The 8 Moves You Must Do If You Need Mass

GLUTES/HAMS: Romanian Deadlift

Not to be confused with the stiff-legged deadlift, the romanian deadlift is the king for the upper hamstrings where they tie into the glutes (you target the lower hamstrings better with various leg-curl moves). Basically, during the romanian-style deadlift, you keep your knees bent and your back as straight as possible. The bar is also very close to the legs throughout and combined with the body mechanics, causes the upper hamstrings and glutes to share the majority of the focus. It’s when you straighten your legs, slightly round your back and allow the bar to travel a few inches away from the legs that the emphasis is shifted to the lower back and away from the hamstrings, which is the stiff-legged version.

Inside the Lift

Like we said on the bent-over row, you’re very strong on this move, so it would be a shame for your hams and glutes to suffer because you don’t have pulling straps. Get the hint? Also, there’s a way to self-spot on this move. Head back to the bench-press station, take the bar off the rack and straddle the bench press while holding the bar. While the bench might somewhat limit the range of motion (although you don’t need to be touching your toes during this exercise) the bench can serve as a slight spot at the bottom if you allow just the slightest bounce. Besides, increasing the range of motion by trying to touch the bar to the floor is a recipe for disaster since many individuals round their backs.

Best Technique to Add Intensity

Our vote for best intensity technique during the romanian is rest-pause because you can load the bar, hit your reps and rest the bar on the bench and never remove your hands from the bar. In fact, in between mini-sets, you can actually sit on the bench and rest your entire body as you watch the clock.

SHOULDERS: Seated Overhead Dumbbell Press

The most obvious benefit of dumbbells is that they allow a wide range of motion. With the overhead press, since both hands can move in any direction, you can move your arms out to your sides a bit to hit more of the middle delts. As opposed to the barbell version of the move, your head gets in the way during the descent of the bar, forcing you to either lean back or use the behind-the-neck version. However, not everyone can go behind the head with the bar, but with the dumbbells, your elbows are in line with your ears allowing maximal emphasis on all three heads. In addition, dumbbells let you lift your arms higher at the top of the exercise as you bring the weights together at the top. This takes the deltoids through a longer range of motion while also bringing into play the traps, which enhance the shoulders as well.

Inside the Lift

Probably the biggest limiting factor to this exercise is actually getting “into” the start position. Our shoulders are pretty strong and we can lift a lot of weight, often more weight than we can seem to get into a start position with. So if you feel like you can move more weight but don’t have anyone to hand you the dumbbells, practice kicking one knee up toward your chest (with the weight sitting atop the knee) to get the dumbbells in place one at a time. If that still doesn’t work, practice the single-arm version of the move, working each arm separately. That’ll help strengthen your core and stabilizers, helping you prepare for the standard overhead dumbbell press when situations and circumstances are optimal.

Best Technique to Add Intensity

Because you’re right there in front of the rack, you might as well run it. Running the rack is basically a giant drop set, in which you do as many reps as you can at a certain weight (say, a weight you can do for 10 and only 10 reps, your 10RM) then upon failure, rack that set of dumbbells and move to the next lightest pair. Grab those and do as many as you can. You continue running down the rack for as many sets as you can. Then after a 3–5-minute rest, if you’re still able to lift your arms, you can reverse direction.

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