What's up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx.com. You know when no last name is needed to introduce you
that you've done something important. Today, we're talking about Arnold's six
favorite exercises for massive gains. I'm going to share those with you.
Thank you for inviting me, Jeffrey. This is awesome. I'm so happy to be here in the Xbox.
This is a new low, Jesse. What are you talking about?
This isn't Jesse, it's Arnold. Okay. Do you have somewhere you can go, please?
Oh, I could to the chopper. Thank you for the suggestion. I really appreciate it.
You know, I can I have this please. You're talking about a legend.
Do you want me to leave? You can leave--on a chopper, anywhere please.
Guys are talking about the golden sex exercises that Arnold referred to himself.
I'm going to break them down one by one for you, as we always do here, guys. We're going to take
that old school effort and combine them with some new school science and I'm going to give
you a few other suggestions and modifications to the exercises that will help you along the way.
We actually did this in our new Old School Iron Program, which, by the way, here's a little
contest for it, we don't do enough of them here. If you can guess the six exercises before you
watch the video, put them all down on a comment below. And in one line, tell me why you deserve
our Old School Iron Program and we're going to select 10 of you guys to give them to you. And
if you're going to be the guy who watches the video first and then goes back and puts
them in later or copy and paste somebody else's answers, they even have a damn good reason for
why you should get the program. All right, guys, let's start breaking them down one by one.
All right. So, exercise number one from Arnold's Golden Six was his favorite chess exercise.
No, not the one that you're thinking, hold off on that one for a bit. It's the Barbell
Bench Press but done with an extra wide grip. See, Arnold felt that when he got his hands out wide,
he could minimize the tricep contribution and maximize his chest development.
And although he would use slightly less weight to do this, it gave him an opportunity to build
that massive chest that he's known for. Now, guys, as far as a recommendation from my
side of things, I know firsthand this would be a very uncomfortable way to do the bench
press. And anybody that has any shoulder issues at all is going to find it very challenging
to do the exercise with this extra wide grip. And that's because we know that when you take that
really wide position in your hands, you could do this thing right where you are right now.
Try to go back behind your body, you won't get much extension of your elbows behind your body.
So, in order to get that far down towards your chest, you're going to have to instantly rotate,
which gives you a little bit more motion to get there. Again, if you have shoulder issues already,
that's not going to be good. So, if you can take a slightly narrower grip,
you're going to have an opportunity to get more extension, more naturally, the bar will go down
easier and your shoulders will feel better. And there's another side of it, too. If you're
looking to just increase your overall strength, a slightly narrower grip is actually going to
help you not only getting the triceps back into the equation for a greater output in
terms of our pushing strength, but we know that biomechanically, if I wanted to push something
as much force as I possibly could, I wouldn't try to push it from the really wide position.
I get those elbows in tighter hands just outside my chest and push from there. But
whatever way you do it, guys, make sure that your goal in six always consists of at least
some version of the Barbell Bench Press. Exercise number two in Golden Six was the
Behind the Neck Press. And I swear I just hurt my own ears saying it. The fact is,
guys, I'm not a big fan of the behind the neck variation of the overhead press because
of the artificial position it places your shoulders in when pressing, which over time
could damage your shoulders. I've thrown it in the iron graveyard for a reason. But interestingly,
if you look at the way Arnold did this, he was actually way ahead of his time because he kept his
elbows forward while his hands were back, so even though he was pressing the bar behind his head,
his shoulders were in the right plane. And if you had the flexibility to do this,
then by all means, you probably could pull this exercise off. But very few people have
the ability to do this. The easier thing to do is just do what Jesse's doing here and make the
modification and putting the barbell in front of your body. Because once you do that, and
especially if you take a little bit narrower grip, those elbows will naturally come more forward,
placing your shoulders in that scapular plane and making a very safe variation of the exercise.
And of course, you could do what I'm showing you here, that's just a Dumbbell Press. And we know
that the dumbbells are going to give us a really easy opportunity to get those elbows in the right
plane. But just make sure that if you're doing it, you're not sitting down, because when you sit
down and press your shoulder blades back into the bench, you're pressing from, you can interrupt the
normal scapulohumeral rhythm that you press with. Once again, no matter what variation you use,
if you're looking for massive gains, the Overhead Press better be in your goal than six.
Exercise number three was Arnold's favorite pulling exercise and it's up here on a Pull
Up Bar. That's right, Arnold did pull ups, as you see here, with the overhand wide variation
or he did the Chin Up. And the Chin Up is what made its way into his golden six because it gets
the additional benefits for the bicep's growth and development too. Because once you had that
arm underneath here, guys, you know you're pulling with the lats and you're pulling with
the biceps to get your body up to the bar. But interestingly, what Arnold did here was he
programmed them for body weight reps almost all the time. Him and Franco Columbu used to say
it's not really a great idea to weight your Chin Ups or your Pullups. I actually tend to disagree
just a little bit, because I think that the exercise can be one of the best mass builders
when you go for a little additional overload and add some weight around your waist. If you
have the ability to handle more weight on this exercise instead of always ripping out
for 12 or 15 or 20, if you're able to get that high, put some weight around your waist and treat
this like you would any other strength building exercise in the gains will be waiting for you.
Which brings us to exercise number four, and that's Arnold's favorite.
No, still not that one, guys. This was the favorite for building bigger biceps and it
was the classic Barbell Curl. Now, listen, if you want to build your biceps up, you're going
to have to curl at some point and there's lots of curl variations. There's a seated Dumbbell Curl,
there's an Incline Curl, there's Preacher Curls. But guys, if you're looking for the most mass
possible, it's the Barbell Curl that gives you the best option. Because you can take that weight and
lift it up and provide that slow eccentric on the way down to the point where you can actually even
overload that exercise with a little bit of cheap momentum at the top to then slow once
again that eccentric down and overload, those biceps in a unique way to cause more growth.
The fact is, if I was going to make any change here at all, because I love this exercise as it
is, I'd like to at least include a little bit of a strict variation, too, and that's the Stretch Curl
here. All you do is back yourself up against the wall, make sure that you're back and butt stay in
contact and simply lift with the sheer force and strength of your biceps alone. Now, of course,
when you go to failure here, you can always step away and add a few of those cheat reps at the
very end to overload them even further. But the fact is, guys are looking for massive gains in
your arms, the Classic Curl is always going to be part of your routine then, now and forever.
Exercise number five and Arnold's goal in six might come as a surprise to you because
it was devoted strictly to abs, it was the full sit up. It was more surprising to a lot of people
is that he even did sit ups because a lot of people think that the exercise doesn't belong
in anyone's routines anymore because it's not safe for your back. I actually tend to disagree.
But instead of doing what Arnold did, which was 200 repetitions a day, you can take down the
number of repetitions and potential strain the exercise could cause by doing a few things.
Number one, weight it. When you weigh that, you can create the overload you're seeking
in far fewer reps with a lot less volume. But importantly, no matter how you do it, you'd better
do it right. And to do it right, you want to paint your spine back to the ground on every repetition.
Don't slam yourself backwards, pulling yourself up with flexors and then disengaging them at the top
and slamming back down. You could be much more kind to your spine by lowering yourself down
one segment at a time. And beyond that, you could be much more kind to your spine, but not engaging
your hip flexors at all in the first place. So instead of anchoring your feet under
something and then pulling up to create the counter force to get up to the top,
put your feet behind something. Over and behind something, so that when you pull your heels back,
you actually engage your hamstrings. And by doing that, you can reflexively turn
off those hip flexors to a greater degree and allow your abs to do more of the work. Either way,
guys, the facts are facts in the full set up is still one of Arnold's golden six exercises,
and it can still be one of your go to ab exercises provided you do it the right way.
Which brings us to exercise number six, Arnold's all-time favorite, no still not that one guys,
it's the Barbell Squat. Look, we know the squat is the king when it comes to building your leg
size, especially if you go heavy and Arnold is known for going heavy on the squats. Look,
even skinny guys like Jesse have benefited from going heavy on their squats. The point is,
if you're going to-- Hey, who you call skinny,
look at this chest. Come on. I thought I took that away from
you. I'm going to take it back. Did you just say, I'll be back?
Leave, please. Okay.
So, can we talk about the squat here, guys. Heavy squats we know can build substantial leg size
and Arnold relied on them to do so. However, if you're someone that has knee problems and says,
you know what, squats just can't cut it for me, I can't do it without hurting. Guy,
I have another classic exercise you can do that will help to build your legs as well, and it's the
classic Reverse Barbell Lunge. Yes, you can use a barbell like they did in the old days and get some
good gains from this exercise, but you're going to have to put some weight on the bar. The fact is,
if you can do squats, guys always make sure you include them in your training, but don't skip leg
training altogether if knee injuries are part of the game here. There's always something you
can do to continue to build up the size of your legs, regardless of how they feel right now.
Nice for you to join us. What are you talking about?
So, guys, the Golden Six, Arnold's favorite six exercises, you might be sort of still surprised
by the admission of, let's face it, the Chest Fly. Guys, I've talked about this before, even
Arnold didn't have it in his Golden Six. Although I will say, he loves the exercise to death. I made
a video about it, you're going to want to watch at the end of this one to see why I break down--I
still like the Fly, just not done on a bench, I'll give you the reasons why. At the same time guys,
you have an opportunity here, Jesse's idea to win the old school Iron Program.
And if you fast forward it all the way at this point to make sure that you've got all the
exercises right, he knows when you do that, then you better leave a damn good comment. Because he's
going to be reading them all, and you're going to be under his scrutiny to determine whether
or not you win. If you want to bypass all of that guys, you can head right to Athleanx.com,
get our Old School Iron Program over there. If you found the video helpful make sure you
leave your comments and thumbs up below. And also, if you haven't already done some, make sure you
click Subscribe and turn on your notifications so you never miss a new video when we put one
out. All right guys, see you soon. And Jesse, just kidding that was a good job. Nice job.
What's the matter, Old School Iron got you pushing too many pencils?
Will you get out of here? Jeff, you son of a bitch.