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Men's Health MVP Exclusives

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(upbeat music) - 50 is not the end. You can still get into the best shape of your life and pack on badass muscle and strength. I'll give you everything you need to build the muscle your body needs and wants safely and efficiently. Let's muscle up to 50 together. Welcome to "Max Muscle at 50" pull day. Now we're gonna start things off with a body weight drill to wake up the glutes, the hamstrings, the whole posterior chain. It's a single leg body weight hip thrust. You just need a bench. Get on like so. Want to have your upper, mid to upper back supported by the bench with your legs out and feet planted so you're at about 90 degrees. Bring your hips up and you're going to extend one leg. And then from here, we're just gonna drop down and then pushing up through the heel, extend up. We're gonna do eight to 10 reps of this. That's two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. One more. Eight. Harder than they look. Switch sides. Again, feet are at a 90 degrees. Wanna keep those hips up, extend the leg, and dip down. Up. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven, one more. And eight. Great. Let's get on to the meat of this workout. We're gonna start with a dumbbell Romanian deadlift. Big basic exercise for the whole posterior chain, specifically the hamstrings. And on this one, we're gonna use basically the heaviest weight that we could do for around eight to 10 reps. This is a good classic bodybuilding exercise, except instead of using a barbell, we're gonna use dumbbells, which is just a lot safer and easier to learn. So we're gonna do eight to 10 reps and we're gonna do three sets. And again, don't be afraid to go heavy. Feet shoulder width apart, stand tall, soft lock in the knees, chest up. What you're gonna do from this position is you're just gonna drive your butt back. So you're not bending at the knees. You can slide the dumbbells, drop down to about knee level, pause, and then come up and finish. That's one. To know you're doing this right is if you're feeling a big stretch in your hamstrings and not any fatigue in your lower back. That's four. That's five. Six. Seven. Eight. Now you're gonna rest for a minute. Probably my favorite overall hamstring exercise. Great mass builder. And again, don't be afraid to use heavier loads. Now what's the difference between a Romanian deadlift and just a standard conventional deadlift? Even with using a barbell, they're very, very different lifts. Conventional deadlift, you're bending at the knees, so it's much more similar to a squat. Whereas the Romanian deadlift, you don't have that knee bend, so it's much more emphasizing the hamstrings and the glutes. So again, feet slightly wider, shoulder width, shoulders back, chest up, breathe in, and point the glutes back at the wall. Let stretch, that's one, one rep. All I'm feeling right now is my hamstrings. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. One more. And eight. (dumbbells thud) Rest one minute for that last set. Now this is the type of exercise we call a hip hinge. It's one of the essential movement patterns along with a squat, which, as well as a vertical and horizontal push and pull. So those are the six kind of key movement patterns. A hip hinge is a very, you know, kind of functional movement to include in your training as well 'cause, you know, throughout your daily life, you might be, you know, bending over to pick things up. So, and you're not always going to be, you know, doing that perfect bending of the knees and like you see in the helpful videos. So it's just a great way to prepare yourself for everyday life. Alright, last, last set. Like so. Chest tall. Glutes towards the wall, so not bending at the knees. Feel that pull, up. That's one. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. One more. And eight. (dumbbells thud) Ooh. All right, rest one minute before we move on to the next pairing, which is a row variation, an incline row working into an incline dumbbell shrug. It's a mechanical advantage super set again, really effective way to hammer the remaining functions of the posterior chain. Much like the dumbbell RDL, I encourage you to go as heavy as you can for the target rep range in this rowing variation. Because your back is supported, it's safe, so push yourself. So we wanna set your bench at about 45 degrees. Like so. Again, moderately heavy dumbbells. On the bench. So your upper chest is over the top of the bench. Let your arms hang down, palms facing together like this. And now you're going to just pull up through the elbows. That's one. Two, dead stretch. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Get to 10. Eight. Nine. And 10. And now from a dead hang position, you're gonna just shrug. It's one. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine, one more. And 10. Ooh. We are gonna rest one minute, repeat this for a second set. And we'll be doing three sets total of this super set. The incline row. Again, there's so many different variations of this you can do just by altering the bar path, or excuse me, the dumbbell path. Again, do that elbows flared version, you can tuck it to the shoulders, you can even alternate and get in a little bit of rotation. It's a really, really versatile lift. And the nice thing is you're supported the whole time so you're not gonna injure the lower back. All right. Position like so, chest over the top of the bench, dead hang here, and pulling up through the elbows. So you just want to think that your hands are like hooks here. That's two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. And 10. Little dead hang, and just switching to a shrug. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. And eight. (dumbbells thud) Ooh. Okay, we can rest one minute and then do the third and final set of the super set. The shrugs kind of get a bad rap as either like as a dangerous exercise or a very body builder-y kind of exercise or even a useless exercise. But that those, they're referring to like a standing barbell or dumbbell shrug. Doing them at 45 degrees like this works much more the lower traps, which is really, really helpful to condition, especially if you are sitting at a desk all day or just starting to develop these signs of adaptive shortening. Strengthening these muscles goes a long way to eliminating back pain, neck pain, and even just that keyboard syndrome that we see. All right. Third and final set. Position like so. Dead hang and one. Two. Three. Four. Full stretch. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Last one, 10. And now into that shrug motion. Good full stretch, scapulas depressed and retract. Retract, that's two. Three. Four. Five. Seven. Eight. Nine. One more, 10. (dumbbells thud) All right, rest one minute, we're done with back. Now we're gonna move on to biceps. We're gonna do another super set pairing, a mechanical advantage pairing of a seated bilateral dumbbell hammer curl for eight to 10 reps. And that once we hit 10, we're gonna stand up and then do alternate cross body hammer curls. So by standing up and doing the alternating motion, we'll be able to crank out more reps. Okay. Our dumbbells like so. And now with me, I have an impinged shoulder, so I have to be slightly rotated forward just to take stress off the long head of the bicep where it inserts into the shoulder. So that's why I'm a little bit like this. And we just do hammer curls. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Two more. Nine. And 10. Stand up. Switch to an alternating cross body hammer curl. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. 10. (dumbbells thud) Ooh. Rest a minute and repeat. So why the hammer curls? Why not a supinating curl? Well, by all means, do a supinating curl. All these variations are excellent because they all recruit different parts of the biceps and the forearms and they recruit the different heads preferentially. So the best advice is to use a variety of movements, get all these different types of stimulation, but even more importantly, never work through pain. So if you're doing one, like for me, if I do an incline dumbbell curl, that really hurts my shoulder joint. And even though it's a fantastic exercise, I just can't do it. So that's kind of the logic you wanna apply to exercise selection. There's always the best and the optimum and then there's what you can do pain free, and that's number one. Okay. Second and final super set. Slightly forward, strong grip here. And one. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. 10. And stand up. Finish these strong. Feet shoulder width, strong stance. And one. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. 10. (dumbbells thud) Alright, let's finish these off with some core. We're gonna do something a little bit different. The exercise is called a dead bug. It not only strengthens the core, it also prevents lower back pain. So you just get on the floor. You're gonna have your feet at 90 degrees, your arms will stretch straight up overhead, and you're going to extend the left leg while you also extend the right arm. Hold. Come back. And then do the opposite. We're gonna do 30 seconds on and 30 seconds off. Alright, that's 30 seconds. Now, 30 second break. And again, with these, you want to keep your lower back rest firmly against the floor and not obviously swing your limbs. It's all about really that contraction in your core. Okay. Two more sets, and that's 30 seconds. So legs up at 90, arms outstretched overhead. Left leg, right arm. Back to the center. With each rep, I'm actually feeling my range of motion improve. And that's 30. Ooh. One more set, finish these strong. Now, point of this exercise is also to show that core work is a lot more than just doing crunches. That's trunk flexion, but there's also core stability like what this lift trains, there's rotation, there's anti-rotation, there's lots of different ways to train your core. And last set. Keep that foot touching the ground. (upbeat music) And that's 30. Again, much, much harder than it looks. Ooh, feel that. Alright, thank you for joining for a pull day. See you next time.

This Max Muscle at 50 Workout Will Build Your Back, Biceps, and Glutes

Max Muscle at 50 Pull Workout: Back, Biceps, and Glutes

Warm Up

Single-Leg Bodyweight Hip Thrust

Block One

Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift

A. Chest-Supported Incline Row

B. Incline Shrug

Block Two

A. Seated Hammer Curls

B. Alternating Cross-Body Hammer Curl

Block Three

Dead Bug

Men's Health MVP Exclusives