10 Must-Try Exercises To Build Muscle Quickly - 7X Mr Olympia Phil Heath

Duration: 10:05 1875 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

In this discussion on building muscle efficiently, Phil Heath identifies ten essential exercises he would choose if restricted to a limited set of equipment for life. He prioritizes incline dumbbell presses and flies due to their superior comfort and ability to target upper pectoral development without the shoulder strain associated with barbells or flat benching. For lateral raises, he insists on using dumbbells rather than cables to maintain proper form where elbows lead from the side rather than flaring upward, which prevents unnecessary lower trap engagement. He also selects single-arm preacher curls over bilateral variations because they allow for better isolation of each arm, helping athletes identify strength imbalances and monitor tendon health more effectively while maintaining a fixed position that ensures consistent execution. Heath's selection continues with hack squats, which he praises for the unique sensation of power in that specific stance compared to other leg movements. For rear delt development, he chooses face pulls performed at eye level using ropes, emphasizing their effectiveness for shoulder health and posture. He includes overhead tricep extensions as a necessary complement to chest work, ensuring balanced upper body hypertrophy. Regarding back training, he opts for underhand bent-over rows instead of overhand variations because the latter places excessive stress on forearms and limits range of motion; furthermore, performing these from a rack with safety bars reduces lower back strain compared to lifting directly off the floor or using heavy axial loads that mimic deadlift mechanics too closely. To round out his top ten list, Heath selects pull-ups performed in various grips—neutral, underhand, overhand wide—to ensure comprehensive lat and grip development across different angles. His final choice is a stepmill for cardio, which he utilizes not merely as an aerobic activity but as a tool to sculpt glutes and quads through purposeful, controlled movements. He strongly advises against the common mistake of hugging the machine or stomping heavily with high resistance settings, noting that such techniques can destroy knees by rounding the back and losing control. Instead, he recommends starting at low levels like one or two to maximize muscle activation in the posterior chain while maintaining proper posture, effectively turning cardio into a strength-building exercise through gamification of every step. Throughout his recommendations, Heath emphasizes technique over brute force, often citing personal experiences with injuries from improper form on machines like hack squats and preacher curl stations. He highlights that even when using advanced technology like Compex electrical stimulation during early career training sessions or wearing weight vests for glute activation while stepping, the focus must remain on neural feedback and controlled execution rather than simply pushing limits blindly. His philosophy centers on understanding exactly what each muscle is feeling to prevent injury and ensure balanced growth, whether isolating a single arm in curls or managing trap tension during lateral raises. The conversation also touches upon nutritional requirements for sustaining such high-level performance, noting that hitting one gram of protein per kilogram of body weight daily is critical yet difficult without assistance from services like Factor, which provides ready-to-eat meals designed by dietitians to help athletes meet their macros effortlessly. While the transcript includes a promotional segment regarding this meal service and an invitation to listen to a full two-hour podcast covering Heath's rivalry with Kai Green and his book *Generation Iron*, the core instructional content remains focused on these ten specific movements that have defined his physique-building approach over decades of competition.

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let's say that for the rest of time yeah you only had 10 exercises MH to hold on to and grow as much muscle as you could what would you choose and why incline uh incline presses no question about it dumbbell uh dumbbell more than likely because you know it's just you can do a lot with the dumbbells over the barbell right um I always want that shelf up here it looks great in t-shirts and uh yeah you know if you're hitting a side shot you want the upper PEC development to exist there's something about that angle that's so comfortable as well yeah it feels so it feels right yeah feels right yeah you don't feel as much in danger yep in my opinion even when you're doing flies you know like you can just it just feels so good you know so that would be one of them side laterals for sure dumbbell lateral Rays standing seated standing for sure and where do you what were your cues on this I knew you were going to say this yeah from the to the side are you out in front a little bit here what you thinking to the side y to the side are you leading with elbows leading with arms uh more just I guess that would just be with arms right you so because sometimes you see people almost flaring up with dumbbells down but as you did that your traps moved yep so I don't need that y I don't want that lower trap now that's gonna uhuh I just need to get it if I'm working this I understand it's a secondary muscle but I don't need to be you're isolating because you end up doing this you see guys like they come now and then they're doing this you see it why is that moving can I deactivate it sure right here okay cool let's do that so okay oh one armed preachers one on preacher curls dumbbells again it could be on a machine or dumbbells you know but but since we're going to you know only have some dumbbells on a deserted island we're going to do that you can use whatever you want this is you got the best gym in in history but you can only use 10 preacher curl um and why single because I can concentrate more on one arm than two mhm um I can also isolate and understand why is one's arm stronger than the other and am I performing the rep the same on either arm now if I'm in a fixed position I can't tell so I need to see I need to feel and I need to physically see this so are you suating on that or are you going to St oh yeah I'm going to do that but I also got to recognize like am I having any uh you know bicep tendon stuff and like that and um which I actually have right now I'm like damn like okay it yeah yeah yeah you know that's three so that's three uh hack squats for sure for sure hack squats oh my gosh it just feels incredibly strong to be in that position I love it it's yeah I I did a lot of damage on that machine um what are your cues when doing hack squat well you know the platform I can go wide I can go at the top I can go at the bottom I can go narrow you know I like to go a little bit you can have that that can be all part of four that can yeah exactly see but it's all the system you playing the system okay so that's full okay this is fun um rear delts uh but but uh face pulls with the uh with the with the Rope okay I love that yeah around about ey height yeah uh yeah right right here yep um you know since we're using that rope you know tricep extensions overhead down okay yep yep so that's what six six four okay four more we got to throw another chest movement in there so um I mean we did the in incline dumbbell press we got to have an incline dumbbell fly um why put both of those in what are you getting out of the fly you're not get getting a good stretch and I'm able to contract you know differently as well working that same plane um reults what about back we got to throw some back in there so underhand barbell uh uh Rose underhand bent over bent over Rose underhand y um what's your reason for going underhand rather than overhand then um because I've noticed that overhand I'm getting more of I'm initially you're going to feel it more in your forearms right here yep and I'm only going to get so much and I feel like it's more like I'm going to there's more margin for error I believe whereas if you're coming here I don't feel it as much and it's simulating what I would do on stage P pulling the elbows back so would you do uh I guess a part of that as well is restricting the uh injury risk from being bent over so much like underhand you're always going to be a little weaker so would you do that from a rack rather than from the floor oh I've done that from the four right yeah I've done that from the four a lot of axial loads being at that angle your lower back but it's much less than a deadlift I suppose yeah but you sometimes you can go to like a squat rack and then it'll have like the little bars there so you can pull so you get safety bars so you just pull it off of that cool okay I think you've got two left so I got two left oh boy what have we got let's recap so we got the incline you got incline dumbbell incline fly Lal you have lateral raises you have hack squats you have single AR uh preacher push push down face PS and then spent over underhand you know what I'm going to go with pull-ups um neutral underhand overhand overhand overhand wide and I guess last one would be another legs stepmill you can use the stepmill is the 10th exercise and did you we I can carve out the legs I can you know I can I can do glutes with that did you ever do that weighted yeah actually I did I wore a weight vest for what show was that it was early in my career I wore like weight vest and I wear like ankle weights and I did something that no one else ever did I was using um eastem units while I was doing cardio like a compex yeah I used compex cuz I was sponsored by them for a while so I was doing compacts on step mill dude anyone that thinks that uh electric stem training is not like put a an sp6 or an sp8 on you and turn turn it up to 25% and try and do a squat an air squat yeah and tell me that it's it's not absolute agony that that would uh the only thing I I I think now is like you know the neuroplasticity and like also like neuro feedback you get by using one of those machines I don't I would love to be able to test that because I think with it doing the work kind of for you you may lose some of that so you have to be careful I think with um overloading it yes because you can push it further than you push it further than you can really do it so I know I did that but I'm an extreme athlete you know with that when it comes to the stepper very very popular cardio exercise for bodybuilders what are people missing what are they getting wrong when you see other people they're holding on to the holding they're hugging the damn thing you know what they're also doing by doing that they're rounding out their back and you think about doing this you're I mean just me doing this right now like that doesn't seem comfortable why not just stand straight slow it down maybe may you know what I'm saying maybe not have it at five or six because I gotta and you hear that person stomping on the damn things if they weighed 250 pounds or something like that you know their knees would be shot their knees would be tor toast so you're using control even on the so you should you should you should you should you should have it at level one level two and slowly do it now it now the reason why you won't do that ladies and gentlemen is because it's boring but think about how much muscle activation you can have on that with your uh glutes and quads with each step actually being Purpose Driven so my whole mentality when I would do cardio man I'm giving y'all all the damn Secrets man put it like this you got to gamify your card as much as possible so if you could have every step count towards something you could actually sculpt glutes quads and isn't that the whole point of doing cardio or you just want to sweat we'll get back to talking to Phil in one minute but first I need to tell you about factor 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factor meals.com mw50 and mw50 a checkout if you enjoyed that clip with Phil then press here for the fulllength 2hour podcast episode when we go so deep in the history of his career his Reflections on Generation Iron his rivalry with Kai green the peeds that he did and did not use go on press it