The Only 25 Exercises You Ever Need

TL;DR

The squat ranks #1 because over 55% of your body's muscle mass is in your legs, making it the single highest-return exercise.

Key Points

• 1.Top 5 exercises: Squat (#1), Pull-up (#2), Incline Bench Press (#3), Romanian Deadlift (#4), Chest-Supported T-Bar Row (#5)
• 2.Squat variations all work — pendulum squat, Smith machine, hack squat, Bulgarian split squat — as long as you progressively overload; his all-time PR is 500 lbs from Canadian Nationals powerlifting
• 3.Pull-ups beat lat pulldowns in his ranking because they're harder to fake, more motivating to PR, and he built up to bodyweight +75 lbs for 6 reps in one year
• 4.Isolation exercises make the top 10: Seated leg curl (#10), leg extension (#9), overhead cable triceps extension (#8), preacher curl (#7), and lateral raise (#6) — each chosen for lengthened-position tension and research backing
• 5.Commonly neglected muscles that made the list include upper traps (dumbbell shrugs, #24), calves (standing calf raise, #23), forearms (wrist curls/extensions, #22), and neck (curls + extensions, #21)
• 6.Deadlift ranked only #14 and bench press #11 because both cause high fatigue and aren't the most optimal for pure hypertrophy, though he says everyone should learn and get strong at both
• 7.He attempted PRs on all 25 exercises, hitting new ones on roughly 15 of them including cable crunches (25 reps vs. previous best of 20), pec deck (+3 reps), and walking lunges (30 reps vs. previous best of 24)