If muscle gain is your goal, you must consider more than your fitness routine. In addition to performing muscle-building exercises, you need to eat a balanced diet high in protein and complex carbs, and get adequate sleep. Good exercises to gain muscle are compound--this means they involve multiple muscle groups working in unison. Use compound exercises to recruit a high amount of muscle fibers.
Bench Press
Bench presses, chest presses and push-ups all work three muscles at once--your pectorals, deltoids and triceps. The pecs are your chest muscles, the delts are on the outside of your shoulders and the triceps are on the back of your upper arms.
The biggest difference with bench presses and chest presses is that bench presses are done with a barbell. To do them, lie face-up on a flat bench, hold the bar straight above you with a wide grip and lower it until it lightly touches your chest. Push the barbell back up and repeat.
Even though push-ups are body-resistance exercises, they still activate multiple muscles. To perform push-ups, place your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart on the floor, place your toes together and raise your hips to form a straight back. Lower your chest to the floor, push back up and repeat.
Overhead Press
The overhead press, also known as the military press, works your anterior, or front, delts; upper pecs; trapezius and serratus muscles. The traps are the large muscles on top of your shoulders, while your serratus muscles are on the sides of your upper ribcage.
Perform the overhead press with dumbbells or a barbell. While standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, hold the bar at upper chest height with your palms slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Forcefully push the bar straight above you and hold for a second. Lower it to the starting point and repeat. For a variation, perform this exercise while sitting on the end of a bench or on a workout chair.
Parallel Dips
Dips work your triceps and chest muscles simultaneously. This exercise requires a dip machine that has two parallel bars and foot rests at the bottom.
To perform a parallel dip, place your hands on the bars, lift your feet off the rests and hold yourself in the air. Slowly lower your body as you lean forward slightly. Once your upper arms are parallel to the floor, push yourself up and repeat. To add resistance, hold a dumbbell between your lower legs or strap on a dip belt harness and add weight plates.
Pull-ups
Pull-ups work your upper latissimus dorsi muscles, rhomboids, biceps, upper pecs and traps. The lats are the V-shaped muscles in your back, the rhomboids are between your shoulders and the biceps are on your upper front arms.
While any pull-up variation works all of these muscles, you can change the focus by moving your hands into different positions. For example, to place more emphasis on your biceps, perform reverse grip pull-ups with your palms facing toward you--these also are known as chin-ups. To place more emphasis on your lats and rhomboids, perform pull-ups with your hands in a wide, overhand grip. All pull-ups are performed the same way--hang from the bar and alternate raising and lowering your body by bending your elbows.
Deadlift
The deadlift is a leg exercise that also works your lower back. The deadlift targets your quadriceps, which are on the front of your thigh; the hamstrings, which are on the back of your thigh; your glutes, which are the butt muscles; and the erector spinae, which run down your spine.
To perform this exercise, grasp a barbell on the ground with a shoulder-width grip. Use either an under-handed or over-handed grip. Lift the barbell off the floor, come to a full standing position and lower it back down. You also can use dumbbells to perform a deadlift.
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