If you read my strength training post, you understand now that gaining strength in a set of key lifts is one of the most important barometers of your muscular development over time.

The question is – what lifts are “key”?

The short answer is that the key lifts are the ones that target the areas you want to grow. For example, if you are a woman focused on glowing your glutes, then it is highly likely (and recommended) that the barbell squat and/or the barbell deadlift are one of your key lifts. If you are a man focused on growing your upper chest, then you would do well to include the barbell/dumbbell incline bench press in your key lifts. However, that’s not to say the woman in this scenario should not be bench pressing and that the man here should not be squatting – it is just a helpful approach to thinking about what movements you want to prioritize in the gym.

The longer answer is that you should pick one lift that targets your chest, shoulders, and triceps (this will be your “pushing” lift, which you’ll see why in a moment), one lift that targets your back and biceps (your “pulling” lift, which will also be explained shortly), and one lift that targets your legs (your “legs” lift, which is self-explanatory). By combining these three lifts as your main key exercises, you should be effectively hitting just about every single muscle in your body. By way of example, if we pick the barbell incline press as our pushing lift (this exercise involves that you push the weight away from you on the concentric portion of the lift), the weighted chin-up as our pulling lift (this exercise has us pull our body weight upward on the concentric portion of the lift), and the barbell squat as our leg lift (again, self-explanatory), we will be training our body in a comprehensive fashion that ensures all major muscle groups are being targeted. The incline barbell bench press is chest dominant (with an emphasis on the upper portion of the chest), and it also recruits the shoulder and tricep muscles extensively. The weighted chin-up is back dominant (specifically recruiting our latissimus dorsi i.e., “lat” muscle) and is also recruits the bicep and forearm muscles. Lastly, the barbell squat is quad-dominant (or glute/hip dominant, depending on your stance), and also happens to train the hamstrings and calves. By combining these three lifts together and continuing to track our progress on them over a period of months going into years, we are just about guaranteed to see muscular development across our entire body in a (hopefully) balanced fashion. The key idea to remember is that you will do a three-day workout split, with each day beginning with one of these key big lifts. For your push day, you would start with the incline barbell bench press and throw in two or three more accessory lifts to support this movement (such as the machine press, dumbbell chest fly, and cable pushdown). Similarly, for the pull day you would start with the weighted chin-up and throw in a few accessory lifts (such as the barbell row, cable row, and dumbbell bicep curl). Lastly, for the leg day you would start with the barbell squat and follow up with accessory lifts such as the leg extension, leg curl, and calf raise.

I hope the above was helpful for you and helps clear up how to best approach your strength training in an efficient and effective manner. The last thing you want to do is to spend years in the gym, trying different workouts (or sticking with the same ineffective routine), without seeing notable progress. If you want to discuss this in further detail, don’t hesitate to reach out.