Exercise Guides: How To's and Comparisons

The sit-up is about as classic as ab exercises get. You lie on your back with your knees bent, anchor your feet somehow, and curl your whole torso up until your chest gets close to your knees. It trains your rectus abdominis through a long range of motion, and it pulls in your hip flexors too, since bringing your torso all the way up past 30 or so degrees is more hip flexion than pure ab work.

A full sit-up isn’t always kind to your body. Curling your spine through that big a range under load, especially for high reps, can aggravate your lower back, and the deeper you go past the halfway point, the more your hip flexors take over from your abs. If you do the version with your hands laced behind your head, it’s easy to yank on your neck every rep instead of using your abs to pull you up. The sit-up still has its place, but plenty of lifters need a substitute that trains the same muscles without beating up their spine or neck.

You might also want a sit-up alternative if you don’t have anything to anchor your feet under, if you want to isolate your abs without your hip flexors doing half the work, or if you’ve been doing sit-ups for months and need a new angle to keep progressing. I picked the 8 below for how well they train your abs through a real range of motion, how easy they are on your lower back and neck, and what equipment they need. A few are near-identical swaps you could drop into the same spot in your program, and a couple are far gentler options if your back is the whole reason you’re here. I’ll tell you when to use each one, exactly how to do it, and what it needs equipment-wise so you can pick based on what your gym or home setup actually has.

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The pec deck is a seated machine that isolates your chest through a fixed arc. You sit upright, brace your back against the pad, and bring your arms together in front of you against resistance, either pressing your forearms into pads (the classic pec deck) or pulling handles together (the butterfly version). The seat and arm position lock you into one path, so your chest does the work without your shoulders or triceps needing to stabilize anything. That’s what makes it such a good isolation exercise for 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps at a time.

You might need an alternative for a few reasons. Not every gym has a pec deck, and almost no home gym does, so if you train outside a commercial gym you probably don’t have access to one at all. The fixed arc is also built for an average frame, and if your shoulders are wider or narrower than that average, the pad position can dig into your shoulder joint instead of your chest. Or maybe the machine’s just occupied every time you want to use it, and you need something else to hit the same muscle without waiting around.

Here are the 8 pec deck alternatives I reach for most, picked for how well they isolate the chest through a full range of motion, how safe they are on the shoulders, and what equipment they need. Some of these are close cable equivalents you could run in the exact same program slot, and others trade some of that isolation for a heavier compound option or a true no-equipment stand-in. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The glute ham raise, or GHR, is one of the toughest hamstring exercises there is. You kneel on a GHD or glute-ham bench with your ankles locked under a pad, then lower your torso toward the floor by controlling your knees as they straighten, and pull yourself back up using your hamstrings and glutes. It’s rare in that it trains your hamstrings as a knee flexor and a hip extensor in the same rep, which is why it builds so much posterior chain strength for 2 to 3 sets of 4 to 8 reps at a time.

Most commercial gyms don’t have a GHD or a glute-ham bench at all, so you might not have the equipment to do one in the first place. Even if you do, the GHR is brutally hard. Most lifters can’t manage a single strict bodyweight rep without a partner holding their ankles or a band assisting them, which makes it a rough starting point if you’re new to the exercise or coming back from time off. Your knees and lower back can also take a beating if you push volume before you’ve built up the strength to control the descent.

I picked the 8 alternatives below because they hit your hamstrings and glutes through a similar range without needing a GHD, and most of them scale a lot easier than the GHR does. A few are close matches you could run in the exact same program slot, and others are heavier compound lifts you can lean on to build the same strength from a different angle. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The reverse fly, also called a rear delt fly, is a horizontal-abduction isolation exercise for your posterior deltoids, the small muscles that cap the back of your shoulder. You can do it bent over with a pair of dumbbells, backward on a pec deck machine, or standing at a cable stack, and in every version you’re moving your arms out and back in a wide arc while your elbows stay mostly straight. It’s one of the few exercises that isolates the rear delts almost on their own, which matters because most pressing and pulling work barely touches them, for 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps at a time.

You might need a substitute for a few reasons. The rear delt machine is often the busiest piece of equipment in a commercial gym’s shoulder section, and you’re not waiting around for it. Bent-over dumbbell reverse flies can aggravate a cranky lower back if you’re hinging for high reps, and the light weights involved make it tempting to swing the dumbbells instead of actually working the muscle. Or maybe you’ve noticed your rear delts lagging behind your front and side delts and you want a couple of angles that hit them harder than your current rotation does.

Here are the 8 reverse fly alternatives I’d reach for, picked for how directly they isolate the rear delts, how easy they are on the shoulder joint and lower back, and what equipment they actually need. A few of these are near-identical swaps for whichever version of the reverse fly you normally run, and a couple pull double duty as upper back builders when you want more from the same set. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The cable curl is a standing biceps curl you perform off a low pulley, usually with a straight bar or EZ-bar attachment. You stand facing the machine, grip the bar, and curl it up toward your shoulders while your elbows stay pinned at your sides. Because the cable pulls at an angle instead of straight down, your biceps stay under tension through the entire rep, even at the top and bottom where a dumbbell or barbell curl goes slack. That constant tension is why the cable curl builds so much size for 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps at a time.

You might want an alternative for a few reasons. Not every gym has an open low pulley, and if you train at home you probably don’t have a cable stack at all. Cable curls also don’t let you load as heavy as a barbell or dumbbell curl, so if you’re chasing raw strength or a bigger arm on a budget of time, a free-weight option gets you there faster. Or maybe you’ve been running cable curls for months and your biceps have stopped responding, so you need a new stimulus to keep growing.

Here are the 8 cable curl alternatives I reach for most, picked for how well they keep tension on the biceps, how much weight you can load, and what equipment they need. Some of these are near-identical swaps you could run in the exact same program slot, and others are heavier compound-adjacent options for when you want to build strength and size at once. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The spider curl is a strict biceps isolation exercise where you lie face down on a steep incline bench with your chest pressed into the pad and your arms hanging straight down, perpendicular to the floor. Holding an EZ bar or a pair of dumbbells, you curl the weight up toward your face and lower it back under control. Because your torso is locked flat against the bench, you can’t swing your hips or lean back to help the weight up, so every rep comes from your biceps alone. That strict position, combined with your arms hanging slightly in front of your body instead of at your sides, puts extra emphasis on the short head and gives you a hard peak contraction at the top of each rep.

You might want a substitute for a few reasons. Not every gym has a steep enough preacher bench set up for the face-down position, since plenty of preacher benches are built for the seated, arms-on-pad version instead. Getting into position can be awkward too, especially if you’re tall and your chest and hips don’t line up well on the pad. Or maybe your biceps have plateaued on spider curls and you want a different angle to keep growing.

Here are the 8 spider curl alternatives I reach for most, picked for how strictly they isolate the biceps, how close they get to that same peak contraction, and what equipment they need. Some of these are close swaps you could run in the exact same slot as a spider curl, and others trade a little strictness for more weight on the bar. A couple hit the biceps from a completely different angle, which is worth having in your back pocket once your progress on spider curls slows down. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The hanging leg raise is one of the best exercises there is for your lower abs and hip flexors. You hang from a pull-up bar with your arms straight and your body still, then raise your legs, straight or bent, up toward your chest by flexing at the hips. That dead hang takes your legs out of contact with the ground entirely, so your abs and hip flexors do all the work of lifting them, with no momentum from a swing or a push off the floor to help you cheat the rep.

You might want an alternative for a few reasons. Most gyms don’t have an open pull-up bar when you need one, and plenty of home setups don’t have one at all. Your grip and forearms can also give out well before your abs do, especially if you’ve already done pull-ups or rows earlier in the session, and that cuts the set short for the wrong reason. Or your shoulders just don’t love supporting your full bodyweight in a dead hang, and you’d rather train the same hip-flexion pattern from a position that doesn’t ask them to do that.

Here are the 8 hanging leg raise alternatives I reach for most, picked for how closely they keep that hip-flexion, lower-ab pattern, how well they scale from easy to hard, and what equipment they need. Some of these are near-identical swaps you could run in the exact same program slot, and others are easier regressions or heavier progressions for when you want to build up to, or past, a strict hanging leg raise. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The pendulum squat is a plate loaded machine that swings your body through a wide arc as you squat, so the resistance angle changes throughout the rep instead of staying fixed the way it does on a leg press. You stand on an angled platform with a padded shoulder yoke or chest pad holding your torso in place, then bend your knees to sink into a deep squat before driving back up. That arc keeps real tension on your quads through the whole range, especially in the bottom position where a barbell squat starts to lose it, and it’s why the pendulum squat has become one of the go-to machines for quad size in bigger gyms.

You’ll probably need an alternative at some point, mostly because not many gyms actually have one. The pendulum squat machine is expensive and eats up serious floor space, so you’ll find it at bigger commercial gyms and specialty strength gyms, not the average globo gym or a home setup. Maybe your gym has one but there’s always a line for it, or you’re on the road and need a hotel gym substitute. Or you’ve been running pendulum squats for months and your quads have adapted, so a different angle or a free weight option would do more for your legs right now.

I picked these 8 based on how well they keep that same supported, quad-dominant loading the pendulum squat gives you, whether they’re a machine, a belt-loaded setup, or a straight barbell or dumbbell lift. Some are close to a plug and play swap you can run in the exact same slot in your program, and others ask a bit more of your own stabilizers since there’s no machine doing the balancing for you. I’ll tell you when to reach for each one and exactly how to perform it.

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The back extension, also called the hyperextension or 45-degree back extension, is a staple for building a strong lower back. You set your hips against the pad of a 45-degree bench, lock your feet under the rollers, then bend forward at the hips and extend back up until your body forms a straight line. It trains your spinal erectors directly, plus your glutes and hamstrings on the way up, and it’s one of the few exercises that works the lower back on its own instead of as a stabilizer for something else.

You might want an alternative for a few reasons. Not every gym has a 45-degree back extension bench, and most home gyms skip it entirely since it takes up floor space for one exercise. Some lifters find that extending the lower back into that top position is uncomfortable, especially if they’re dealing with a disc issue or they’re new to training their erectors and don’t yet have the control to keep the movement in their hips instead of their spine. And once bodyweight back extensions get easy, the bench puts a hard ceiling on how much load you can add without holding a plate awkwardly across your chest.

Here are the 8 back extension alternatives I reach for most, picked for how well they train the same lower back, glute, and hamstring chain, how safe they are for a lower back that doesn’t love loaded spinal extension, and what equipment they actually need. A few of these trade pure spinal extension for a hip-dominant hinge pattern, which is usually the safer and more useful swap for most lifters anyway. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The step-up is a unilateral lower body exercise where you drive your whole bodyweight onto an raised box or bench using a single leg, then step back down and repeat. You can do it with just bodyweight, a pair of dumbbells, or a barbell on your back, and box height usually runs anywhere from knee height to just above it. It trains your quads hardest, with a heavy dose of glutes and hamstrings on the hip extension at the top, and it adds a real balance and stability demand since you’re pushing your entire body up on one leg with no spot from the other.

You might want a change for a few reasons. Not every gym has a box tall enough, and a busy platform or step deck is often the first thing taken during peak hours. A high step-up can also load your knee hard right at end-range flexion when your thigh is past parallel, which some lifters feel in the front of the knee once the reps add up. Or maybe you’ve run step-ups for months and your legs have stopped responding, so you need a fresh angle to keep making progress.

Here are the 8 step-up alternatives I turn to most, picked for how well they still hit your quads and glutes one leg at a time, how safe they are on the knees, and what equipment they need. Some are near-identical unilateral swaps you could drop into the exact same program slot, and a couple trade off the balance demand for more raw load. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The Arnold press takes a regular dumbbell shoulder press and adds a rotation, so your palms start facing you at the bottom and finish facing forward at the top. That extra twist puts your shoulder through more of its range than a standard press does, and it’s why the exercise trains your front, side, and rear deltoids in a single lift instead of just the front delt like most overhead presses. I’ve got a full breakdown of the exercise itself, its benefits, and exactly which muscles it hits, in our Arnold press benefits and muscles worked guide, so I won’t repeat all of that here.

You might still want a swap for it. The rotation is the whole point of the exercise, but it’s also what makes it hard to learn, and a shoulder that’s already cranky doesn’t always love twisting under load. Some lifters just get more out of a straight vertical press without the added coordination demand, and if you’re chasing a heavier top set, the rotation caps how much weight you can control safely. Or maybe you’ve been running Arnold presses for months and want a new angle to keep your shoulders growing.

Here are the 8 Arnold press alternatives I’d reach for, ranked by how closely they train the same all-around deltoid coverage, how safe they are on the shoulder joint, and what equipment they need. A couple of these are near-identical presses you could drop straight into the same program slot. Others trade the rotation for heavier loading or a more targeted finish. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The front raise is a shoulder isolation exercise that trains your anterior deltoid through shoulder flexion. You hold a weight in front of your thighs and raise it forward and up to about shoulder height, keeping your elbows nearly straight the whole time. It’s a simple exercise, but it does a good job of isolating the front of the shoulder in a way that pressing movements don’t, since your triceps and chest aren’t around to share the load.

You might want an alternative for a few reasons. Standing dumbbell front raises put the shoulder in a mechanically weak position right at the top, where plenty of lifters feel pinching or discomfort, especially if they raise the weight above shoulder height. Some gyms don’t have a spare set of light dumbbells free when you need them, and if you train at home you might only have a barbell or a band. Or maybe your front delts are already well developed from bench pressing and overhead pressing, and what you actually need is a smarter way to hit them without adding more isolation volume than your shoulders can recover from.

Here are the 8 front raise alternatives I’d reach for, picked for how well they train the anterior delt, how safe they are on the shoulder joint, and what equipment they need. A few of these are near-identical swaps for the exact same slot in your program, and a couple are heavier compound lifts that build the front delt as part of a bigger movement instead of in isolation. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The Nordic curl, also called the Nordic hamstring curl, is one of the toughest exercises you can do for your hamstrings without touching a weight. You kneel on a pad with your ankles locked under a partner’s hands, a GHD footplate, or a Nordic curl bench, then lower your torso toward the floor as slowly as you can, using only your hamstrings to control the descent. That eccentric lowering phase is the whole point. It’s what makes the Nordic curl one of the most studied exercises in sports science for cutting hamstring strain injury rates in team-sport athletes by roughly half.

You’ll want an alternative for a few practical reasons. Most gyms don’t have a Nordic curl bench, and you need a partner willing to pin your ankles down if you don’t have one. The exercise itself is brutally hard on its own. Most lifters can’t control a single full rep without their hamstrings giving out and their chest slamming toward the floor, so it’s a rough starting point if you haven’t built up eccentric hamstring strength first. Or maybe kneeling on a hard pad for reps bothers your knees, and you’d rather build the same strength standing, seated, or lying down instead.

Here are the 8 Nordic curl alternatives I’d reach for, picked for how well they train the hamstrings through knee flexion or a hip hinge, how much equipment they need, and how safely you can scale them from a true beginner up to someone chasing the same eccentric strength a Nordic curl builds. A few of these are close substitutes you could run in the exact same program slot, and a few are heavier hip-hinge options that build the same posterior chain from a completely different joint action. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The sissy squat is a knee-dominant quad isolation exercise where you extend your hips instead of flexing them as you drop into a deep knee bend, leaning your torso back while your heels rise off the floor. That combination hits the rectus femoris harder than almost any other quad exercise, since it’s the one head of your quads that crosses both your hip and knee joints, and stretching it at the hip while bending it hard at the knee is exactly what builds that “teardrop” look above your kneecap. Most people do it holding onto a rack or a TRX strap for balance, or on a dedicated sissy squat bench if their gym has one.

You might want a swap for a few reasons. That deep knee bend under a backward lean puts real stress on your patellar tendon right at the bottom, and if your knees already bother you, a sissy squat can make that worse before it makes your quads bigger. The balance alone trips most people up.

It takes weeks to learn to control the lean without a strap to hold onto, and most commercial gyms don’t own a sissy squat bench, so you’re stuck rigging something with a rack or a pair of rings. Or maybe you’ve built the pattern already and want more ways to load your quads once bodyweight reps stop being hard.

I picked the 8 alternatives below for how well they load your quads through a deep knee bend without needing sissy squat-specific gear, and for how much control you have over the range and the load. If your knees ache in that extreme flexed position, ease into range gradually on any of these and back off the ones that spike pain instead of pushing through it. Here’s how I’d rank them and how to run each one.

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The inverted row is a bodyweight horizontal pull where you hang underneath a bar, a suspension trainer, or a set of rings and pull your chest up to it while your feet stay on the floor. It trains your mid-back hard, your lats, your rear delts, and your biceps as a secondary mover, and you can make it harder or easier just by changing your body angle. Walk your feet out to make it steeper and harder, or bend your knees and stand more upright to make it easier. I’ve got a full breakdown of the muscles it hits and why it’s worth doing in our inverted row benefits and muscles worked guide if you want the deeper dive.

You might need an alternative for a few reasons. Not every gym has a bar set at the right height in a rack, and plenty of home gyms don’t have anywhere to hang under at all. If you’re strong enough that bodyweight inverted rows stop being challenging, you’re stuck adding a weighted vest or a chain around your neck just to keep loading the movement, and that’s gear most people don’t own. Or your rack might be tied up with someone squatting and you need a row you can do on a cable stack or with a pair of dumbbells instead. Some lifters just want more back exercises in rotation so the same 3 sets don’t get stale week after week.

Here are the 8 inverted row alternatives I reach for most, picked for how well they keep that same horizontal pulling line into your mid-back, how safe they are on your shoulders and elbows, and what equipment they need. A few of these are close to a straight swap, and others let you load a lot heavier once bodyweight stops being enough. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The tricep kickback is a single-joint isolation exercise where you hinge forward at the hips, pin your upper arm against your side, and extend your elbow to press a dumbbell straight back behind you. Your upper arm doesn’t move at all. Only your forearm travels, and the whole rep ends with your arm locked out straight behind your body, which is where your triceps hit their hardest squeeze. It’s a light exercise, usually 2 or 3 sets of 12 to 20 reps, and it’s almost always programmed at the end of an arm day rather than as a main lift.

You might want a swap for a few reasons. A dumbbell kickback loses almost all its resistance once your arm passes horizontal, so the hardest part of the lift, the lockout, is also the part with the least load on it. That’s backward from how you’d usually want to train a peak contraction. Some gyms don’t have open bench space for it, your lower back might not love the bent-over hold for high reps, or you’ve simply run kickbacks for months and your triceps have stopped responding to them.

Here are the 8 tricep kickback alternatives I reach for most, ranked by how well they isolate the triceps with a real peak contraction at full elbow extension, how they load compared to a kickback’s weak resistance curve, and what equipment they need. A few of these are near-identical swaps that fix the kickback’s biggest flaw, and others are heavier or bodyweight options for when you want something different entirely. I’ve mixed in cable, dumbbell, band, and bodyweight versions so you can pick one that fits whatever equipment you’ve actually got in front of you. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The concentration curl is a seated, single-arm dumbbell exercise where you brace the back of your working elbow against the inside of your thigh and curl the weight up with nothing else moving. That braced position removes your shoulders and your torso from the lift entirely, so your biceps take the full load, and it’s one of the best exercises there is for building a hard peak contraction at the top of the rep. Most lifters run it for 2 to 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps per arm, usually toward the end of an arm day once the heavier compound pulling is done. Bodybuilders lean on it specifically because the strict setup makes it easy to feel exactly which part of the biceps is doing the work, which is harder to judge on a standing curl where your shoulders and hips can take over.

You might still want a substitute. Leaning forward with your elbow braced on your thigh can bother your lower back once the sets add up, and training one arm at a time doubles how long the exercise takes compared to a lift you can do with both arms together. Not every gym has open bench space, and if you train at home you might only have a cable setup or a curl machine. Or your biceps have just stopped responding to the same angle after months of running it the same way.

Here are the 8 concentration curl alternatives I’d reach for, ranked by how closely each one reproduces that braced, single-arm, peak-contraction loading. I picked these for how strictly they isolate the biceps and how safe they are on your elbows and lower back, with plenty of dumbbell and cable options plus one machine pick, so you can find something that fits your gym. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The crunch is the classic ab isolation exercise. You lie on your back with your knees bent, curl your shoulder blades a few inches off the floor by flexing your spine, then lower back down. Unlike a sit-up, you’re not bringing your whole torso up to your knees, just rounding your upper spine enough to squeeze your abs. It’s simple, it needs no equipment, and it trains your rectus abdominis directly through the exact motion that makes your abs shorten and contract.

You might still want to swap it out. Repeated spinal flexion can irritate your lower back or neck once you’re doing high reps a few times a week, especially if your form breaks down and you start yanking on your neck to get your shoulders up. A plain crunch also plateaus fast since your bodyweight is the only resistance, and it doesn’t do much for your obliques or your lower abs on its own. Maybe you just want a version you can load with weight, or one that trains the same muscle from a completely different angle.

Here are the 8 crunch alternatives I reach for most, picked for how well they train your abs through spinal flexion or anti-flexion, how easy they are on your neck and lower back, and what equipment they need. Some of these are close bodyweight swaps you could run in the exact same program slot, a couple let you add real weight, and a few skip flexion entirely for lifters whose backs don’t tolerate it well. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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The deadlift is one of the best lifts there is for building full-body strength, but you’ve got two main ways to pull from the floor: sumo and conventional. They look different, they feel different, and they load your body in different places.

Neither one is better across the board. The right pull for you comes down to your build, your goals, and which version you can load and recover from. This article walks through the differences, the pros and cons of each, the muscles they hit, and how to decide which one to put your time into.

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The sumo deadlift is a deadlift variation where you take a stance wider than shoulder width, turn your toes out, and grip the bar with your hands inside your knees instead of outside them. That wide stance drops your hips lower before you pull, which shortens the distance the bar has to travel and puts your torso in a more upright position than a conventional deadlift ever will. Because your hips and knees are both bent more at the start, your quads and adductors do a lot more of the work pulling the weight off the floor, while your lower back handles less shear force than it does in a conventional pull.

You might want an alternative for a few reasons. Sumo pulling isn’t kind to tight hips, and if your adductors or groin don’t love that wide stance under load, you’ll feel it fast. Some gyms don’t have the platform space for a proper sumo setup, and a crowded rack makes the wide stance awkward to work around. Or maybe your lower back has been the limiting factor on your pulling and you want a lift that trains the same hip drive and quad-adductor stimulus without loading your spine as hard.

I picked the 8 alternatives below because each one keeps some piece of what makes a sumo deadlift work, whether that’s the wide stance and toed-out adductor stretch or the heavy hip-dominant pull, across a mix of barbell, kettlebell, cable, and machine equipment. Some of these are close enough to run in the exact same program slot. Others are worth adding on top to build size or to train around an injury. I’ll tell you when to use each one and exactly how to do it.

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