10 most important exercises for mass and strength

Author: Timko Ilya - master of the whole project and fitness trainer.
2016-08-07

I was thinking that if a voice from above said to me something like: “My son, you must stick to only 10 exercises and not touch the others.” So I pondered, what would be the 10 most essential exercises for muscle and strength growth?

In general, I have about 200 strength exercises in my arsenal. In my routines, I usually use no more than 100 exercises, of which about 40-50 are foundational. For a complete training plan, 20-30 exercises are sufficient. But I need to choose just 10 exercises. Sounds easy!

Here they are:

4 pressing exercises, 3 pulling exercises, 2 for the lower body, and 1 for the abs. By clicking on the “load” button, you can view the muscle load for all these exercises.

Why am I writing this article at all? Well, quite a few people don’t have much time for training and work out 2 times a week for an hour. For such individuals, a limited selection of exercises becomes quite acute. They simply don’t have time for a large number of exercises.

But why did I choose these particular exercises? Simply because they are the best for building strength and muscle. The answer is obvious! This statement of mine is backed by personal experience training hundreds of men and women.

Therefore, if you have very little time, using just these 10 exercises is sufficient. They will provide you with approximately 85% of the results. This is based on considering 100% as the effect from all 200 exercises that I know. Use them for your health. Good luck!