i'm a firm believer that for the overall health of the shoulder for really getting
what's up everybody schuyler diehm here men's fitness coach and today we are going to be
diving into what i believe to be the five most important exercises for beginners to do when they
step in the gym now i am very very intentional about choosing these five things a lot of other
videos are going to give you the standard of the barbell bench press the barbell overhead press
barbell squat everything like that but we're gonna dive into a couple exercises that are a little bit
different and through that obviously i'm gonna explain why so if you're a beginner in the gym
it really is important to work on the fundamentals like really start from the beginning and if you
dive in and you work on just muscling weight and not really worrying about form just worrying
about getting the rep done there's a chance that you're not going to make the games that you want
and there's also a chance that you're going to injure yourself and so this is a really really
important conversation for us to have because if you step in the gym and you're just doing the
standard stuff and you're doing what everyone else is doing and you're not being intentional
you're gonna waste a lot of your time and your energy and so in this video we're gonna talk about
five specific exercises i'm gonna briefly break down the form and then allow you to basically
go out there and make the decision to use these in your workouts so exercise number one is the staple
and this is the dumbbell bench press now most people would say that when you start at the gym
the barbell bench press is one of the best things you can do for your chest i'm a firm believer that
for the overall health of the shoulder for really getting the form right and then of course to allow
each arm to work separately or each side of the chest to work separately that dumbbells
are really really important now with the dumbbell bench press all you're going to do is you're going
to get back on the bench you're going to stay tight so make sure you retract your scapulas
it's kind of like actively pushing your shoulders down like an opposite shrug right
a shrug you bring your shoulders up to your ears when you're retracting your scapula you're kind of
just pushing your shoulders down and when you're in that position you want to bring the dumbbells
down toward your chest now two very important things here is that you want your forearms
to be straight up and down so you don't want them curved in you don't want them curved out
and then you don't want to be bringing your elbows out at 90 degrees because that's going to put a
lot of stress on your shoulder and so with there you're really going to bring them more towards
45 and if you get that spacing right you're going to allow a lot of good pressure on your chest and
you can obviously work on controlling that weight and pushing it up exercise number two is going to
be the dumbbell shoulder press now with dumbbell shoulder press i'm actually going to recommend
standing here i'm not going to recommend sitting because with sitting it can be very very easy to
kind of contort your body in a way that forces you to muscle the weight up instead of actually using
your shoulders and for the same reason here we're doing dumbbells rather than barbell to allow each
shoulder to work separately to give yourself a much more natural entire range of motion
and to basically allow you to push right to allow you to do this in a very in in a way that's very
very safe now with a dumbbell shoulder press once you get those weights bring them up to your
shoulders if you're standing up squeeze your lower half of your body squeeze your butt cheeks squeeze
your quads your hamstrings because the more tight you are there the more stable of a base you're
going to have and the less likely you are to bend your back and potentially injure your spine from
there you're going to want to bring the dumbbells to about the shoulder and my philosophy here is
the same right you want your forearms to be up and down parallel to your body and so what most people
make the mistake of doing is they put their elbows straight out so their arms are at 90 degrees
we don't want to do that right we want to bring the weights a little bit more in and so rather
than pushing directly out from your ears and up it's actually kind of like more of a front push
and then as you push up you can kind of bring your arms back and so with that you're going to
get in that stance you're going to bring the dumbbells and just really focus on using the
muscle so a good way to do this is to picture the inside of your elbow when you push up rather than
just thinking about muscling the weight up with your hand and of course the more you do it the
more you're going to be able to make connection with that shoulder and the more you're going to
be able to kind of effortlessly go through this exercise all right so we've covered the chest
and we've covered the shoulder so the next thing we're going to cover is the back now the back i'm
actually going to give you two variations here so variation one is going to be a statue row
now this is something that you definitely want to work your way up to because you're not supporting
your chest you're not using your arm to support your back and so your spine is going to take a
heavy amount of that load and so especially when you're starting with this you want to
make sure that you are using a weight that you can fully control that is not being muscled up
but something that you can really stay tight in your core with and fully control up and down and
so with the statue row all you're going to do is you're going to grab two dumbbells you're going to
lower and hinge your body so your spine is slightly above parallel to the floor
so you don't want to be at that perfectly straight angle you want to angle it up just a little bit
and from there you're going to pull your back and retract your scapula and then you're gonna
drive your elbows up now you can keep your palms facing towards the floor here or you can actually
turn your palms in so they're facing each other when you hold the dumbbell i would play around to
see what works best best with your back it's going to work different parts of the back but of course
as you tap in and as you get that mind muscle connection this is going to be an awesome option
here and if you are starting and you do want to use weights but you don't want to put your spine
in that vulnerable position a single arm dumbbell row is going to work great which is basically just
using some sort of support right so whether it's on a bench whether you're putting your hands on a
weight rack something that allows you to support your body so that you can focus more on pulling
the back and pulling the arm up and the elbow up to contract that one back muscle at a time
so obviously that's gonna be a one-armed exercise and you're gonna do one at a time rather than
doing both at once other variation here for back is going to be chin-ups now chin-ups are obviously
body weight you can attach weight if you have a certain equipment but one of the really beneficial
things about chin ups is that you are using your body weight and you're doing it in a way that is
natural right it's allowing your body to move in a very fluid motion and so you're not overloading
with weights you're just using your body which is it's really hard to injure yourself if you're
using proper form with your body and so the best thing you could do here is you can grip the bar
your palms are going to be facing towards you if you grip the bar at about shoulder width and
then drive your elbow right drive your elbow up you don't want to come up completely straight
you can actually angle your chest up a little bit so your feet can swing a little forward
and from there you're really just going to be working and the more you do it the more
you pull with your elbow the more you're going to be able to tap into using that back and this is a
really really powerful thing it feels badass doing a bunch of pull-ups and of course it's going to be
really useful for the health of your body the next exercise we're going to focus on is going to be
focusing on the posterior chain now when most people talk about the posterior chain they go
directly to the deadlift and while i believe the deadlift is one of the best exercises you can do
for a beginner it can be very very difficult to get the mechanics down and if you don't have the
right mechanics you're putting your body at risk for injury and so rather than use the deadlift
for number four i actually like to swap in the sumo deadlift so the sumo deadlift is basically
rather than keeping your hands outside your legs you point your toes out you spread your legs and
you put your hands inside and you drive off the floor with your legs now when you do this you're
gonna find that it takes a lot of pressure off your back and you can put a lot more strength
into the legs so the first half of the movement as you bring the bar up to your knees is going to be
breaking the bar off the floor with your legs and then the second half of the movement once
you get to around the knees and you start to pass it is to use that hinging motion right to drive
your hips forward to straighten out so you're pushing into the floor to get the weight off
and then you're hinging at your hips to straighten out and squeezing your glutes at the top so this
is a really really great move for the glutes for the legs for the back for the posterior chain
and it's something i really believe that as long as you focus on breaking the weight off the floor
with your legs you can't really overload it to the point where you hurt your back
of course you can always load up a ton of weight and jerk the weight up with your back which is
going to put it at a high risk for injury but again if you're working on controlling the weight
you're working on getting the form right this is something that biomechanically is not as difficult
as the deadlift in my opinion so i would try these next time if you have access to a barbell
because this is going to be a great strength builder a great exercise for building muscle
and that brings us to number five number five we're going to focus on the legs and that is with
the bulgarian split squat now same thing when we talk about leg strength squat is king
if we're talking about building a ton of strength doing the front squat doing the back squat they're
all really really good options but the same thing as the conventional deadlift the squat is actually
going to be very biomechanically difficult for a lot of beginners a lot of beginners
don't have the necessary mobility in their hips they don't have the necessary ankle mobility
and so if you're loading a bunch of weight on the bar and you're trying to get this form right
you could actually potentially hurt yourself process actually not get as much strength in
your legs so the reason i like the bulgarian split squat so much is number one just like the first
few exercises that use dumbbells you're using one muscle at a time one leg is doing the majority
of the work while the other one is positioned behind you so to do the bulgarian split squat
depending on the length of your legs you're gonna have to find a position that's comfortable i like
to take three steps away from a bench so put my foot in front of the bench with my leg touching
the bench and then two more steps then i'll pick one of the legs up i'll rest it on the platform on
the bench that's behind me and then come down and drop down into about a 90 degree angle with your
leg and in the process you're going to find you lean forward a little bit and that's totally okay
so again based on the length of your legs you're going to have to find that foot positioning
but all you're going to be doing is dropping down to about 90 degrees with your front leg and then
pushing into the floor and driving up so this is going to work your glutes very very well and then
also your quads and of course your hamstrings and so like i said biomechanically this one's going
to be a lot easier and you can't really load a ton of weight that's going to destroy your joints and
potentially put you at risk for injury this is a exercise that is very very simple to follow and of
course when you get that form right it's good to go and at the same time because you're using one
leg at a time you're allowing for more growth your amount allowing for more stability more symmetry
and it's basically an exercise that's gonna kick your ass and make you feel incredible so those
are the five exercises we've got the dumbbell bench press we've got the dumbbell shoulder
press we've got the statue row or the pull-up the sumo deadlift and the bulgarian split squat
so if you're a beginner and you're working on losing weight and you're struggling with your
fitness make sure to go in the link of the description of this video to find a guide
that we put together on the simple strategies that we use to help our clients see incredible
results with their fitness so this is going to use fasting weight training and mindfulness
and this guide breaks down exactly why it's so effective check that out but besides that i'm
curious if you leave me a comment what exercise did i miss here right if you could add one to the
list maybe one of your favorites maybe something that you believe is really effective what would
you include in there but with that being said make sure to like this video if you got something out
of it make sure to subscribe to the channel and turn the bell on and of course as always make sure
to eat smart move more sleep deep and be grateful for this moment i'll see you in the next video