but further ingraining existing compensations that you already have as a result of your morphology, lifestyle or overall crappy posture. Some tell tale signs are the chronic aches and pains that pop up. Creaky elbows, stiff neck, and shoulders that have more snap crackle and pop than a box of breakfast cereal. All of these nagging pains are often the bodies way of telling us we’re doing something wrong.My best recommendation for avoiding this cycle of pain is to be sure there are no weak links in the kinetic chain. By focusing on the three accessory lifts shown in this video you can be sure you’re getting stronger and more stable in all points required for getting the most out of this classic lift while staying healthy.One of KC’s go to accessory lifts is the floor press. As with everything, it’s important to focus on preventing momentum from creeping in. This isn’t about bouncing weight up and down in order to see how many plates you can put on the bar but rather perfecting your execution and being explosive. The benefit of the floor press is that it allows you to press heavy weight without the additional stress on the shoulder normally experienced with rep after rep of traditional bench presses. Additionally, performing the lift from the floor takes leg drive out of the movement making it solely an upper body pressing movement.Another of KC’s favorite accessory lifts is the seated overhead press. But once again, In order to minimize unnecessary stress on the shoulders KC uses an incline bench with a slight decline from the vertical position. This allows the front delts to get sufficient stimulus without making it into a strict overhead press. KC credits this move with his ability to explode from the bottom position of the bench. KC’s final accessory lift is what he calls the lean back lat pull down. Think the bench press doesn’t require your lats? Well, that’s simply not true. As a true compound movement the bench press relies heavily on the lats for creating a solid, stable base to press from. I’ve said it too many times to count, “you cannot shoot a canon from a canoe”. That saying perfectly illustrates the importance of plugging up your energy leaks and the importance of creating a stable base to explode off of. Strong, powerful lats are going to help give you that foundation to build from when you’re looking to run up your bench numbers. Additionally strong lats are essential for good shoulder stability. As you can see, there are some very important accessory lifts you need to do when you are trying to increase your bench. If you feel your bench has been stuck in a rut, give these three lifts a try. If you want a program that focuses on your whole body, then head over to http://athleanx.com and start training like an athlete. Details matter when you train like an athlete, and when you pay

If you want to get awesome lower abs then you need to start by avoiding the common mistakes people make when training this area of the abdominals. In this video, I’m going to show you the fastest way to get your lower abs to pop and the 4 steps you need to take to make sure you don’t get hung up along the way.The first key to a six pack is to make sure that your nutrition is not just decent but great. There is no way to get your lower abs to show year round if you cannot commit to anything more than just a decent diet. Men tend to store the majority of their body fat in their lower bellies. It is often the last to come off when losing body fat and dieting down. This means that unless you are locked in on a consistent, high quality nutrition plan you likely won’t see this area get lean enough to really see your lower abs. Now, the method you choose to get down in the body fat range where seeing the lower abs is possible is up to you. Some will swear by 6 meals a day, others by intermittent fasting, others by keto, etc. Honestly, I don’t care which it is that you follow but you better make sure that whatever you choose it is something that allows you to be consistent with it for the long term.Too many diet plans for 6 pack abs wind up being temporary. You lose weight and body fat enough so that you can see the lower abs for a short period of time but wind up putting it all back on because the diet is not something you can stick with. Don’t let that happen to you. Find something that you can enjoy and you will have found your lower abs for life.Next, we have to address the common mistakes made in how we perform our ab exercises. While the rectus abdominus is a single muscle that contracts all or none, you cannot simply perform top down ab exercises like crunches and expect to get the same level of development as if you performed lower ab exercises. Lower ab exercises are those that move from the bottom up. The key to these exercises is that the added weight of the legs that needs to be overcome on each rep is enough to provide an overload and a stimulation of the type II fibers of the abdominals. When these are activated and trained, the abs will hypertrophy a bit and stand out more making them more visible when body fat levels are low.This leads to the next big ab training mistake however. You have to make sure that you don’t confuse simply moving your legs with effective targeting of the lower abs. In order to train the lower ab muscles the right way you need to focus on moving the pelvis rather than the legs. When the pelvis moves, the legs will come along for the ride naturally due to their connection at the hip joint.Regardless of whether you are doing hanging ab raises or lower ab exercises on the floor, the same key applies. Be sure to posteriorly rotate your pelvis in order to activate the lower abs and stop focusing on simply raising and lowering the legs which is more of a hip flexor dominant movement.Finally, you will want to expand your understanding of the core if you want to get your lower abs to show better. This means, looking to stabilize the pelvis from below by contracting the adductors on every rep of every exercise you can for your bottom most abs. This means just crossing your legs and squeezing them together at the knees on most hanging or seated ab exercises.So here is the blueprint to getting awesome abs. If you are looking for a step by step nutrition plan and workouts that will make this almost automatic, just head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. See exactly how top pro athletes and cel

If you want to get a strong squat, you may have to stop squatting and start concentrating on your accessory lifts for your squat. In this video, I’m going to show you the three best exercises for building up your squat without necessarily focusing all of your leg training on the big lift itself. Here, KC Mitchell, also known as That 1 Legged Monster, joins me in the X-BOX to share his favorite accessory lifts for the squat and why you need to be doing them if you want to squat as much weight as you can.I have covered before the concept of true strength vs compensatory strength. Far too many lifters push their numbers higher and higher in a race to lift heavy weights without being concerned about the fact that their use of compensation plays heavily into their ability to add weight to the bar. If you think that your strength is solely based on true strength gains but notice that you are starting to get aches and pains in the hips, low back and knees then you likely are bumping up your numbers on the back of additional compensations made in the squat.The best way to avoid this from happening is to be sure that there are no weak links in the chain. You want to focus on building up your strength in the three accessory exercises shown in this video to make sure that you are strong in all points of the range of motion on a squat.The first one up is the box squat. KC loves this exercise, especially when done with zero momentum from the bottom of the squat, as a way of increasing explosiveness and your ability to get out of the hole. The bottom of the squat is definitely the hardest range in the movement. Many of us can get to the bottom but lack the ability to explode out of it. Take the box squat to the bottom and pause slightly before standing explosively.The box squat will also increase your confidence in the squat. Because you know you have a safety net it is likely that you will squat more freely and loosely which can give you the ability to attempt weights that you wouldn’t normally attempt in the first place.The next movement is the good morning. Now this is the exercise that I traditionally hate only because it is likely one of the most commonly misperformed exercises in the gym. This is not a lower back movement. It is a hip hinge movement when done correctly. The best way for you to understand if you are doing it right is to film yourself doing the lift. If the bar path during the exercise goes forward and back then you are definteily not hinging properly at the hips and are doing the exercise wrong. You want the bar to travel almost directly straight up and down.Finally, the goblet squat done with a band around your outside hip is a great way to explore proper depth and stability in the bottom of a squat. The goblet position of the weight allows you to simply drop through your center of mass and get to the bottom position of the squat without issue. Because you need room to carry the goblet with your elbows held wide, you will need to open the hips properly to accommodate. In this position however, the hips are often times their weakest. They can tend to cave in just as you are about to push out from the bottom and stand back up. By placing the band on your outer leg you are going to have to resist the internal pull and force your legs outward. The weight you use here will not be high but you are not using this for the strength of your quads and glutes, more for the strength of controlling unwanted hip internal rotation.As you can see, there are some very important accessory lifts you will need to do when you are trying to increase your squat. If you feel you

If you want to build your upper chest then you want to make sure you learn how to avoid over activating your front delts. The shoulders and the chest share some of the same functions given their anatomical proximity. That said, it is possible to get the chest to do more of the work if the goal is to build a bigger upper chest by making sure to watch the position of the arms when you perform your chest workouts.The key to working your upper chest is to use exercises that allow you to follow the fibers. What this means is that when you want to contract a muscle with as much force as possible, you want to move in line with the direction of the muscle fibers. In the case of the upper chest, the muscle fibers run on an angle from the clavicle to the upper arm. This oblique orientation dictates that the best way to train this area is with movements that take your arm from low and outside to up and across your body.Now, some less knowledgeable fitness instructors might want you to believe that the better way to train your upper chest is to first take your arms from low and outside to a position right in front of your body. At the point that they reach each other you would then raise your arms straight up in front of you to further engage and contract the upper chest.This is simply bad information and actually against the very principles of anatomy already covered. When you break the exercise down into the component parts as I just described you are actually getting a slight contraction on the chest fibers of the lower portion and mid portion of the chest and then simply maintaining an isometric for the remainder of the exercise. Lifting the arms straight up, while working a small amount of upper chest, is certainly not the best way to train it.Here you are going to be working a heavy dose of front delts rather than the upper chest. This is because when you roll your arms in as you do in the beginning of the proposed substitute upper chest exercise then you are engaging the front delts to a much greater degree due mainly to the advantage that the fibers of the delts have been put in by being in that position.Instead of doing this you would want to go back to performing the upper chest exercise the way I have previously described. You want to use a cable ideally (rather than a dumbbell due to the fact that the cable will be able to provide continuous resistance that the dumbbells will not) and go from a low and away position with your hands to a high and across position.Slowly lower the weight down and repeat for the desired number of reps. Make sure that in order to solidify the effectiveness of the exercise by really squeezing the pecs at the top of the move and feeling your upper chest contract into the clavicle. If you do not feel the intense contraction on the chest muscle then you will want to evaluate whether you are doing the movement correctly.For more workouts that provide you with step by step detail on how to activate the muscles you are using to the greatest degree, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start training like an athlete and the results that you will see will not only come faster but in a more significant way than at any other time in your training past.For more videos on upper chest exercises and the best workout for upper chest, be sure to subscribe to our youtube channel here at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Making pull ups harder may not be the goal of everybody but if you’ve been doing pull ups for any length of time you’re probably able to do quite a bit of them.For many people, bodyweight exercises often get used as rep builders meaning that they continue to do more and more reps rather than finding methods to increase overload. There’s nothing wrong with doing sets of high rep pull ups. There is probably no other exercise that is a demonstration of an athletes overall body command and athleticism than the pull up but if you’re after hypertrophy, high rep sets of anything isn’t going to get you where you want to be as well as good old fashion overload. The simplest way to overload on pull-ups is by adding weight but a lot of calisthenic practitioners may not have access to weights. That’s where todays tip comes can help. We know that the eccentric portion of the lift allows us a great opportunity to exploit the sort of micro damage that can lead to protein synthesis and therefore hypertrophy. Problem is, if you’re really good at pull ups you’re going to spend a lot of time on the bar. The eccentric phase of the exercise also happens to be the strongest portion of the exercises. By incorporating today’s technique you’re able to combine the strength of the eccentric phase with the disadvantage of performing what is essentially an assisted one arm pull up. To incorporate this technique perform the concentric portion of the lift as you normally would. Once you reach the fully contracted state, the top of a pull up, shift your weight to the right side of your body and concentrate on unweighting the left side by applying less force. To begin, you may want to take a finger or two off of the bar, if you’re not quite comfortable doing that you can elicit the desired response by just intentionally applying less force through your left side. Allow the 1 arm to assist as you take the eccentric all the way to the bottom position. Once your at the bottom perform another 2 arm pull up as you normally would. Upon reaching the full contracted state this time you would focus on applying less force with your right hand. Continue in this manner, alternating from side to side until you’ve completed all the reps you can with good form. If you apply this tip into your pull ups I guarantee you’re going to see new all new gains. Additionally you may be on your way to acquiring the strength required to do your first one arm pull up.If you want to start building a bigger, stronger back then you need to be training the proper way. At ATHLEAN-X we put the science back in strength. Head to http://athleanx.com to get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. See how much faster you can build a bigger stronger back as well as an overall complete athletic body by training like an athlete.For more videos on how to do more pullups in one set and the best exercises for getting stronger at pullups, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

If there was one exercise that you should be doing every single workout, and even on off days, then this would be it. In this video, I’m going to show you the number one exercise that you should do every day that will help to improve your posture, fix common muscle imbalances, improve your performance on the big lifts, and increase your shoulder joint mobility.The exercise you need to perform is the band pull apart. Now, before you think to yourself that you have done plenty of these and you haven’t seen the tremendous benefits that I’m promising you here, I want to be sure you take note of how I’m telling you to perform the exercise. There are key mistakes made when doing band pull aparts that I want to help you fix right now.First is the grip applied to the band when doing the pull apart. Most people will take an overhand grip on the band and start pulling their hands away from midline out to their sides. Usually, this is done with the hands at shoulder level or slightly lower. The problem with this is that in order to get your arms turned over and the hands on top of the band you put your shoulders into a bit of internal rotation. When you raise your arms up, this can become an uncomfortable position for some and more problematically an overused position for almost everyone.We simply do not get enough shoulder external rotation in our daily lives and exercise routines. We can fix that by quickly shifting the grip to an underhand position and performing the pull apart this way. As you move the hands backwards you want to try and lead with your thumbs so that you feel the shoulders rotating even more and the muscles of the rotator cuff firing up as well.The next thing people do is they aim to perform high rep counts of these rather than high quality reps. When it comes to the band pull aparts, you likely aren’t going to fix any issues if all you are doing is racking up lots of low quality reps. Since this is an issue of poor muscle activation and not volume you would be doing yourself a favor by focusing on high quality contractions each time albeit at a lower total rep count.Next, you want to change the plane in which you move the band. Too many people think that pull apart should occur parallel to the ground with a focus on the protraction and retraction of the scapulae to improve the strength of the rhomboids. That really should not be the focus of the move. Not when you consider that the upward and downward rotation of the shoulder blades is an often times much more overlooked element of normal movement. Pull from a high to low position and you won’t only hit the rotary component of shoulder elevation but also you will still get the benefits of the mid scapular retraction that comes from doing the exercise as it is commonly done.All in all, when you perform this exercise properly you start to retrain the muscles of the shoulder blades that were likely under activated and dormant. Your rounded shoulder posture will quickly start to go away, strength and muscular imbalances that came from years of bad training will start to dissipate, shoulder mobility will improve and the strength on the big lifts will increase even without changing anything else about your training.The key to the effectiveness of all of these benefits is just making sure to consistently get this done. I’m not talking about having to carve out a lot of extra time to do this. As little as 20 to 30 reps each day (that should take you no longer than 1-2 minutes) is enough to start overcoming all of the negative side effects that have come from ignoring this exercise until now. No need to w

If triceps pushdowns are part of your tricep training then you are going to want to watch this video on how to squeeze every gain out of the exercise for max size. The pushdown is one of the most common tricep exercises but often misperformed as well. Here, I’m going to show you the best way to position your elbows, wrists, hands, and shoulders during the movement to get the most out of your tricep workouts.So it stands to reason that simply flexing and extending your elbow on a pushdown is not enough if you want to see maximum gains from the exercise. There is much more to it and the sooner you can capitalize on each of the areas I’m going to show you the better results you will see from performing the exercise.It starts with the hand position in relation to your body. You want to be sure that you don’t keep your hands too close to your chest or too far away during the exercise. If you stand too close you will likely see your hands rise up to about face level and this will take tension off of the triceps in the beginning of the exercise. With the line of resistance parallel to the forearm at the start you will not have as much tension on the triceps as desired.If you stand too far away then you will likely see your elbows drift away from your body which will cause the lats to overactivate and contribute unnecessarily to the lift. The key is to either find the midrange of these two extremes where your hands can be about chest height during the start and finish of each rep or perform the rocking pushdown that I have covered on this channel instead.Next you want to be conscious of the elbow positioning during the exercise. If you allow them to drift out (as if often the case when you see people perform this exercise) then you are going to quickly shift the work away from the triceps and onto the chest. You essentially turn the pushdown into a standing dip which will lessen its effectiveness on the triceps greatly.People often wonder whether the hands should be in a pronated or supinated position on the bar when performing the pushdowns. This is actually tricky because anatomically you are likely to believe that there is no impact on the triceps by varying the grip to an overhand or underhand position. The key however is that the change in grip often has an impact on the position of the shoulder and arm that can in fact affect the area of the triceps you are feeling it in.Finally, if you have any wrist issues you definitely want to take note of the implement you are using. Obviously a straight bar is going to be more stressful on your wrists given the fact that your wrists tend to go into radial deviation naturally with wrist extension. If you force your wrists flat you likely won’t see any additional strain on the wrists but rather in a compromise of the elbows flaring out that leads to the issues already covered.The fact is, the triceps pushdown exercise is incredibly popular and if you want to see the best gains from doing the exercise then you will want to take note of each of the things mentioned in this video. Obviously anyone can do a tricep exercise but getting the most out of it is what we are really after. If you want to get the most out of every workout you do, head to http://athleanx.com and start training like an athlete. See your best and fastest gains ever within the next 90 days.For more videos on how to build bigger triceps and how to add triceps mass, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Consider this video a public service announcement for what not to do when you are in a gym. Here we cover 11 of the most obnoxious people that you likely see every time you train in your local gym. The key to avoidance however is recognition. I’m going to show you how to quickly and easily spot the gym bros so that you can enjoy your workouts without ever having to come within twenty feet of these characters ever again.In order of appearance, the incher is the person that loads the bar up with every weight nearby and proceeds to perform quarter reps at best. You have likely seen one in the past week alone. Says he squats four hundred pounds and winds up covering two inches of total range of motion throughout the lift. This is a gym fail every time.Next is the transporter. This is the guy who brings all of his own equipment to the gym to train with. Is there something wrong with the rope pushdown that is already there? Of course not, but to this particular gym goer he feels it necessary to break out his special rope. He’d argue to the end of the day that the friction is less and that the contour of the steel fits his hand better.The D*ck W.O.D. is next. This guy just seems a little lost when forced to train outside the box. I mean, the energy and enthusiasm is good but the advice he is willing to spout to everyone within earshot is often unwanted. Got to question the technique a little bit too. Seems a little shaky.Beware the Social Media “Star”, and we use that term loosely. You know the guy? The one who thinks it is appropriate to show up in any local commercial gym that people pay hard earned money to attend and proceed to interrupt anyone and everyone around them to film the latest installment of a video nobody is going to watch. Thanks for ruining my workout pal.The CopyCat is not as easily recognized but no less disturbing. Ever get the feeling that you are not only being watched, but copied in the gym. No matter where you go, this person seems to lurk nearby and do every set, rep, and exercise the same exact way you are doing it. You are literally writing the playbook for this guy to jack from you. Be careful how you lift, this means you are now responsible for his health as well as your own.The Muscle Matician is the guy that breaks out the journal to record every last detail of everything he does in the gym. While it is customary to throw out tax returns after 7 years, this guy hasn’t thrown away a workout journal since he first learned to write. Details you deem unnecessary he would argue are fundamental to his ability to perform at a higher level. We will let you decide.The next one is the local village idiot of the gym. Unless playing the role of copycat, he is completely puzzled, confused and offers no shred of useful information for anyone in the gym to benefit from. Next.The Creep Show Bro is another one that lurks in every corner but instead of copying you he is eerily doing often times nothing but watching you. Usually this is reserved for the prettier women in the gym and I feel bad that you must be subjected to this. If he spent as much time lifting as he did staring he might not look as repulsive as he acts.The supplement store in a gym bag guy is easily spotted as well. He is the one that has his pre workout, intra workout and post workout shakes all conviently prepared for him and on the ready for those key moments of his workout. Beyond that, he carries about 20 pill bottles and other various supplements to make sure his muscles don’t miss a beat and more importantly, a critical window of supplement opportuni

The fastest way to get a hernia in the gym is to perform the one armed dumbbell row with your knee up on a bench. In this video, I’m going to explain to you why this is the case and more importantly, what you can do to fix that once and for all. I will discuss the anatomy of the groin and why men are much more likely to incur an inguinal hernia than women when working out in the gym.It starts with a bit of a discussion about the anatomy. When we are young, the testicles descend into the scrotum through the inguinal canal. In most cases, this canal closes off once this has occurred. In some cases however, the canal never closes off and you are left with a hole through the tissues in the lower abdominal region that compromises the integrity of the area moving forward.Even if this closes properly, you still have the duct for the spermatic cord which passes through down into the testicles that creates a hole or compromise in the abdominal wall muscles that you cannot avoid. The stronger your adjacent muscles are in your abdomen, the more tension is applied to this area around the hole that is already present for the cord. This can lead to a high incidence of additional herniation and breakdown.Many people think that the main cause of this is lifting heavy weights on exercises that typically would cause you to strain like the squat, bench press or deadlift. This is not the case. In fact, it is more so the positioning of the lower extremities during the lift that makes the one armed row a bigger culprit when it comes to causing hernia and inguinal hernias specifically.Because of the way the exercise is normally performed (with one knee up on a bench and the other leg on the ground) you are asymmetrically loading the pelvis and creating a torque on it. The heavier the weight you attempt to lift from this position, the more torque is applied to the pelvis and the work must be done by the muscles of the core to stabilize and control the descent of the weight. As you pull from the lowest position of the lift, your pelvic muscles are in their weakest and most vulnerable state.Add to the fact that you are likely placing an additional tensile stretch on this region by partially squatting down during the rep to gain a little bit more momentum and it makes this worse. The key is not to keep your knee up on the bench but rather keep both feet on the floor at all times. All that is needed is to straddle the bench rather than lean on it. With both feet on the ground you are not only more athletic instantly but you have applied ground reaction forces through the legs on both sides. This acts to stabilize the pelvis more and decrease the amount of torque applied to it tremendously. Perform all reps of the one armed row on one side and then move onto the other side. Be sure of course to keep all other elements of proper row form in place like keeping a flat back, chest out and pulling your arm into extension on every rep rather than rotating to ensure maximal activation of the lats.For more step by step exercises and workouts that will help you to build ripped athletic muscle without compromising the health of your body along the way, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start seeing and feeling the difference first hand from training like an athlete and overlooking nothing in your training.For more videos on back workouts and exercises for building a big back that don’t cause hernia or other sports injuries that can be avoided, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

If you want to get abs then this is the video you need to watch. Here I will break down for you everything you need to know about getting a six pack fast and how to construct your ab workouts in order to waste no time in doing so. It starts with the anatomy of the abdominal muscles and realizing that a complete core is not just the abs. You need to hit a few other key muscles if you want to get your core to look the best it can.