10 of the best
Peter Chown
Peter Chown was asked to share a few of his favourite exercises with us. Here is what he picked
1. Squats
Who doesn’t like the good old squat? A lot of people in my gym, hence the trackie bottoms on all the time and all the chest and arm training. These are an essential weapon in building a great physique. Want big arms? Squat! Want to get lean? Squat! Want big legs? Squat! Want a hot chick? Squat! Ok, maybe squats won’t help there especially if you have a face like a back end of a bus, although girls love big legs so you never know!
Squats use all the big muscles in the lower body and place a lot of stress on the body so use a lot of energy and release all of those lovely size building hormones to help with growth all over, well almost all over. Oh and when you squat please squat to parallel or lower, none of these half squats or moving 3 inches, it’s not big or clever and you just look very ‘special’.
2. Deadlifts
I don’t see too many people perform these much anymore, only in hardcore gyms. You don’t know what you are missing! Talk about working the whole body, these will improve your legs and build plenty of thickness in the upper body, oh and once you are lifting the heavyweights, it looks pretty impressive and suddenly you will gain respect from the chest and arm brigade. Perform low reps and also high reps. You will get a similar effect as from squats so you will see big improvements in the whole body. Keep the form tight and no bending that back and getting the weight up any old how otherwise you will be saying goodbye to a couple of them discs in your back.
3.Walking Lunges
All big compound movements so far and I’m carrying that on with this exercise from hell. The walking lunge is thought of a girls exercise by a lot of guys. Why? You’ve obviously not tried them. Want big legs, rock hard glutes, that six pack? These will help you along the way. Being a compound movement a lot of the muscles in the lower body come in to play, your heart rate will go sky high burning all that body fat up, and the core muscles will be working to keep the mid section tight. Use a barbell across the shoulders or use dumbbells, either or, and these will help your gains no end. These were a favourite of two amazing pro bodybuilders, Shawn Ray and Ronnie Coleman and a favourite of mine hence being on this list. Come on guys add them to your workouts, don’t be girlie men forever!
4.Preacher Curls
Time for an isolation exercise I think and my favourite exercise for building size in the biceps. These were a favourite of the first Mr Olympia, Larry Scott who had awesome arms, and these are also named Scott Curls after Larry. These cut out the swinging that a lot of guys do when lifting two tonnes in the standing barbell curl, pump up the biceps like nothing else and are just plain hard work, which is what we love right? Use a barbell, dumbbells and also give 21’s a try for a smash up bicep workout. 21’s are where you perform 7 reps in the lower half of the rep range, then 7 reps in the upper half, then 7 full reps. A killer!
5.Donkey Calf Raises
A great exercise for the calves, an often neglected body part and also a very hard one to make grow unless you are genetically gifted in which case you are very lucky and will be the envy of lots of people, especially when you say you just give them a little tickle every now and then! Who hasn’t seen Pumping Iron (if you haven’t seen it then just go and buy it, one of the most motivating DVD’s you will ever buy) when Arnold is doing these with some girls on his back, impressive aye? Well it is also one of the best calf exercises you can do. Get yourself a block of wood or a Reebok step out of the aerobics studio and get in front of the squat rack so you can bend over and hold onto the bar, and grab the big guy in the gym to sit on your lower back. Rep away and feel those calves grow into big mad bulls!!
6. Lean Away Lateral Raises
I love this exercise and a great way to isolate the medial head of the deltoid for that nice wide look. Delts have always been an area that had lagged behind for me and this was one of my favourites to rectify the problem. You will be doing this one arm at a time to really focus on the delt. Grab hold of something that doesn’t move like a squat rack, cable crossover etc, lean to one side and perform a single arm lateral raise. Don’t try and lift a ton of weight and perform a squat in the middle of the movement, this isn’t an ego exercise and the medial delt is only small so keep it strict!!
7. Incline Barbell Press
The gym is full of people flat benching. Great, it’s a superb exercise and can pack on size to the chest if done right, but what about that upper chest area? Ok we can’t isolate it totally but by adding the incline press to your chest workout you will be stressing that area big time! Don’t use too high an incline otherwise you will be bringing the deltoids a lot more into play, it’s chest we are working so keep it to about 30 degrees and definitely no more than 45 degrees. Start with this in your chest workout to prioritise the area.
8. Close Grip T Bar Rows
A good basic exercise for packing some meat onto them lats of yours and an exercise not performed as much now due to many fitness gyms not having a t-bar row machine. You can lift fairly heavy on this but keep the exercise strict and focus on the lats doing the work and do not stand too upright as you lift the weight up. If you have no t-bar machine then use an Olympic bar wedged into a corner and use the close grip handle form the pulldown machine, works just as well!
9. Cable Crunches
Abs are very easily forgotten by a lot of bodybuilders as they can be boring to work but add some decent weight to an ab exercise then we are all happy bunnies! And this is one I really like. You can get up to some pretty decent weight, but again keep the form strict otherwise you aint going to feel them abs working at all. It’s a crunch not a cable moving the upper body up and down exercise. And once you get your copy of Pumping Iron through the post then you can watch Arnold do these in the old Golds Gym, awesome!!!
10. The Stairmill
Right a CV exercise. Now you are thinking I’ve gone mad right? Wrong! Why can’t a CV exercise be one of my favourites? Have you tried this? The stairmill is bloody hard. It’s basically a revolving staircase and if you do 20 minutes of interval training on this then your legs and lungs will be on fire! And even better after a leg workout, it really separates the men from the boys. If you find this real hard don’t give up and leave it alone. Just start with 5 minutes, once that gets easier move up to 10 minutes until you are up to 20. This is a great way of stripping the body of fat, hits the glutes and quads really hard and increases your fitness big time so you can recover quicker from your sets so increasing your intensity so you can get bigger. See I’m not mad after all…..ok maybe a little!
So there you have it my top 10 favourite exercises. I have a lot of compound movements in there as these are what really pack on size in the quickest time. As I’ve said before though make sure you keep your form on all exercises and do not start training that ego of yours! Be patient and your weights will increase so everyone will be impressed in the end anyway. So squat, deadlift and lunge away!
About the Author
Peter Chown is a natural bodybuilding champ and always worth listening to. 2006 INBA Natural Mr Universe and 2005 INBF World Heavyweight Champ – and one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. He is huge, muscular, ripped and strong and does not inject steroids into his ass, his arm or his eyeballs. He just works damn hard and eats right. He will not get all fancy and technical; he is just here to tell us what to do and how to do it. He knows what works. We like this.
