Working out with free weights is an ideal way to gain strength and put on muscle. While you can certainly reap benefits from exercising with weight machines, free weights are the first choice for most serious bodybuilders and power-lifters. Using free weights requires your muscles to help not only with the lift but with stabilizing the weights on the way up and down. Certain exercises and workout routines are staples of any good free-weight regimen.
Chest Workout
The barbell bench press is one of the most widely used and effective upper-body exercises. Try changing the angle of the bench to do incline and decline presses, which hit your pectoral muscles at different angles. Using dumbbells instead of barbells for chest presses offers a means to get an even greater range of motion. The other primary free-weight exercise for your chest is the fly, in which you lie on a bench with a dumbbell in each hand. Spread each arm out to the side, dropping the weights slightly below bench level, and bring them together as you raise them up over your head.
Back Workout
While bodyweight exercises such as pull-ups and machine exercises such as lat pull-downs are excellent choices for back workouts, you can make good use of free weights as well. The bent-over row, a taxing exercise, requires you to hunch forward at the waist, take hold of a barbell and pull it toward your chest. For the single-arm row, a dumbbell exercise, place your left knee on a bench and stand on your right leg. With your right arm, reach down, grab the dumbbell off the floor and pull it toward your ribcage.
Shoulder Workout
The military press is a core shoulder exercise in which you sit or stand straight and press a barbell over your head. In the upright row, stand straight and pull a barbell from thigh-level to your neck. Two effective dumbbell exercises for your shoulders are front raises and lateral raises. In the front raise, you take a dumbbell in each hand, extend both arms and raise them out in front of you, from thigh level to face level. The lateral raise is similar, but you extend each arm out to the side in completing the lift. Try doing front raises and lateral raises as supersets, doing a set of each back to back with no rest.
Arm Workout
The curl is the fundamental biceps exercise, and you can perform it with either barbells or dumbbells. When using dumbbells, perform both standard curls and hammer curls, in which you change the angle by turning your hands inward so the dumbbells face each other rather than the ceiling. The best free-weight triceps exercise is the triceps extension, sometimes called the "skullcrusher." Lie on a bench, take hold of a barbell and lower it backward and behind your head. Keeping your elbows stationary in the air, press the weight directly over your head.
Leg Workout
The leg squat may be the most challenging exercise of all because it requires tremendous exertion. With your feet shoulder-width apart and toes pointing straight ahead, place a barbell across your shoulders behind your neck. Bend down as far as you can or until your thighs are almost parallel to the floor, then stand back up. Good form, especially keeping your back straight, is crucial for avoiding injury. For an alternative squat exercise that emphasizes your thigh muscles over your hamstrings and glutes, place the barbell across your shoulders in front of your neck, elbows bent, and hold the bar with your palms facing the ceiling.
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