10 Best Exercises to Force Muscle Growth

If you had the chance to work smart instead of working hard, would you take it? Here is a list of the 10 best exercises to force muscle growth.

BOXROX has previously covered how to force muscle growth with 5 methods backed by science. We also shared what studies have been done recently to explain how to maximise muscle growth. But what about exercise selection, which ones are better? That is what Max Posternak recently talked about.

Max Posternak is the founder of Gravity Transformation, a website focused on giving tips and training guidance for people looking to improve their fitness and lose weight. His YouTube channel has over 4 million subscribers.

In a video, Posternak shared the 10 best exercises to force muscle growth.

10 Best Exercises to Force Muscle Growth

These are the exercises that build the most muscles in the shortest amount of time.

Here is the full list of the 10 best exercises to force muscle growth:

Barbell Deadlift
Bench Press
Squat
Pull-Up / Lat Pulldown
Barbell Military Press / Overhead Press
Barbell Row
Walking Lunge
Dips
Barbell bicep Curl
Calf Raise

The deadlift will allow you to lift heavier loads compared to other pulling movements such as pull-ups, barbell rows, and lat pulldowns.

The bench press is the overall best exercise for the chest. You can choose to do with a barbell for a heavier load, or dumbbells to increase range of motion and stretch your pecs further.

The squat is the best exercise for the lower body, especially the quads, hamstrings, and glutes. Weighted squats, once a week, will improve your fitness immensely. Try the barbell back squat.

Pull-ups are perfect for a thick and strong upper back. If you are not strong enough for pull-ups, consider doing lat pulldowns on a machine. Assisted pull-ups are also another good option.

best exercises to force muscle growth — Pull-ups

Overhead presses or military presses will target heavily your shoulders on the front and middle head. Regardless of whether you choose the dumbbell or barbell variation, make sure you go heavy and progressively overload it from time to time.

While the exercise above targets the front of your shoulders, if you want to complete the shoulder and upper body workout (targeting your rhomboids too) you should implement heavy barbell rows into your training.

Doing walking lunges will not only improve your lower body such as quads, hamstrings and glutes but also your balance and stability. Try using heavy weights that bring you to failure. That is the golden rule for this exercise to be in our list of 10 best exercises to force muscle growth.

To increase the size of your arms, nothing better than a good triceps exercise and one of the best ones you can do are dips. The ultimate goal is to do dips with extra weight strapped to your body. To build up to it, begin with an assisted machine for dips, and change to bodyweight dips until you can add weight to it.

When targeting the biceps, the one exercise you should choose is the barbell bicep curl. Utilising two hands to lift the weight allows you to load heavier, increasing tension and making your biceps bigger over time.

Lastly, the calf raise is the go-to exercise if you want bigger calves. It is difficult to get big calves if you don’t focus isolation exercises on this muscle. Many machines can be used for it, just make sure you are getting a good stretch at the bottom of the movement.

And that is the list of the 10 best exercises to force muscle growth according to Max Posternak. To know how to perform each exercise properly, check out his video below.