4 Exercises Everyone Should Do

Whether you’re trying to lose weight, get strong or ready to run a marathon I believe everyone should learn how to properly squat, bench press, deadlift and overhead press with a barbell.

Through my years of training various people with different goals, I have found these four exercises to provide the best results, and here’s why.

Compound movements teach functional strength.

Most machine based exercises are great for isolating muscles and movements, but nothing prepares you for life like training with a barbell.

Whether you’re overhead pressing or deadlifting, you are training your body to brace the core to stabilize and while producing force at the same time.

Which is what most people fail to do with yard work and other physical activities that render them injured and set-back for weeks.

By teaching clients how to effectively train with barbells, I have seen many people drastically improve their quality of life in and out of the gym.

Training with a barbell makes it easy to track progress.

Want to know if you’re getting stronger? Check to see if you’re lifting more weight.

Want to know if your endurance is improving? Check to see if you’re able to do more squats at the same weight.

Tracking progress with a barbell is very straight forward and can allow you to set smaller goals that will get you closer to your end goal.

You can focus on strength (the weight), endurance (amount of reps) or control (the tempo) in order to break the same movement into multiple different skills all while building confidence in the movement itself.

The four main lifts develop a well-rounded physique.

Most people come into the gym wanting an athletic physique.


And there is no better way to develop an athletic physique than to implement the four main lifts that build solid proportion from head to toe.

Performing compound movements like squat, bench, deadlift and overhead press requires the strength and stability of multiple joints moving together rather than isolating one muscle at a time.

This will allow you to develop good overall proportionate strength and therefore aesthetics because the focus is more on movement than it is the physique.

At the end of the day, most athletes don’t train to look good, they train to become competitive in their sport by focusing on movement.

The athletic look that most desire is just a byproduct of becoming functionally strong.

Good barbell lifting is more than moving around weights.

If you want to reap the benefits of lifting barbells, you have to respect the art of it and devote time to learning and understanding proper technique.

The biggest reason people are against barbells is because they were not mobile enough, strong enough or stable enough to perform the movement without compensation and therefore feeling backlash or pain.

If you are feeling pain while performing a barbell movement, your body may be pointing out a weakness or instability that you should address.

By focusing on being able to effectively lift barbells, you will find that most aches and pains in your day to day will be reduced if not eliminated.

Because if you can safely and effectively work with a loaded barbell there is nothing that life can throw at you that you won’t be able to handle.