Exercise Guides: How To's and Comparisons

Are you looking for a bicep isolation exercise that will fire up your muscle fibers and help to build strong, thick biceps? 

Choosing the right type of bicep curl can be challenging with so much conflicting information and advice available online.

Today, we’ll compare two popular variations of the standard bicep curl: the preacher curl and the concentration curl. We’ll explain the main technical differences, the pros and cons of each exercise, and how to perform each type of curl with the proper technique.

Let’s get into these two types of bicep curls to help you figure out which one is best for you

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Learning to do a deadlift with proper technique is a rite of passage for any serious lifter. Deadlifts are a staple exercise for improving your full body strength, and they carry over well to other exercises like the clean and snatch and the barbell row. The traditional deadlift is performed with a standard barbell.

 Some lifters replace the deadlift with a variation known as the trap bar deadlift. Below, we’ll go over both the barbell and the trap bar deadlift, the pros and cons of each, and help you determine if one is better than the other for reaching your strength and hypertrophy goals.

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Ask a room full of lifters for the best chest builder and most of them will say the barbell bench press. It’s the lift everyone tests and everyone wants a bigger number on. The dip gets far less attention, which is a shame, because it’s one of the most underrated upper body builders going.

Both lifts work the chest, triceps, and shoulders, so picking between them isn’t obvious. Dips lean on the lower chest and let you train to failure without a spotter. The bench press moves more weight and is one of the three lifts you’ll compete on if you ever step on a powerlifting platform.

I run both, and below I break down where each one wins so you can decide which belongs in your program, or whether you should do what I do and keep them both.

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The tricep extension and the skull crusher get compared constantly, and the confusing part is that they’re often the exact same lift. Lie back on a bench, lower a barbell to a point just behind your head, press it back up, and you’ve done both at once.

The comparison only becomes real when you say which tricep extension you mean. An overhead extension, done standing or seated with the upper arms pointing straight up, holds the long head of the triceps in a stretched position that a skull crusher never reaches. A skull crusher keeps you flat on the bench with the weight travelling toward your forehead.

Below I go through where these two actually separate, what each one is better at, how to perform them, and how the tricep pushdown fits alongside both. If you’re here because you want to build your triceps and can’t tell these lifts apart, the short answer’s in the next section.

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The bicep curl is one of the first exercises anybody picks up, and if you’ve trained for more than a few months you’ve curled a barbell of some kind. The two most common bars for the job are the straight bar and the EZ curl bar, and they curl a little differently.

It comes down to your grip. A straight bar locks your hands fully supinated (palms up), which drives the work straight into the biceps brachii. The EZ bar’s bends let your wrists rotate in toward neutral, which is easier on the joints and brings the brachialis and brachioradialis into it more.

I’ve curled both for years and I grab each one in different situations. This breakdown covers the pros, cons, form, and muscles worked for the straight bar and the EZ bar so you can pick the one that fits your wrists and your goal.

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A preacher curl is a bicep curl. That’s the part that trips people up when they search for the difference: one is a variation of the other, not a separate exercise.

What actually changes is the angled pad. Resting your upper arms on it locks your shoulders in front of your torso and stops you swinging the weight up, so the biceps do the work in a stretched position and the hardest part of the rep moves to the bottom. A standing curl leaves your arms hanging at your sides. You can handle more weight that way, and it loads both heads of the bicep more evenly.

Below I cover which one builds more size, whether preacher curls are genuinely harder, how the machine and dumbbell versions compare, and how to fit both into your arm training.

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If you want a thick, strong back, rows belong in your program. Rows pile thickness onto your upper back, mid-back, and lats, while pulldowns build width. That’s why you’ll see most bodybuilders run some kind of row alongside a pulldown every week.

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Barbell curls and dumbbell curls train the same muscles through the same basic motion. The difference is what your hands are holding. A barbell locks both hands to one straight bar, and dumbbells let each arm move and rotate on its own.

Both build the biceps well. Which one suits you comes down to how your wrists and elbows handle a straight bar and how you like to add weight. Below are the pros and cons of each, how to do both, where the EZ bar fits, and which one I’d pick.

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Building strong, powerful hamstrings is a great way to improve the strength and musculature of your leg. Not only do big, round, hamstrings look great, they also form an essential part of the posterior chain. Strengthening the hamstrings can help you perform better in other lifts and translates well to everyday functional fitness.

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The barbell bench press is arguably one of the most popular exercises in the fitness industry and for a good reason. It’s one of the most effective exercises for developing strength in the chest, triceps, and anterior delts.

A barbell bench press is one of the three major compound exercises used to assess upper body strength across strength sports. Powerlifting, above all. So it’s no surprise that a common question among workout fanatics is “how much do you bench?”

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One of the most commonly asked questions in the fitness industry is… how much do you bench?

Normally that question refers to the barbell bench press, not the dumbbell bench press.

While many people brag about the amount of weight they can barbell bench press, others have quite the impressive chest and never do barbell bench press. More often than not, these people prefer a dumbbell bench press over a barbell bench press.

The barbell bench press and the dumbbell bench press are very similar. 

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What is the difference between a glute bridge and a hip thrust? 

Do you want to build bigger, stronger glutes, but aren’t sure which exercises to choose?

Have you been training your glutes without seeing as much progress as you would like?

Are you trying to decide between a glute bridge and a hip thrust but are unsure what the difference is between the two?

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Are you looking for an effective lower body exercise to build size and muscle mass?

Do you want to even out muscle imbalances between your right and left leg, but aren’t sure how?

Are you wondering whether the split squat or the lunge is best for your goals, or unsure of the difference between the two?

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We’ve all seen those memes that show a guy or girl with a big upper body and tiny legs, which doesn’t look very appealing. That just goes to show… you shouldn’t skip leg day.

Not only do well-defined legs stand out, but they’re also crucial for building a solid foundation. A stronger lower body enables you to perform a wide variety of movements inside and outside of the gym.

Fortunately, there are several exercises you can utilize to build bigger and stronger legs. Two of the most popular leg exercises are the leg press and hack squat.

If you’ve ever wondered which exercise is better for leg development, then this article is for you!

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The Pendlay row and the barbell row are close cousins. Both are barbell pulls you do bent at the hips to build a thicker, stronger back, and from across the gym they look almost identical. The whole difference is in how each rep starts.

Pendlay rows and barbell rows share a lot, but the way each rep starts sets them apart. On a Pendlay row the bar comes to a full dead stop on the floor between every rep, and you rip it off the ground explosively. On a barbell row the bar never touches down, so you hold the hinge and keep constant tension on your back the whole set.

I’ve used both for years, and they aren’t interchangeable. One builds power and a strong upper back; the other is the better hypertrophy option. This article will help you decide which row gets you closer to your goal.

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There are a lot of bicep curl variations.

During any given training session at the gym, you’ll probably need at least two hands to count all of the different types of curls being performed.

Today we’ll be looking at two popular curl variations: the classic dumbbell bicep curl and the hammer curl.

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Lying Leg Curl vs. Seated Leg Curl

The main difference between a seated and lying leg curl is the amount of hip flexion. The lying leg curl has less hip flexion than the seated leg curl, which results in less muscle activation in the hamstrings. This makes the lying leg curl slightly less effective for hamstring hypertrophy.

The seated leg curl and the lying leg curl is that the seated leg curl loads the hamstring in a longer state. This makes the seated leg curl more effective at activating the hamstring muscles and increasing their size. Both exercises are equally effective at building hamstring strength.

Have you been researching assistance exercises for the hamstrings, but you’re not sure which one to pick?

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