It's quite apparent that very little thought has been given to training for strength – and therefore size – by the millions of people who read about it on the internet, or by the people who write about it on the internet. Muscles get stronger by getting bigger, and if you want bigger muscles you have to lift heavier weights. Specifically, a muscle increases its contractile force capacity by increasing its cross-sectional area, and that's the only mechanism by which this occurs (neuromuscular efficiency being an immediate, short-term, and genetically-limited adaptation).

Therefore, an increase in size requires an increase in strength, which requires an increase in the weight lifted, and this is a relatively uncomplicated process for the first couple of years of training: use an exercise that involves a lot of muscle mass in a normal human movement pattern, put more weight on the bar than last time, and lift it for the same number of reps with excellent technique. Experience has shown that 5 reps for sets across works best.

Strength is displayed in normal human movement patterns, and it must therefore be developed in normal human movement patterns, because the most efficient version of the movement pattern is an inherent part of the strength being displayed. Training the movement pattern itself is the only way to ensure that all the components of the kinetic chain of the movement are responding to the stress of the load in the way they actually function within the movement. The basic barbell exercises are merely loaded versions of normal human movement patterns.

Experience has shown that this approach works for everybody who uses it, regardless of age, sex, or infirmity. The Blue Book has sold a million copies, and in what is the largest Exercise Science study to date over an almost 20-year timescale (as opposed to one semester), hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated the efficacy of this simple approach to loading the very few basic normal human movement patterns for improvements in strength.

Experience has also shown that during this period of time, isolation bodypart “assistance exercises” are a waste of time. The term “bodypart” refers to the individual muscle groups that are visible under the exquisitely thin, tanned, and oiled skin of your favorite contest bodybuilders. Things like quads, hammies, bis, tris, lats, calves, pecs, and delts are bodyparts. And apparently squats, deadlifts, presses, benches, cleans, barbell rows, and weighted chins do not adequately train these bodyparts.

The vast majority of strength training experts are really bodybuilders. They cannot move past the idea that “muscle groups” need to be identified, isolated, and trained so that they can contribute to the larger movement pattern being trained. The idea that Leg Extensions are an “assistance exercise” for the squat – because the squat itself doesn't adequately train the quads – is a perfect example of this thinking.

If the squat doesn't adequately train the quads, then it doesn't adequately use the quads, so what purpose is served by leg extensions and stronger quads? The obvious fact is that the squat trains the quadriceps group to the precise degree that it applies in the squat, and that heavier squats require and therefore develop stronger quads. This fallacy has wasted several hundred million weight room hours this year alone, and it obviously applies to all other bodypart-based assistance training. Leg curls, tricep extensions, dumbbell curls, dumbbell flyes, and calf raises may be important to advanced physique competitors, but for lifters and athletes whose primary objective is strength, they represent not merely a waste of time but a fundamental misconception about the task at hand.

There are a few normal human movement patterns that can be loaded bilaterally and symmetrically, and which are therefore useful for building strength for a long enough period of time to be a significant contribution to improved human performance. The “Assistance Exercises” referred to in the Blue Book are mostly partial range of motion versions of these basic barbell exercises, and can be very effectively used to extend the time over which strength can be gained.

My argument here is with the bodypart exercises for which machines and bench apparatus have been designed. You can strengthen an isolation movement like leg extensions or loaded back extensions for about 6 weeks, but you can increase your deadlift for years with proper programming, as any elite powerlifter has demonstrated (even if he didn't understand why). Dumbbell rows did not increase his deadlift – the deadlift increased his deadlift. And as his deadlift went up, so did his dumbbell row.

And this is the source of his confusion: he was programming heavier weights over his training cycles in the deadlift, but respected coaches told him that dumbbell rows would help, so he did them, and his deadlift went from 699 to 750 (while the dumbbell rows went from 195x10 to 215x10, maybe), so the dumbbell rows must have helped the deadlift. The obvious fact is that the deadlift helped the dumbbell rows, and not the other way around, because 20 pounds gained on a unilateral dumbbell row cannot contribute to 51 pounds gained on a deadlift that uses about 10 times as much muscle mass and 4 times as many joints as a dumbbell row.

It is true that dumbbell rows work more than just the lats, but not much. The arms are the main benefactors, and while the entire trunk musculature is involved, it's not to the extent to which it could possibly contribute to the deadlift. It omits the hips and legs, and the spinal extensors, it is unilateral, and far less muscle mass is moving a far lighter load with one arm supported by a bench. The lighter load cannot produce the stress necessary to drive an increase in a lift that may be 4 times heavier. And more importantly, unless you are a physical idiot you cannot fall down doing a dumbbell row.

Balance is a very important consideration in this analysis. Bodyparts are trained in isolation using machines or apparatus that allow movements to take place while not standing on two feet using the whole kinetic chain. You cannot work one lat, or your quads, or your calves, or your triceps without a way to balance yourself while you work that isolated piece of the kinetic chain. Normal bilateral human movement patterns (the ones where heavy weights can be lifted, thus making you stronger) are executed while standing on two feet while not falling down. In barbell training, your body is the machine you are operating, not the device you're sitting in while moving your legs around. Yes, this makes barbell curls a potentially useful exercise, but not the Scott Bench version.

The balance component of the basic barbell exercises is the factor that causes the high levels of muscle mass and neuromuscular involvement that all bodypart exercises lack. As you squat down and then drive your hips back up into lockout, dozens of opportunities to fall over have been detected and corrected by the marvelous system of positional feedback provided by your eye-gaze reaction to the floor in front of you, and the skill you have developed along with your strength. Your feet, calves, chest, arms, and head position all adjust to the proprioceptive feedback from the floor as the load moves down and back up to keep the combined center of mass of you and the bar balanced over your mid-foot.

You cannot isolate your quads while standing on two feet, and your quads do not function in isolation within any normal human movement patterns. Knee extension is functionally coupled with hip extension, spinal extension, and dorsiflexion/plantar flexion at the ankles. Leg extensions make no sense in the context of training normal human movement patterns for strength, and just because your health spa has a leg extension machine doesn't mean you have to use it. Training your muscles for what you perceive to be aesthetic purposes is not strength training, and you really should grasp the difference.

Now, if you are a contest bodybuilder in the intermediate/advanced levels of training, you probably need to isolate your quads, for separation, muscularity, and other bodybuilding-type reasons. But if you are actually big enough to place in your height class (or whatever classes they have now), you didn't get that way doing leg extensions. The fastest and most important bodyweight gains you will make will happen in your first 2 years of training with your squats, deadlifts, presses, bench presses, barbell rows, and weighted chins, if you do it correctly. Bilateral loaded human movement patterns with incrementally progressive loads increased as often as possible and recovered from as thoroughly as possible are the key to strength, and strength is the key to size and aesthetics.

Bodypart training is a huge distraction from this process. It never results in either profound strength or contest-level physiques. But it is easier, and it's more fun. And that may well be all you're interested in. If so, just use the machines and get a nice pump. Bodybuilding is just fine with me if that's all you want to do. But be clear with yourself about what you're doing: if your basic barbell exercises are not going up in weight, you're not getting either stronger or bigger. And if that's what you're really trying to do, your approach is not working.

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