Your best & worst exercises

[Guybrush]

Yo my fellow beef jerkies 💪

This thread is simple. Which exercises do you like and which ones don't you like? Feel free to explain why.

I'll try a format where I'll say a bad exercise and suggest a good replacement.

Bench press with a barbell I now consider bad. It can hurt the shoulder joints and because the bar won't go lower than your chest, you also don't get a good boob stretch. I replaced the barbell with dumbbells or instead do pushups with pushup bars (both good).

Situps I currently consider bad. Doing them at a decline with a plate in my arms, I had progress, but it was frankly unpleasant and I've had way more success swapping this for another exercise that I'm frankly not sure what's called. It's basically lying on a flat bench, ass on the edge, straight legs, then raising those legs up until they're over your face / so high you lift your ass up. Rinse and repeat. I attach a plate to my legs and it's much more comfortable than situps from a decline plus actually burns a lot more. Quicker progress too.

[grindy]

Yo my fellow beef jerkies 💪

This thread is simple. Which exercises do you like and which ones don't you like? Feel free to explain why.

I'll try a format where I'll say a bad exercise and suggest a good replacement.

Bench press with a barbell I now consider bad. It can hurt the shoulder joints and because the bar won't go lower than your chest, you also don't get a good boob stretch. I replaced the barbell with dumbbells or instead do pushups with pushup bars (both good).

Situps I currently consider bad. Doing them at a decline with a plate in my arms, I had progress, but it was frankly unpleasant and I've had way more success swapping this for another exercise that I'm frankly not sure what's called. It's basically lying on a flat bench, ass on the edge, straight legs, then raising those legs up until they're over your face / so high you lift your ass up. Rinse and repeat. I attach a plate to my legs and it's much more comfortable than situps from a decline plus actually burns a lot more. Quicker progress too.

First one is the opposite for me. I love bench press, it feels great and due to my proportions I get a really nice stretch. That's also probably why I am weak af on it. I would love to try a cambered bar for an even bigger stretch but don't want to put too much money and effort into it tbh. On the other hand I don't like dumbbell press all that much, it feels very unstable and I can barely progress on it. At one time I've been doing it for almost a year with barely any weight progression, then switched to barbell and doubled my numbers in a very short time.
Push ups are a nice alternative if you don't have a gym, but I don't like having to focus on stabilizing my body.

Agree on the ab thing, I've also developped something similar by myself.
Interestingly RP recently crowned this as the single best ab exercise and this is pretty much how I do it.

I'm not training abs currently but I might train them a bit when I'm leaner.

As for my own best exercises, it's kinda hard to say. Everything I do is extremely basic and I love all of it.

[Guybrush]

Hey!! That's basically my ab exercise too so now I got a name to it, modified candlestick. I'm gonna use this vid to improve my form a bit, thanks for sharing! Last time I did it was with a weighted plate attached to my feet, so my plan is to increase that weight and reduce reps a bit. Adjusting my form a bit should also make them more demanding (making sure I add that leg stretch at the end of the movement).

About the bench press and my reasons for abandoning it, I could've added that I wanted to do dips but didn't have a dip rack and so I tried out doing bench presses with the bench in decline. I quickly realized, as I don't have a spotter, that what I was doing was actually dangerous. At worst, dropping the bar would have it roll down on my neck and so the safety aspect was also a contributing factor to why I switched to dumbbells.

I've seen progress with both exercises and seemed to break through a pleateau earlier this month on dumbbell presses, but I do think it's fairly slow going. I've progressed so much faster with squats which might be my favorite exercise overall. I don't love actually doing them because they're hard (I'm usually kinda scared going in), but in terms of me seeing progress, they're great.

Adding more to this thread - I kinda commented on this already, but about regular pushups, I consider them bad. It takes too many reps for hypertrophy and so it doesn't quite align with my goals, but using pushup bars and going deep (kinda down and in between them) transforms it into a much more stretchy and demanding exercise, making it good. It's right for my current level which is 4 x 11 reps. I'm gonna try today and might do it or might fail last rep. We'll see. If I was strong like @jimmy jazz , I probably wouldn't do pushups at all (with the goals I currently have).

[grindy]

Hey!! That's basically my ab exercise too so now I got a name to it, modified candlestick. I'm gonna use this vid to improve my form a bit, thanks for sharing! Last time I did it was with a weighted plate attached to my feet, so my plan is to increase that weight and reduce reps a bit. Adjusting my form a bit should also make them more demanding (making sure I add that leg stretch at the end of the movement).

About the bench press and my reasons for abandoning it, I could've added that I wanted to do dips but didn't have a dip rack and so I tried out doing bench presses with the bench in decline. I quickly realized, as I don't have a spotter, that what I was doing was actually dangerous. At worst, dropping the bar would have it roll down on my neck and so the safety aspect was also a contributing factor to why I switched to dumbbells.

I've seen progress with both exercises and seemed to break through a pleateau earlier this month on dumbbell presses, but I do think it's fairly slow going. I've progressed so much faster with squats which might be my favorite exercise overall. I don't love actually doing them because they're hard (I'm usually kinda scared going in), but in terms of me seeing progress, they're great.

Adding more to this thread - I kinda commented on this already, but about regular pushups, I consider them bad. It takes too many reps for hypertrophy and so it doesn't quite align with my goals, but using pushup bars and going deep (kinda down and in between them) transforms it into a much more stretchy and demanding exercise, making it good. It's right for my current level which is 4 x 11 reps. I'm gonna try today and might do it or might fail last rep. We'll see. If I was strong like @jimmy jazz , I probably wouldn't do pushups at all (with the goals I currently have).

Decline bench press isn't a great exercise. I much prefer flat. Incline feels weird to me and my shoulders tend to give out first.

Push ups like you described are really great and quite difficult. I'd also recommend to put your feet on something so your body is completely horizontal. Makes it even more difficult.