1. Changes in squat movements
Lift your heels and squat.
Focus on the palm of your front foot and raise your heel as high as possible. Keep your heels up all the time during the whole exercise.
Advantages: This kind of exercise can not only effectively exercise the calf, but also improve the quadriceps femoris, which is usually the weakest part.
Bent arm support squat
Hold the barbell with your elbow instead of your shoulder (wrapping the barbell contact point with a towel can make your elbow more comfortable). Keep your upper arm close to your chest during the whole process.
Advantages: This action can not only develop the whole body, but also improve the strength of biceps brachii, so that you can bend and lift more weight.
Squat with straight arm support
Straighten your arms to support the barbell above your head and straighten your elbows. Stay in this position throughout the squat.
Advantages: This exercise can make you more competitive when doing standard squats. It's also good for shaping.
2. The movement change of dumbbell bench press
Bird bench press
The action begins with the support directly above the chest, with the palms facing outward. Put down the dumbbell like a dumbbell bird, and don't bend your elbow until the dumbbell is halfway down. At this time, the dumbbell will be put down vertically like a bench press, and then pushed up vertically after reaching the lowest point.
Advantages: This kind of exercise can exert a greater load than dumbbell birds and stimulate the chest to grow faster.
Rotary bench press
When the dumbbell is at the lowest point, the palms are opposite. When pushing up, slowly turn your wrist inward until your palm is outward.
Advantages: Rotation can expand the range of motion, reduce the participation of triceps brachii, and force pectoral muscles to exert greater potential. It can also make the upper arm rotate slightly, which is also one of the important functions of pectoralis major.
Fitness ball bench press
The action process is exactly the same as the standard bench press, except that this action is done on the fitness ball instead of bench press. During the movement, the head, neck and shoulders are all placed on the ball, but the lower back is suspended. Always raise your hips to keep a straight line from your shoulders to your knees.
Advantages: This action can focus on training the muscles that maintain balance, which is difficult to practice in traditional exercises. The balance muscles are strengthened, and the standard bench press scores will also improve.
3. The change of hard pull action
Wattberg hard drawing
Insert the pin of the barbell stand at about the same height as the knee, and place the barbell two steps away from the barbell stand. Start pulling hard, and immediately put the barbell on the barbell rack two steps forward after pulling to the highest point. Don't pause, then pull up the barbell, take two steps back, then put down the barbell and return to the starting position.
Advantages: This action is very practical. Hips and lower back are well exercised when moving forward and backward. It can also improve your ability to lift heavy objects from floor and knee height.
Single arm hard pull
Stand on the left side of the barbell when doing this action, instead of standing in front of the barbell like a normal hard pull (if it is the first attempt, you can just pull an empty bar to familiarize yourself with the action). Squat down, hold the middle part of the barbell bar with your right hand, pull it up hard, and keep your trunk upright during the action.
Advantages: this action can exercise all the main "pulling" muscles-biceps femoris, back and biceps brachii, and can also enhance grip strength.
Hard pull to increase amplitude
Use a 25-pound barbell instead of a 45-pound barbell in practice.
Advantages: This change expands the range of motion, can exercise more muscle fibers, and the training effect is better.
4. Motion change of bending elevator
One-arm barbell lift
Hold the middle of the barbell with your right hand (this exercise is difficult) or bend over (this exercise is difficult), and then do bending exercises.
Advantages: this action can strongly stimulate the balance muscle group and forearm through leverage, and accelerate the growth of biceps brachii.
Towel bending
Tie a dumbbell on one end of the towel, hold the other end of the towel with your hand and practice bending.
Advantages: This exercise can transfer the load during exercise and give biceps brachii a completely different stimulus from ordinary bending.
Static curve
Hold a dumbbell in each hand, stop bending the right arm until the elbow joint is 90 degrees, and then make a set of ordinary bending with the left arm. After finishing a group, exchange your arms, and make a normal bend with your right arm when your left arm is still.
Advantages: The elbow joint is the most difficult position in the 90-degree bending process, and static persistence can stimulate the biceps brachii more strongly at this point. This exercise is helpful to break through the sticking point in ordinary bending.
5. Action changes of triceps brachii stretching in supine position
Supine rotation triceps flexion and extension
At the beginning of the action, straighten the raised arm and palm forward, instead of facing each other as usual. When the dumbbell descends, the forearm rotates inward, and when it descends to the lowest point, the palm faces the ear.
Advantages: This change provides a new way to exercise triceps brachii, increases the range of exercise, and can exercise different parts of triceps brachii.
Lateral arm flexion and extension
Lift the dumbbell over your left shoulder with your left hand. Keep your upper arm still and lower the dumbbell toward your right shoulder. The dumbbell stops before touching the body, and then returns to the starting position.
Advantages: This action can use more weight than routine exercises, stimulate different muscle fibers and improve strength.
Supine arm flexion and extension
Lie on your back on the floor, hold the crank barbell high with your hands and keep your arms straight. Keep your upper arm still, lower the barbell to the lowest point behind your head for 2 seconds, and then return to the starting position.
Advantages: lying on the floor is more comfortable, and you can use more weight to take care of those muscle fibers that are difficult to practice at ordinary times.
6. The movement change of lunge squat
Box arrow squat
Stand with your feet in front of a 6-inch (1 inch = 2.54 cm) high box or step, step forward with your right foot, step on the box, and then start doing arrow squats.
Advantages: This change makes it easier for you to keep your torso straight and increase your range of motion.
Step exercise
Stand diagonally with your right foot in front, step on the box with a height of 12 inch, and step on the floor with your left foot behind. Keep your right foot still and your left leg across the box to complete an arrow squat.
Advantages: This change focuses on the squat stage, so that hip muscles can also participate in exertion, and can also improve the deceleration and buffering ability, which can be the basis of many sports.
Support arrow squat
Hold the dumbbell on your head like a dumbbell press, keep your arms straight, and practice sprinting while maintaining this posture.
Advantages: This action can exercise lower limbs, upper limbs and waist at the same time.
7. Pull-ups
Side pull-ups up
When holding the bar, hold the left hand at shoulder width, the right hand at twice shoulder width, and then pull it up.
Advantages: This action will help to eliminate the general imbalance of power between the two sides.
Alternate pull-ups
Pull it up to the right first, restore it after the chin touches the right hand, and then pull it up to the left.
Advantages: this change concentrates the load on one side and improves the unilateral strength in a targeted manner.
Fitness ball pull-ups
Hold the fitness ball on the back of the knee joint with your thighs and calves, and pull it up in this position.
Advantages: When walking, gluteal muscles, biceps femoris and calves naturally contract at the same time. And this exercise can make these muscles contract synchronously through pull-ups
8. Changes in recommended actions
Dumbbell alternating press
Hold a pair of dumbbells on your shoulders, bend your knees moderately, push the dumbbells up with your left hand, and straighten your legs at the same time (using leg strength will help push more weight up). Restore, and then change your right arm to do the same.
Advantages: this action can exercise the whole body strength.
Rotary recommendation
Rotate the trunk to the right while pushing up, and turn the trunk back to its original position while lowering the dumbbell. Then practice to the left in the same way.
Advantages: The rotation ability of the upper body is very important during exercise, and this action can just exercise this.
Upward inclined thrust
Lie on the couch and push the dumbbell obliquely upward.
Advantages: this action keeps the upper back tense while training the deltoid muscle to the maximum extent.
9. Changes of Rome's Hard Pull Action
Narrow grip Roman hard pull
When practicing, the grip distance is shoulder-width, the knee joint angle is unchanged, and it bends forward slowly, and the back naturally arches. Put down the barbell until it is below the knee.
Advantages: This change stimulates latissimus dorsi and biceps femoris more than ordinary movements.
Wide grip Roman hard pull
Like the snatch, use a grip twice as wide as the shoulder.
Advantages: The wider the grip distance, the longer it takes the barbell to move to the same position, which increases the range of exercise and the stimulation to muscles.
One-legged Roman hard pull
Lift one leg and lean behind the other. Throughout the exercise, always stand on one leg.
Advantages: This change helps to eliminate the imbalance of leg strength. In addition, because it is a one-legged exercise, you can use less weight, so the grip strength will not become a bottleneck.
10. Action changes of bending and rowing
Alternate rowing
Do this exercise with dumbbells. Keep your upper body still and pull up the dumbbell on one side at a time.
Advantages: Alternating actions force the body to keep balance under the action of rotating force. So it is not only a good back exercise, but also a good waist exercise.
One-legged rowing
Lift one leg and lean behind the other. Throughout the exercise, always stand on one leg.
Advantages: it is beneficial to improve the balance ability. One-legged rowing push
Stand on your right foot and one foot, and hold the dumbbell in your left hand. The upper body posture is the same as ordinary rowing, the trunk is parallel to the ground, and the back is naturally arched. When rowing, pull the dumbbell up, straighten your left arm and stretch your torso at the same time. In the end position, the left arm is perpendicular to the ground. After practicing one side, practice the other side.
Advantages: this is a comprehensive upper limb exercise, which can reach the waist and the whole back.
References:
Quan Min/Mei Jian