The ONLY 6 Exercises You Need to Build Muscle (Ft. Mr. Mike Israetel)

Instead of doing a hundred exercises with just these six, you can grow every single muscle. The last exercise, it's one I've never seen in my 10 year fitness career, yet can completely change the way you train. Why should you believe me? Because I got the answers from the brightest head in the world, Mr. Mike Isretel.

I get to be relevant today. Yay. There are eight muscle groups in the human body. Now we have six exercises. I'm looking for exercises fundamentally that take care of multiple muscle groups at the same time. So the close grip incline bench allows us to hit our upper pecs. I think girls like them or something, the front delts and then the triceps. Traditionally, if we would just do a normal incline bench, then it would hit the pecs really well, the front delts really well, and the triceps kind of like meh. Close grip incline means you hit all of them kind of in the same ratio. So we're getting some good pec work, front delt work and tricep work. Typically the way you would set this up is in a regular incline bench scenario, which most gyms have. You'll notice something real quick. This is a very high incline. You don't have to go in a high incline. It can be high, it can be average, like 45 degrees, it can be 30 degrees, anything in between. It's really just dealer's choice at that point.

Yeah, and that's a good point too. Unless I was really, really careful with my elbow tuck, like this would be all front delts for me.

Here's a big, big detail. Close grip is super individual if you're gigantic. Close grips out here. If you're teeny tiny, close grip is over here. The only way to catalog if you're doing it right is can you get the bar to touch your upper chest at the bottom. And that's probably the best way to do this. You see, my shoulders are back, my chest is up, my elbows are tucked in. Gently touch every time. Press up and back. You want to resist the temptation to press forward because that's going to cantilever over and feel weird. So you start at your clavicles and end up over your eyes or just your upper part of your forehead because that's where you're going to aut.

So one thing I do notice, your wrists are directly over your elbows. I'm not sure if you care much about that with the close grip rather than imagine if you were like this.

If you want to press as much as possible and be as strong as you can Be and use your chest a ton. Wrists over elbows is a very good cue for close gripping. A lot of time your wrists are going to be inside your elbows and that's not a problem. That's actually how you generate a lever arm for the triceps and get them involved.

Exactly. So this incline, as I said, too much.

So feel free to lower it. Too much. Yeah, I see. Lowered it that much.

That was only one.

That's going to be a problem, bro. That's it. Flawless.

W Dr. Mike is literally the best trainer partner. He just compliments you.

You could always do better, brother. You're always a failure in your father's eyes.

Literally. My childhood ptsd. And that's just one of six exercises that hit multiple muscles. Now, the next one might be something you're already doing, but with a tiny adjustment, it can completely change your growth.

Next is our next upper body move, which is the underhand pull up. Any kind of pull up is great, but remember, we have six exercises and a whole lot more muscle groups. So we need to get the pull up to involve the biceps a bit more than normal, which is where the underhand pull up really shines. Underhand position, you want full stretch with a dead hang, bringing your chin to the bar just a little bit over to hang and then come back down. It's going to hit almost the entire back, definitely the lats and all the muscles that pull vertically. It's going to hit the rear delts, it's going to hit the biceps. That's three muscle groups checked off. That's a big deal. And you guys will notice he's not rushing anything. He's got plenty of power on the way up, but on the way down, he's under smooth control for that big deep stretch.

And one thing that I definitely noticed made a difference with my back involvement is that dead hang position, right? Like letting your shoulders actually like shrug up towards your ears. Getting a full stretch in your lats, but reversing that on the way up, right? Like literally shrugging down like that. Whereas before I was just kind of, you know, stay within.

You can do more pull ups like that, but no one gives a shit. People only care about how big your back is. It's arguable. No one gives a shit about that either.

Okay, so that's two out of six down.

Yes.

What do we got next?

This is why this video won't be super boring and have all the exercises everyone is already doing. But also why this video might not be the most useful unless you hear us explain it because you probably don't have access to a bar like that. And please don't misunderstand me. I don't mean like, oh, you probably train at a normal gym and not a specialty gym. I just want to communicate something really clearly. I'm phenomenally wealthy and extra privileged. And so when I say you probably don't have it, I'm looking down on you because you're poorer than me. And I honestly just don't like that. Just.

He's not lying. I saw all the Lamborghinis in the front yard.

Yeah. So this is a cambered bar bench press. The reason I have the camber bar here is because it's been shown time and again now that the deep stretch and pushing a lot of tension through that deep stretch really just does grow more muscle. And then as the bar descends, you want to lift your chest to meet the bar.

Yes, dude.

Yeah. Right.

That is a deep stretch.

One second pause at the bottom and then up.

Yeah. One thing I'm noticing with this is that you really have to focus on keeping that chest up and reaching your chest towards the bar. Otherwise, if you don't do that, you're just going to compromise. Usually just with your shoulders.

Yes.

Right shoulder rounding forward. And that's no good for your chest. And I think the same applies even just for, like a regular bench press, Right?

Absolutely.

Because I think a lot of people, they don't even have the range of motion to get a normal bench press down to the chest. So I really like that cue of shoulders back, but also reaching your chest up towards the bar.

Yes. Thank you so much. That reach cue is something we've been doing at RP for a long time, and it works super well. It works with every chest exercise. It works with flies. When you do flies, reach your chest forward at the bottom, it's going to fucking work.

I'm a fan, man. Can I take this home?

Yeah, sure. Well, we have a new one every day, so I don't care if somebody.

Doesn'T have access to the camera bar. Can you replicate this with dumbbells, for example?

Yeah. You can get a factory job. You can go bagging on the street. Dumbbells work incredibly well for this. When you do dumbbells, you want to reach around your chest. You don't just touch the dumbbells to your nipples. You want to go out a little bit and get an extra deep stretch. Regular barbell works phenomenal and machines work great. If you have a flat chest press, machine control, deep stretch for a second, come all the way back up. This works totally fine. And so when I'm traveling and I need to work out and I have a horizontal press, if I'm traveling and it's all whatever, I do whatever exercise I want. If there's a cambered bar at that gym that I go to, I'm going to be using it. If there's not, I'll probably use a straight bar. If there's not, I'll use dumbbells. If it's not, I use a machine. And if not, I just put some pads on the ground and do deficit push ups. They work great as well. So you really, really have to be in a bind workout equipment wise to not be able to do some kind of horizontal press.

We've already hit multiple muscle groups in just three exercises. But it only gets better from here, especially the last one. I've never seen anything like it. Okay, exercise number four, we still have.

To hit hamstrings somehow, right? Glutes. Another one is quads and adductors and stuff. And then the third one is side delts because you notice we've done pushing front delts, pulling rear delts. But like what is your physique if you have small side delts? So this next exercise number four addresses two of those problems right up front. This is a kamu movement that does rowing and it does the stiff legged deadlift at the same time. It's kind of cheating, you guys. We are going to take traditional overhand grip on a barbell. We are combining the barbell bent over row and the stiff legged deadlift. We're going to keep a nice tight lordotic lower back. I'm going to lower down like this all the way, my tummy out, knees back so that we have hamstring tension. So at the very bottom here I'm totally loose in my upper back. I'm totally tight in my hamstrings, totally tight. My lower back, I basically bent over. And then here I'm getting a hamstring stimulus and a glute stimulus and a lower back stimulus. And then as I come back up, I also row to my tummy, come down. Stiff legged deadlift. Row. Stiff legged deadlift. Row. Stiff legged deadlift. Nice long time spent here. Really annoying, really painful for the hams. And then row. And as you notice as I come up, it gets easier. It's a leverage advantage. So the weight that we use for stiff legged deadlifts can still be something we can row for enough reps to really benefit. Because if I did the stiff legged Deadlift part. And then I did this for the row. Jesus. I'm never going to provide enough challenge for the muscle. And then row. Yes. But spend a long time getting into that low position and go real deep. Yeah. Boom. Two cues for you. One is chest up and the other is knees back.

And are you aiming for, like, the belly button area?

Whatever's natural, whatever fits. Keep your chest up at all times, including at the bottom. Yeah. And keep those knees back to get nasty hamstring tension.

Ooh, I feel that for sure.

Yeah. It knocks out basically, like, I don't know, three muscle groups sort of at the same time. Maybe four if you count your lower back as separate. So it does lower back, it does upper back rowing, it does glutes, it does hamstrings.

The thing I like about your choice of hand placement, too, is that you went overhand over little bit wider, so it'll hit, you know, a little bit more of the rear delts and the mid upper back compared to the underhand chin ups that we did, which is going to buy us a little bit more of the lat. So it's, like, very complimentary in that way. Is this something that you would do if you were not just limited to six exercises?

So there's two questions baked in there. One is if you had more exercises. The other is if you had more time, more exercises. I could do this, but I probably wouldn't. To save time. I sure would do it.

And that's why I think a lot of people bash exercises that are less specific to a muscle, but they forget about, like, the real world and what's actually practical for the average person. It's like, I'm going to do four exercises in one here. Maybe it's not hitting each of those muscles at a hundred percent, but maybe each of them are hit at 70%. That's an amazing use of your time.

Exactly. I couldn't agree more.

Let's say don't have access to a barbell or it's a busy gym, you only have dumbbells. Is this possible with dumbbells as well?

Yes. And as a matter of fact, let me actually demo it for you really quick. What we want to do is change the cueing just a little bit and take the dumbbells and we're going to kind of tuck them into our hips at the top. So same as normal, bend all the way deep, knees back, chest up, tension on the hands. And when you come up, put the dumbbells in your pocket, stretch the dumbbells out in Front of you, real hamstring pain. Bring the dumbbells back in. Gives you a leverage advantage, makes it easier for your back, tougher for your hamstrings. Your hamstrings are stronger than your back, so that's, that's good. What's missing? Nobody cares about legs. We're done. No way.

Let's do more chest.

Yeah. Come on. So we need something that hits the glutes a little bit more. The stiff legged deadlift is so good for the hamstrings. We really just don't need any more hamstrings. So we need more quads and adductors. We need to take care of the front side of the leg. And we're going to do the high bar squat. This is my favorite leg exercise of all time. It hits quads, adductors, glutes, glutes even lower back, even a little mid back for stability. It does target your abs at heavier loads substantially. This is an exercise that's going to check a ton of boxes for us and leave it just one exercise away from a real whole body routine. Pinch your shoulder blades back. High bar squat sits right above the traps, just where the neck ends. The low bar squat sits just below the traps and intersects your rear delts. High bar we're going to be doing today right up there.

The main reason there is again, just to bias it a little bit bit more towards the front of the body.

Yes. High bar squats are going to let you stay more upright with your torso. They really hit the quads a lot more. If you want low bar, you can lift more. It's more intense for your back, more intense for your glutes, but kind of already got that with the stiff legged deadlift row combo. So this is going to be a really good thing for us. So shoulder blades back, perfect high bar position. You're going to want your toes at roughly shoulder width, pointed out a little bit so that you can really sit down in a natural way. The first thing you're going to do is push your butt back as if there's something fun back there. You're going to keep your chest up the entire time, though, so you don't want to lean over at all. You want to stay completely upright. So butt back, but chest up and then bend your knees and let your knees do the rest. All the way way over your toes with the knees full stop at the bottom and come back up. Beautiful big chest the whole time. Look forward and then knees go way over your toes.

All right, Dr. Mike. So we are five exercises deep. We're onto the last one. I'm not gonna lie, I'm getting a little concerned because there's one muscle group that we have yet to hit, and I'm not even sure if you're gonna address it.

The side delts. The side delts have been rated by scientists as the single most sexually attractive muscle in the male physique. Side delts are these guys right here, and the bigger they get, the more manly you can look.

I actually did a study on, like, the shoulder to waist ratio, the ideal ratio, and they surveyed a bunch of females from different countries. The number apparently is 1.6. And that just gets girls like crazy. If you thought the side delts were important, they are ultra important.

If I was a hot girl, I'd be walking around with a tape measure. Oh, what's up? You. You seem cool. Oh, hold on. Yeah. And, ooh, you know, this is like a lunch, coffee date, dinner date would be like, a little bit wider. We could do some laterals. Those are great and they're great. However, we haven't had a chance to do biceps. We've got some rowing, we've got some underhand, but how can we involve more of the forearm flexor muscles while also hitting side delts? While also hitting upper traps, which you've hit a little bit with stiff leg lifts, but not a ton. The answer is the dumbbell upright row. We've got something special because if we just do this, it's the side delts, and it's also going to be your traps, which is cool. But by doing the dumbbell upright row, bring it up nice and high, slowly. Control. What we're going to be able to do is do some forearm flexor work as well as your side delt work as well as the trap work. Again, we're kind of getting sort of three muscle groups here, which is awesome because we only have six exercises. A big tip on this, which I'll coach you through in a second, is to imagine that the only purpose of the exercise is to get your elbows as sky high as humanly possible. That's your cue number one. So all the way up, big elbows, and then all the way back down. And you kind of want to hold a little bit the top connect with the shoulders, and then all the way back down. This right here, this little guy, this elbow. I want it right here. That's it. And the same for that side. Boom. Notice you're coming up in front of your body. That's not wrong at all. That's totally Cool. If you want more involvement of the forearm flexors, the biceps, etcetera, Keep it closer to your body. Even closer still. Try to get the dumbbells to almost drag up your chest. Yes. Beautiful. And something you guys will get to see in the B roll is the angle of pull in. This exact technique is like all side delts. It's one of the best side delt exercises ever. And as soon as you get up to the top, Jeremy, control the descent because your body's going to want to tear that down. You're going to want to control it. And the control comes from this side delt muscle. Flawless, man. This is excellent technique.

Now, for some people like me, this can be uncomfortable on the shoulder joint and traps, so feel free to switch these out for normal lateral raises instead. So we have the six exercises. Let's say somebody can commit to two, maybe three full body workouts per week. How would you go about programming these exercises into the routine?

I would have one of two options. Day one is all of these six exercises, but in the five to 10 rep range. Pretty heavy. Day two, halfway through the week, same exercises, but sets of 10 to 15. Lighter, higher reps, a little bit of variation. Not as bad for, like, tendons and stuff like that. Injury probability goes down. The novelty psychologically goes up because the same pounding ass weights all the time, that's no fun. Lower reps, higher reps is awesome.

Do you think people can build a pretty good physique with just these two days?

A week of training, an hour in each one of those hours, you do these exercises for a few sets, I think you can establish a wonderful physique.

I've also made PDFs of the full body workouts that you can download completely free over@builtwithscience.com Only six, and we even made one for females. And for more personalized guidance, scan this QR code to try my Built with Science plus app for two weeks free, where we help thousands of members transform their physiques. All right, so we're about to head into Dr. Mike's Lamborghini. Go for a rip. Is there anywhere you want to point our viewers to where they can catch up to you? Learn some more stuff.

We have a YouTube channel, RP Strength. You'll see my giant face on it. Click on three things and do not watch it around, children, because the jokes on here are very restrained compared to what we say on the channel.

All right, let's go for a rip in the Lambo.

I love it. Rich people time.

This is much better. Than Lamborghini.