The Protein Corner

The best exercises for building your forearms are ones that rely on grip strength to hold or pull a heavy weight—deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, pull-ups, shrugs, and all heavy rows.  And most of the time, these classic strength training exercises are all you need to build a pair of proportionate, strong, muscular forearms.  Nine times out of ten, when someone claims their forearms are “undersized,” the culprit is a lack of heavy pulling, not a lack of dedicated forearm exercises.  That said, if you feel your forearms are lagging despite your heavy pulling, there are two things you can do about it: Use weightlifting straps sparingly.   Weightlifting straps make it easier to hold heavy weights, especially on deadlifts, rows, and lat pulldowns.  This prevents your grip strength from becoming a limiting factor in your sets, but it also reduces how hard your forearms have to work.  I recommend you use straps sparingly to get the best of both worlds. Specifically, I recommend usi...

You’re probably here because you want to get defined six-pack abs, and you’ve heard you need to train your obliques to achieve this. I’ll explain the best exercises for training your obliques and how to put them into a workout, but before we get into that, it’s worth knowing the truth about getting a six-pack: You must lose body fat if you want to see your abs and obliques. No amount of oblique training will give you V-cut abs if your body fat percentage is too high. Get lean—that’s the only way your obliques will ever show. You don’t need dedicated ab exercises to get a six-pack, much less specific oblique exercises. That said, the idea that you should avoid training your obliques because it’ll make your waist look “blocky” is also misguided. For most people, the abs are sufficiently stimulated by compound exercises (squats, chin-ups, etc.) to get a six-pack. No direct ab work required. All of that said, the abs (including t...