Illustration showing the different bodybuilding and hypertrophy lifts.

Exercise Selection: Which Lifts are Best for Building Muscle?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | December 28, 2021 |

What are the best exercises for bodybuilding and hypertrophy training—for building muscle? How do we sort those exercises and pick between them? Which lifts complement one another, building a balanced routine, and which lifts replace one another, serving as options to pick between?

To find the best exercises, we’ll look at hypertrophy research, with the gold standard being studies that compare different lifts and then measure muscle growth. We can also look at the biomechanics of the lifts, seeing which lifts have the best dynamics to engage different muscles. And when we have no other choice, although this path is fraught with peril, we’ll also look at muscle-activation (EMG) research.

Then we’ll break the exercises down into the main lifts that serve as the foundation of our workout routines, the assistance lifts that train the same movement patterns but that emphasize different muscles, and the accessory lifts that target the muscles that aren’t properly stimulated by compound lifts. That way we aren’t just talking about the “best” lifts, we’re talking which lifts complement one another to give us a balanced workout routine.

So, which exercises should you build your workout routine out of? Let’s see.

Table of Contents

Illustration of a bodybuilder building muscle with hypertrophy training.

The Principles of Exercise Selection

Big Compound Lifts for Overall Efficiency

Imagine trying to fill a bucket with rocks of various sizes. Some of those rocks are enormous, some are as small as sand. Which rocks do you focus on first? If we start with the smaller rocks, yes, it might be easy, but we’d need to carry quite a few rocks to the bucket before making a noticeable impact. Worse, by the time we get to the bigger rocks, they won’t fit properly. It’s often wiser to start by filling the pail with the biggest rocks. After that, we can add as many smaller rocks as we need to fill in the gaps, and then finally the sand, which will trickle down around the other rocks, filling every little nook and cranny.

Illustration of a man doing a sumo deadlift

So, the first thing we want to do is built our program around big compound lifts that engage the most amount of overall muscle mass. This takes care of most—but not all—of the muscle mass in our bodies. Once we’ve picked our compound lifts, we can see which muscles aren’t being stimulated properly, and then add in the smaller lifts to fill in those gaps. For example, if we compare the bench press against the dumbbell fly, both lifts work our chests through a similar range of motion with a similar strength curve. For our chests, the two lifts are quite similar. But the bench press also works our shoulders and our triceps. So in this case, the bench press is the bigger stone. We prioritize it over smaller lifts like the dumbbell fly.

Given how efficient these big compound lifts are, we can train most of the muscle mass in our bodies with just a few movement patterns:

Squats, such as front squats, back squats, and split squats, work the quads and glutes—the two biggest muscles in our bodies. Our hamstrings, calves, spinal erectors, and adductors will be worked as well, but not always hard enough to stimulate muscle growth.
Horizontal presses, such as the bench press, push-up, and dip, work the chest and shoulders, and to a lesser extent, the triceps. A number of different core muscles will be worked as well, but not always hard enough to stimulate muscle growth.
Hip hinges, such as the conventional deadlift, work the glutes, hamstrings, adductors, spinal erectors, traps, and grip. Most of our upper back muscles will be worked as well, but not necessarily enough to stimulate muscle growth.
Vertical presses, such as the overhead press and landmine press, work the shoulders, traps, and abs. Most of the muscles in our bodies will be worked to some degree, but likely not enough to stimulate muscle growth.
Vertical pulls, such as chin-ups and pull-ups, work the upper back, biceps, forearms, and abs. A number of other muscles are worked as well, but usually not enough to stimulate much muscle growth.

These five big compound lifts don’t give us a complete hypertrophy program, but they bring us about 80% of the way there, at least for our torsos. (As we’ll cover below, not all of the muscles in our limbs engage properly during compound lifts, and so it’s common for some of the muscles in our arms, legs, and necks to lag behind.)

What about horizontal pulls? You’ll see some programs including horizontal pulls as a main movement pattern, and that’s perfectly fine, but vertical pulls work those same upper back muscles at longer muscle lengths and through a deeper range of motion. The main benefit of horizontal pulls, then, is that they engage our spinal erectors. However, hip hinges, such as the deadlift, do an even better job of that. That doesn’t mean that horizontal pulls aren’t useful, they’re just a bit further down in the hierarchy.

For more, see our article on the Big Five hypertrophy lifts.

Isolation Lifts for Overall Development

There are two reasons why isolation lifts are so important in bodybuilding, and hypertrophy training in general:

Not all of our muscles are trained properly with compound lifts, such as our biceps, triceps, quads, and hamstrings, and some muscles aren’t trained at all, such as the sternocleidomastoid in our necks.
If you look at the muscles being worked by the big compound lifts, you’ll see that some muscles are being worked hard enough to stimulate muscle growth, but that most of the muscles serve as stabilizers and supporting muscles. For instance, our hamstrings and spinal erectors are worked by the back squat, but not enough to stimulate much, if any, muscle growth. This means that to stimulate muscle growth in the prime movers—the quads and glutes—we need to tire out a bunch of other muscles, without necessarily stimulating any extra muscle growth. That’s not a bad thing by any means, and it’s great for our general health and strength, but it means that compound lifts are quite tiring. Isolation lifts allow us to add in extra training volume for the muscles that need it without driving our overall fatigue too high. If we want to give our quads a bit of extra work, yes, we could do another set of squats… but we could also do a set of leg extensions, which are much easier.

For an example, let’s take a look at the bench press. The bench press is a great lift for stimulating our chests. We get a deep stretch on our chests at the bottom, we press the weight through a great range of motion, and we’re (usually) limited by the strength of our pecs. If we look at the dumbbell fly, it does exactly the same thing, working our chests with the same strength curve and through the same range of motion. The difference between the bench press and the dumbbell fly, then, is just that the bench press also works the shoulders and triceps.

Illustration of a man doing a dumbbell fly for his chest.

So from that perspective, it might seem we can accomplish all of our goals with just compound lifts, right? I mean, the bench press is the better lift overall, no doubt. The dumbbell fly doesn’t have any unique muscle-building advantage. It’s just an easier way to add in extra training volume for our chests.

But if we look at our triceps, the story changes. The long heads of our triceps have two functions: they extend our elbows and they flex our shoulders. The bench press extends our elbows, so no problem there, but it also extends our shoulders. That means that if we fully engaged the long heads of our triceps during the bench press, they would pull the barbell down. As a result, the long heads of our triceps aren’t worked very hard with the bench press (study):

Graph showing differences in pec and triceps growth when doing the bench press.

Fortunately, the fix is fairly simple. We need to find exercises that either focus on elbow extension, such as triceps extensions, or shoulder flexion, such as pullovers. The main role of our triceps is to extend our elbows. They have much better leverage there. So the better choice is triceps extensions, such as overhead extensions or skull crushers.

Graph showing differences in chest and triceps growth when doing the bench press and triceps extensions.

By combining the bench press with triceps extensions, we get full development of both our chests and triceps. This is the value of isolation lifts. We can work the muscles that aren’t able to contribute properly to the big compound lifts.

Illustration of man doing the overhead dumbbell triceps extension.

Here are some examples of isolation lifts that train muscles that aren’t worked properly by the big compound lifts:

Triceps extensions work the long heads of our triceps, which cross both the elbow and shoulder joints, and so aren’t stimulated properly by the bench press (study).
Biceps curls work our biceps, which cross both the elbow and shoulder joint, and so aren’t worked fully by compound lifts like the chin-up, pull-up, or row (study).
Leg extensions work our vastus medialis and rectus femoris, which cross both the knee and hip joints, and aren’t worked fully by the squat (study).
Hamstrings curls work our hamstrings, which cross both the knee and hip joints, and so aren’t worked fully by hip hinges (study).

Other muscles are focused on just one joint, such as our chests (shoulder joint), lats (shoulder joint), spinal erectors (spinal vertebrae), and glutes (hips). They’re already isolated at just one joint due to their insertions, allowing them to contribute fully to the compound lifts. We can still isolate them with isolation lifts, but they don’t need to be isolated to see full development.

Illustration of a man doing neck curls with a weight plate.

And then we have the muscles that aren’t worked at all by the big compound lifts:

Our necks aren’t trained with any compound lift, and so if you want to build a thicker neck, you’ll need to add in neck curls and extensions.
Forearm curls and extensions aren’t a part of any compound lift, and so if we want to build bigger forearms, we need to add in forearm curls and extensions.
Our calves help us balance during the big compound lifts, but they aren’t worked hard enough to stimulate muscle growth. If we want to bulk up our calves, we need to add in calf raises.
Our side delts aren’t trained very hard with any compound lift, and so if we want to build broader shoulders, it helps to add in upright rows or lateral raises.

So, as you can see, it tends to be the muscles in our limbs that can lag behind if we focus on just the big compound lifts. If we neglect our isolation lifts, we can get fairly complete muscular development of our torsos, but our arms, legs, and necks won’t get anywhere close to their genetic potential.

Now, that doesn’t mean that you need to do all of these isolation lifts. For instance, if you don’t care about fully developing each head of your quads, you don’t need to do leg extensions. Plus, you don’t need to do these isolation lifts all of the time. For example, you might want to do plenty of biceps and triceps exercises for a few months while focusing on bulking up your arms, but then take a break from while you spend a few months focused on bulking up your chest.

For more, see our article on isolation lifts and muscle growth.

Deep Range of Motion for Faster Growth

As a general rule of thumb, lifting with a larger range of motion yields more muscle growth. However, not all parts of the range of motion are equally important. Getting a deep stretch on our muscles at the bottom of the lift increases muscle growth by quite a lot, whereas fully contracting our muscles at the top of the lift does not.

Graph showing how training at different muscle lengths stimulates different amounts of muscle growth.

When we stretch our muscles, they behave almost like elastics, passively pulling themselves back to their resting lengths. That tension gets added to the tension we actively generate contracting our muscles. This combination of both passive and active tension puts more overall mechanical tension on our muscles, stimulating much more muscle growth. So if the sticking point of the lift occurs at long muscle lengths, where we get both passive and active tension on our muscles, it has a much better strength curve for building muscle (study).

When we challenge our muscles at shorter muscle lengths, our muscles are weaker, and mechanical tension is only coming from our ability to actively contract our muscles. As a result, it stimulates quite a bit less muscle growth. Plus, we’re often able to keep constant tension on our muscles by avoiding taking our tension off our muscles in the lockout position (of the squat, bench press, deadlift, and so on), which research shows can boost muscle growth by quite a bit (study).

So as a general rule, we want to select exercises that allow us to challenge our muscles in a deep stretch, but we don’t need to worry very much about whether a lift gives us a full contraction at the top of the lift, especially if it means taking tension off of our muscles.

If we look at the main movement patterns, we can choose exercises that use a deep range of motion and challenge our muscles at longer muscle lengths:

All deep squats challenge our quads at long muscle lengths. Of the squat variations, front squats and goblet squats give our quads an even deeper stretch than back squats, especially if we “sit down” instead of “sitting back.” (Low-bar squats work our hips through a deeper range of motion, but we have hip hinges for that.)
Horizontal presses, such as the bench press, push-up, and dip, all work our chests and shoulders through a deep range of motion. With the bench press, the trick is to bring the barbell all the way down to our chests. With the push-up, we can raise our hands on push-up handles or weight plates to extend the range of motion, doing “deficit” push-ups. With dips, we can lean forward to get a better stretch on our chests. The main thing is to avoid shallow chest lifts, such as floor presses and pin presses.
Hip hinges, such as deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, and good mornings, challenge our glutes and hamstrings through a deep range of motion. Other hip hinges, such as glute bridges and hip thrusts, do not.
Vertical presses, such as the overhead press, don’t do a great job of challenging our shoulders at long muscle lengths. We can partially fix this issue by exploding the barbell off our chests, fully engaging our shoulder muscles right from the beginning of the range of motion. Fortunately, the bench press—especially with a narrower grip width—challenges our front delts through a deep range of motion.
Vertical pulls, such as chin-ups and lat pulldowns, do a fairly good job of working our lats through a deep stretch. The strength curve isn’t perfect, but the range of motion is enormous, making them great lifts overall. Pullovers challenge the lats through an even deeper stretch, making them a good isolation lift for our upper backs.

If we look at the isolation lifts, some use a deeper range of motion than others. Here are some examples:

For our biceps, we can choose exercises that use a full range of motion and that are harder at the beginning, such as incline curls and sissy curls. But even standard barbell and dumbbell curls are quite good. The trick is to avoid doing curl variations that intentionally make them harder at the top of the range of motion, such as spider curls.
For our triceps, any isolation lift that bends the elbow will stretch the triceps, making almost every triceps extension variation good for stimulating muscle growth. However, triceps pushdowns involve the least stretch, skull crushers have a moderate stretch, and overhead extensions have an enormous stretch. All of them are good for building bigger triceps, though.
For our chests, we can favour exercises that challenge our chests in a deep stretch, such as the dumbbell fly, and avoid exercises that challenge our chests at short muscle lengths, such as cable crossovers.
For our abs, there’s a type of crunch called a myotatic crunch, where we lay our lower backs down on a Bosu ball or cushion, using it to get a deep stretch on our abs. It’s a weird exercise, and it isn’t very common, but thinking logically, it should be better at stimulating ab growth. On the other hand, some spinal experts, such as Dr Stuart McGill, recommend training our abs with a more neutral spinal position, which we can do with planks and hanging leg raises. Those may be a bit safer on our backs. Other experts, such as Dr Brad Schoenfeld, argue that crunches are safe for most people, even when done routinely over several decades.

It’s also worth noting that free weights (such as barbells and dumbbells) and exercise machines (such as cables and Hammer Strength machines) tend to be much better at challenging our muscles at long muscle lengths than resistance bands, and thus should stimulate quite a bit more muscle growth. (Resistance bands are easiest at the beginning of the range of motion, hardest at the end. That’s the opposite of what we want for stimulating muscle growth.)

For more, see our article on why challenging our muscles in a deep stretch stimulates more muscle growth.

Stimulus-to-Fatigue Ratio for Recovery

The next thing to consider when picking bodybuilding exercises is how tiring they are. If we can find exercises that stimulate more muscle growth and less fatigue, then we’ll be able to stimulate more muscle growth more easily. Put another way, we get more muscle growth per unit of fatigue that we spend.

There are a few things that tend to improve our stimulus to fatigue ratio:

Selecting exercises that allow us to use a deeper range of motion. For instance, choosing front squats instead of low-bar squats. Even though front squats are around 25% lighter, our quads are worked through a much larger range of motion, resulting in an equal amount of quad growth while using less weight.
Lifting through a larger range of motion. For instance, if we do a half-squat, stopping before our thighs are parallel, then we aren’t reaching the sticking point of the squat. We’ll be able to use more weight, yes, but it won’t stimulate more muscle growth, and it will put much more wear and tear on our hips, shoulders, and backs.
Keeping the tension on our muscles instead of our joints. The more tension we put on our muscles, the more muscle growth we can stimulate. But the more stress we put on our joints, the harder it is to recover from our training. So we want to choose exercises that are hard on our muscles but easy on our joints. For instance, the low-bar squat tends to bang up people’s hips and shoulders without stimulating any more muscle growth than the front squat. The front squat keeps more tension on our muscles while being easier on our joints.

Illustration of a man doing a snatch-grip deadlift. — The wide-grip deadlift.

Putting all of these factors together, compare something like an above-the-knee rack pull against a wide-grip deadlift. The rack pull is incredibly heavy, but it trains our muscles at short muscle lengths and through a short range of motion, reducing the growth stimulus. But we still need to hold that heavy barbell in our hands and support it with our spines, generating a ton of fatigue. The wide-grip deadlift, on the other hand, allows us to sink deeper into the deadlift, stretching our hamstrings and increasing the range of motion. This increases the growth stimulus while reducing the weight we can lift, improving the stimulus-to-fatigue ratio.

Exercise Variety

The more exercise variety we use, the more general strength and athleticism we’ll develop, the fuller and more balanced our muscles will look, and the lower our risk of injury will be (study, study, study, study). This varies the stress on our joints and connective tissues, preventing repetitive strain issues. And it also varies the stress on our muscles, stimulating different muscle fibres in different ways, and thus getting more balanced muscle growth.

Illustration of a man with burning biceps flexing.

There are times when it’s best to specialize in certain lifts. For instance, a powerlifter will need to orient their training around the low-bar back squat, the bench press, and the deadlift. But even then, the longer we can go before specializing, the better. This concept is often called “building a wide base.” The idea is to build muscle mass using a wide variety of good lifts instead of focusing on just a few lifts.

On the other hand, this doesn’t mean that our training should be haphazard. Quite the opposite. If our workouts are similar from week to week, it’s easy to know how much weight to load up on the bar and how many reps we need to aim for to beat our previous performance. Can you front squat more than last week? If so, great, the program is working. Keep going. If not, it’s time to adjust. Furthermore, if we have staple lifts that we keep somewhat constant in our training overall, then it’s very easy to see if we’re gradually getting stronger over time. Can you front squat more than last year? If so, great, you’re getting bigger and stronger over time. If not, it’s time to adjust.

Illustration of a man doing the Zercher squat

So we want a wide variety of exercises in our workout program, but we generally want our workout programs to remain quite consistent from week to week, and to have some common exercises from phase to phase, and even from year to year. For instance, instead of doing 10 sets of front squats every week, we might do 4 sets of front squats, 3 sets of leg presses, and 3 sets of leg extensions. Same volume, more exercise variety. But we can still compare our progress from week to week, since every week we’ll be doing front squats, leg presses, and leg extensions. Then, every few weeks, we might change some of those exercises, change some of the rep ranges. Maybe now we’re doing front squats, Zercher squats, and split squats. We can still measure our progress by looking at the front squat, but 2/3 of our exercise selection has changed.

We need to balance structure with variety. As a general rule, doing 3–4 different exercises per muscle group per week is a good thing, but we also want to keep those exercises constant from week to week so that we can measure our short-term progress (or lack thereof) and adjust our workouts accordingly. Every few weeks, we can adjust our training variables and begin a new training phase, making steady progress in a new way. But as we do that, it’s good to keep at least some aspects constant so that we can measure our longterm progress.

Relevance & Limit Factor

When selecting exercises, we need to make sure that they challenge the muscles we’re trying to grow. For an obvious example of that, if you’re trying to build a bigger chest, then we aren’t just trying to find good exercises, we’re trying to find good exercises that challenge the chest. It could be that the close-grip bench press is a “better” exercise—longer range of motion, deeper stretch, more overall muscle engagement—but if it doesn’t bring the big, meaty muscles in your mid chest close enough to failure, then it isn’t the best exercise for building a bigger chest. At that point, might be wiser to go wider:

Illustration showing how wider and narrower bench press grip widths target the lower, mid, and upper chest.

For a slightly less obvious example, let’s consider a bodybuilder who doesn’t ever plan on deadlifting. How much lower-back work does he need to do? Not very much. Not unless he specifically wants a bigger lower back. He probably does want a bigger lower back, but even so, he won’t need to put a big emphasis on it. Now consider a powerlifter. Deadlifting is part of his sport. He absolutely needs a bigger lower back. He needs quite a lot of dedicated lower-back training, ranging from deadlifts to reverse hypers to good mornings, and so on.

As you can imagine, then, people with different goals should be picking different exercises. This is what we’ll refer to as relevance—we should be picking exercises that are relevant to our goals. For building a bigger chest, the bench press. For building bigger triceps, triceps extensions. For building a bigger upper back, chin-ups. For building bigger biceps, biceps curls. And we so on and so forth.

Now, how do we know if an exercise is relevant to our goals? One of the most important factors is which muscle group limits our performance. If we’re limited by our chest strength on the bench press, then we’re bringing our chests close to failure with every set, and so they’ll get the largest growth stimulus. That makes the bench press highly relevant to our goal of building a bigger chest.

Now let’s say that you’re trying to build bigger lats. The deadlift does engage our lats. They help pull the barbell in close to our bodies. However, our lats aren’t our limiting factor. Rather, we’ll be limited by the strength of our hips, spinal erectors, or grip. Our lats, then, might get some growth stimulus, but probably not very much. With the chin-up, on the other hand, our lats are a prime mover. It’s very likely that we’ll bring them close to failure with every set. And so the chin-up is a better lift for specifically bulking up our lats.

So this is all to say that we don’t just need to find great exercises, we need to make sure they’re great at helping us accomplish our specific goals. For most of us, we want to start with a well-rounded foundation. We can choose a variety of exercises that allow us to bulk up all of the major muscle groups in our bodies. Let’s talk about how to do that.

Individual Variation & Risk Avoidance

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need to select exercises that we can perform safely, that we have the mobility for, that feel good on our joints, and that don’t beat us up over time. The idea is to gradually get bigger and stronger without causing any longterm damage. The tricky thing is that everyone is built a little bit differently, and so everyone responds best to different variations. The good news is that our bodies have a built-in mechanism that tells us if we need to change anything: pain.

Illustration showing a powerlifter doing a low-bar back squat. — The sumo-stance low-bar squat.

For example, sumo-stance low-bar back squats, as are common in powerlifting, are known for beating people up. The shoulder position is quite extreme, and it’s common to crash into our hips at the bottom of the lift. But many people are able to do them for a lifetime without any problems, and if they aren’t experiencing any pain, there’s no reason to think that anything bad is happening under the hood.

Illustration of a man doing a front squat — A front squat done with a “clean” grip.

Even so, there are some exercises that tend to be safer. With squats, front squats tend to be the safest and healthiest squat variation for stimulating muscle growth for most people. But even then, individual variation can come into play. Some people will need to use a cross-grip if they don’t have the mobility to use a clean grip (yet).

Illustration of a man doing a dumbbell goblet squat.

The other thing to consider is choosing exercises that match our skill level. Going back to the example of the squat, both low-bar and front squats are fairly advanced variations. Most new lifters aren’t able to do them properly, especially to a deep depth, which can increase the risk of injury… and also down muscle growth. In that case, choosing beginner variations, such as the goblet squat, can help a great deal. Not only is it a safer beginner variation, but it’s also a great way for a beginner to stimulate a maximal amount of muscle growth while learning how to squat with proper technique.

Free Weights vs Cables vs Machines

When choosing exercises, there’s actually not as much difference between barbells, dumbbells, cables, and exercise machines as you might think, especially when it comes to gaining muscle size and general strength.

Illustration of a bodybuilder doing the leg press.

It’s true that free weights tend to result in higher muscle activation as measured by EMG (study, study). Thing is, EMG research is just a proxy for muscle stimulation. It isn’t a reliable way to estimate how much muscle growth an exercise will stimulate (study, study). If we look at actual muscle growth, as measured by a new study by Schwanbeck et al, we see that exercise machines stimulate the same amount of muscle growth as free weights:

Illustration showing the differences in muscle hypertrophy when comparing free weights vs exercise machines.

Now, I don’t mean for this to sound nihilistic—like it doesn’t matter which exercises we pick. It’s just that sometimes free weights are better for certain movement patterns, such as the deadlift for stimulating hip and back growth, whereas other times machines happen to be better, such as with leg curls for stimulating hamstring growth. We want to look at what we’re trying to accomplish and then pick the best tool for the job, whether that’s a barbell, dumbbell, cable, or exercise machine.

With the big compound lifts, it’s generally best to default to the barbell lifts. The squat, bench press, deadlift, overhead press, and chin-up. There’s nothing wrong with doing Smith machine squats or bench presses instead, and some people might need to use the assisted chin-up or lat pulldown machines instead of doing chin-ups. That’s fine. But the big barbell lifts make for a good default.

When it comes to assistance and accessory lifts, though, the options are endless. You can do them with a barbell, dumbbell, cable, or exercise machine—whatever best suits the movement you’re doing. The leg press is a great assistance lift for the squat, the machine press is a great assistance lift for the bench press, and t-bar rows, cable rows, and lat pulldowns are great for building a bigger upper back. A lot of machines that are quite good. Feel free to use them. Or not. It’s not a major factor.

Free weights, cables, and exercise machines are similarly good for gaining muscle size and strength, and so we can choose according to our needs and preferences. As a general rule of thumb, though, we recommend doing your main lifts with free weights and then mixing in some cables and exercise machines (if desired) for your assistance and accessory lifts.

Structure: Main, Assistance & Accessory Lifts

As we’ve covered above, a good way to structure a bodybuilding or hypertrophy workout program is to start with the biggest compound lifts, then fill in the gaps with smaller lifts. These smaller lifts can be lighter compound lifts that train the same movement pattern, such as adding push-ups to the bench press—both of which are horizontal presses. This helps to strengthen the movement pattern without accumulating as much fatigue, while shifting the emphasis to a target area, and while lowering the risk of injury, Or they can be isolation lifts, such as skull crushers, which train muscles that aren’t properly stimulated by the horizontal press—the long heads of the triceps. This allows us to boost the volume of target muscles, and it allows us to build more balanced musculature overall.

That allows us to sort our exercises like so:

Main lifts: these are the biggest compound lifts that make the foundation of our hypertrophy program. As a rule of thumb, the big compound lifts tend to emphasize the big muscles in our torsos—our chests, shoulders, glutes, and backs. As a default, we recommend the front squat, bench press, conventional deadlift, overhead press, and chin-up. But you can customize them as desired.
Assistance lifts: these are the secondary compound lifts, usually lighter, that are complementary to the main lifts. Oftentimes, these lifts shift the emphasis slightly more towards our limbs—the short heads of our biceps, triceps, hamstrings, quads, and some of our forearm muscles. For instance, adding the Zercher squat, close-grip bench press, Romanian deadlift, incline bench press, and row. These can be varied from phase to phase, and there’s tons of room for individual customization.
Accessory lifts: these are the “isolation” lifts, often working just a single joint. These normally focus on the muscles that aren’t worked properly by compound lifts. Oftentimes, that means focusing on our limbs—the long heads of our biceps, triceps, quads, and hamstrings, as well as our necks and forearms. For instance, leg extensions, skull crushers, leg curls, lateral raises, biceps curls, neck curls, and neck extensions. All of these exercises train muscles that won’t be fully developed by compound, multi-joint lifts. You could also use them to boost volume on exercises that the compound lifts are already working quite well, such as adding the dumbbell fly to the bench press to give the chest even more emphasis. These are entirely customizable. Optional, too.

A minimalist hypertrophy program might focus on just the main lifts. That’s often enough to make good progress, but it won’t give ideal results. A standard program might have a main lift, assistance lift, and accessory lift for each movement pattern, like so:

Squat: front squat + Zercher squat + leg extensions.
Horizontal press: barbell bench press + dips + skull crushers.
Hip Hinge: conventional deadlift + Romanian deadlift + leg curls.
Vertical press: barbell press + one-arm dumbbell press + lateral raises.
Vertical Pull: weighted chin-up + cable row + biceps curls.

But we can get creative, too. A specialization program might have just a main lift for some movement patterns—totally minimalist—while having tons of accessory lifts for other movement patterns. Once we have a solid foundation, and a default way of adding extra exercises to it, we can fully customize it to suit our goals.

The Best Exercises for Hypertrophy

The Squat

The squat works our quads and glutes—the two biggest muscles in our bodies—through a deep range motion with a great strength curve, making it perhaps the single best lift for stimulating overall muscle growth. If we choose to do front squats or goblet squats, it can also be a great lift for stimulating growth in our spinal erectors.

Diagram showing the muscles worked by the barbell front squat.

Best Main Variations

There are a few great squat variations. The back squat is the most popular, with both a low-bar and high-variation. It’s done by holding a barbell on your back, like so:

The low-bar squat is popular in powerlifting because it allows people to lift more weight. The high-bar squat is popular because it allows for a deeper range of motion with a less extreme shoulder position, and is thus a little bit better for general strength training.

Diagram showing the differences between the low-bar back squat and the barbell front squat.

For hypertrophy training, though, we’re more interested in stimulating overall muscle growth, and so instead of trying to limit the range of motion, we want to increase it. Plus, if we can choose variations that give us more upper-body growth, that’s a boon. That gives us the goblet squat for beginners, which is done by holding a dumbbell or weight plate in front of you, like so:

And then once you’ve mastered the movement pattern and/or gotten too strong for the heaviest dumbbell you have access to, you can switch to the front squat. The front squat is done by holding a barbell in front of you, in the crease of your shoulder joint, like so:

The front squat allows the deepest range of motion for our quads, it stimulates growth in our upper backs, it’s one of the safest squat variations, the stimulus-to-fatigue ratio is better than with back squats, it’s often best for our joint health, and it even helps to improve our posture. As a result, it’s a great default squat variation when you’re training for muscle size (bodybuilding, hypertrophy training, general strength training, and so on).

But, as with all the exercises, feel free to pick the squat variation that suits you best. And feel free to alternative between the different variations from phase to phase. You may even wish to include different types of squats in the same training phase, doing back squats one day and front squats another day.

Overall, the best main squat variations are:

The front squat: ideal for emphasizing the quads and spinal erectors, great for overall hypertrophy, easy to recover from, and carries a low risk of injury. As a result, it’s great for hypertrophy training, and a good default for both bodybuilders and people training for general strength. However, it’s hard and uncomfortable to learn, and if your back isn’t strong, it’s possible that your spinal erectors will be your limiting factor. At that point, your back might get more growth than your quads. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, it just depends on your goals.
The high-bar back squat: great for stimulating both the quads and glutes, and is quite a bit easier on the spinal erectors. It’s a good compromise between the low-bar and front squat, and is great for bodybuilders, athletes, and building muscle in general. The potential advantage it has over the front squat is that your back strength won’t be a limiting factor, making it potentially better for the quads. On the other hand, it’s not as good for bulking up the back, making it less of a full-body lift.
The safety-bar squat: the safety-bar squat is done using a cambered barbell that shifts the weight forward. It doesn’t require any shoulder mobility, making it good for guys with shoulder injuries. Like the high-bar squat, it’s good for emphasizing the quads and glutes without requiring much back strength.
The low-bar squat: the heaviest squat variation, and also the best for emphasizing both quad and hip growth, making it popular with both powerlifters and women. However, it can put a fair bit of wear and tear on the hip and shoulder joints, it’s often quite fatiguing, and not everyone can do them safely over the longer term.

Best Assistance Lifts

There are a few different ways to pick assistance lifts for the squat. If you’re doing front squats, you might want a lighter variation that still allows you to work your quads and upper back. For that, the Zercher squat is fantastic. And as a pleasant bonus, the Zercher squat works the hips and traps quite well, making it a great assistance lift for the deadlift, too.

Another notable assistance lift for the squat is the leg press, which shines because it allows us to work both legs quite hard, through a large range of motion, and without adding any extra fatigue to our lower backs. So if the goal is to get pure lower-body growth, the leg press is a great choice.

Illustration of a woman doing a barbell back squat.

Or, if you want to use the squat to emphasize your hips, you can add in some hip-dominant squat variations, such as the low-bar squat.

There are many great assistance lifts for the squat, though:

The Zercher Squat: for the quads, glutes, traps, and spinal erectors. Lighter than the front squat, and works well in moderate rep ranges.
The Leg Press: a great exercise for emphasizing quad growth, and extremely popular with bodybuilders—which good reason.
The Goblet Squat: a lighter front-loaded squat variation that also works the biceps and shoulders.
The Back Squat: these can make a great main or assistance exercise. Back squats are more hip-dominant than front squats, and so are great for emphasizing the glutes.
The Hack Squat: which often emphasize the quads, but still work the glutes and spinal erectors fairly well.

Best Accessory Lifts

With accessory lifts, we’re trying to stimulate the muscles that aren’t being properly stimulated by our main squat variation. Some people may not care about developing all the heads of their quads equally, but if you do, then you might want to include some sort of leg extension. That way we’re taking our hips out of the movement and training just the knee joint. Back squats seem best at making our quads thicker near the hip, whereas leg extensions seem particularly good at making our quads bigger nearer to the knee.

So as a default, leg extensions tend to make for the best quad isolation exercise, since they’re able to work the quads at just a single joint, but there are a few good lighter accessory lifts for the squat:

The Leg Extension: the leg extension is popular with bodybuilders because they train the rectus femoris, bulking up the quads nearer to the knees, making them look quite a bit more muscular. It’s a good default accessory lift for everyone, though, given that squats don’t train the rectus femoris very well.
The Split Squat: is great for training the quads while also improving hip stability. It’s popular among athletes for that reason.
The Bulgarian Split Squat: is a more advanced variation of the split squat that gives the quads even more emphasis. Again, it’s very popular with athletes.
The Pistol Squat: a good bodyweight squat variation that emphasizes the quads, while improving balance and hip stability. Not necessarily the best for hypertrophy, given the balance component, but they’re quite easy to add into a routine, increasing overall squat volume without accumulating much extra fatigue.

The Horizontal Press

The horizontal press is the movement pattern that encompasses the bench press and the push-up, two of the most popular bodybuilding exercises of all time, and with good reason—they’re great for building muscle and improving our appearance.

Diagram showing the muscles worked by the bench press.

The horizontal press is best for building a bigger chest, especially if we use a wider grip width, but it’s also great for working the fronts of our shoulders, especially if we use a narrower grip width. It’s a good movement pattern for the triceps, too, but as we’ve covered above, it’s mainly the lateral and medial heads that get worked. The long head isn’t able to fully engage in a pressing movement, and so we need to target it with isolation lifts.