The repertoire of exercises and variants of the same that we can perform in the gym is enormous, but this certainty should not make us lose the north.
That is why in this article we explain the 10 most interesting and basic exercises that you should consider if you are a newbie just starting out in the gym.
Bench press (horizontal presses)
The bench press is the quintessential multi-joint basic exercise of the horizontal push movement pattern. This category also includes, for example, the flat dumbbell press or push-ups.
Get well on the bench, scapulae retracted and glute contracted. Once you remove the bar from the support, perform a controlled descent and rest the bar approximately at the bottom of your sternum. The slowness in this phase will depend on the lifter so try the rhythm that best suits your style.
Once we touch the sternum with the bar, we make a brief stop and begin to push the bar as hard as we can while holding our breath so as not to lose tension and stability. The direction you should push the bar is up and back. As the bar takes off from your chest, open your elbows slightly to facilitate this trajectory.
Pulley row (horizontal pulls)
The low pulley row is a simple exercise in the horizontal pull motion pattern. We could have selected other exercises of the same pattern but that we have preferred to discard because they have one more point of technical complexity. We talk about the barbell or dumbbell row, Pendlay row or even the pointed row.
Be that as it may, to correctly perform a low pulley row we must remain with the spine extended at all times, without letting the pulley drag our shoulders forward.
At the end of the eccentric phase we can let our torso swing slightly forward so that our latissimus dorsi ends up stretching. In the same way, during the concentric phase we can once again tilt the torso slightly backwards. without this becoming an excuse to generate inertia.
Military press (vertical presses)
Just as the bench is to the horizontal thrusts, the military press is to the vertical ones.
Exercises such as the dumbbell shoulder press, the push press or the handstand push-ups would also belong to this category.
For the exercise to be considered as a military press, it must be performed with a free bar and standing.. We are not worth dumbbells, multipowers or sitting.
During the concentric phase, when the bar begins to detach from our shoulders it should pass as close to the face as possible and once the nose is overcome, we begin to place our body under it until the arms are completely blocked. The bar will be above our head. Before starting the movement, we cannot make any kind of impulse with our legs.
Pull ups and pull-ups (vertical pulls)
Finally we have the vertical tractions where pull-ups and pulls to the chest are the protagonists, however we will stick with the latter because they are easier to execute when we are new to the gym.
Before starting the movement we must depress the scapulae and bring the bar to the bottom of our sternum. We can even, as we did during the pulley row, slightly tilt our torso backwards.
Barbell squat and goblet (knee dominants)
As for lower body exercises we have knee dominants and hip dominants. The former require a greater flexion of the knee with respect to the hip and the latter exactly the other way around. In this way, the former put emphasis on the quadriceps and the latter on the posterior chain including glutes and hamstrings.
Within the knee dominants we have any variant of squat where the barbell squat and the goblet are included. As shown in the video above, mastering the goblet is a necessary step in the progression to barbell squats.
Romanian, conventional, and sumo deadlifts (hip dominants)
Finally we have the deadlifts, hip dominant exercises.
It’s good to master the hip hinge with the Romanian deadlift before venturing into the conventional or sumo deadlift.
Before starting the movement, we must place our pelvis in neutral position, maintaining our natural lordotic curvature. During the movement, our hips must be pushed back at the same time as our shoulders are thrown forward, so maintaining our physiological curvatures is essential to execute the movement safely.
In Vitónica | Newbie to the gym: how to choose the routine that best suits you based on your level and your goals
How much do I have to train and how does my training have to be if I want to achieve hypertrophy in the gym
Images | Unsplash
Videos | Ninolift, Pablo Pizzurno, MuEnViFitness