Squat down until your shins are touching the barbell. Keeping your hips in a natural position and eyes looking forward, focus on driving your heels and exploding upward as you stand up with the bar. Keep your back straight; you don't want to allow it to round.
Once the bar gets just about the knee, concentrate on pushing your hips forward and contracting the back to pull your shoulder blades back. Pause here, slowly lower the weight and repeat the movement.
Bench Press
The classic barbell bench press is like the squat for the chest. This is hands down the best mass building exercise for the chest.
The most common mistake people make when performing a chest press is flaring out their elbows. Your elbows should only go about 45 degrees out from the body during the movement.
Keeping the elbows in this position not only reduces the risk of rotator cuff injuries, but spares the shoulders from taking over the movement. Concentrate on squeezing the chest to explode the weight up.
More: 12 Tips for a Better Bench Press
Military Press
If you want to build cannonball delts, the military press is your best friend. It hits all three shoulders heads: the anterior, medial and rear deltoids.
Always warm up the rotator cuff before any shoulder exercises. The rotator cuff stabilizes the shoulder, and is responsible for some of the most common gym injuries.
After warming up, take a grip a little bit wider than shoulder-width apart. Don't flare your elbows, and keep your forearms in a straight line as the bar rises over your head. Tighten your core as you press.
Lower the bar down to just past the nose and drive up, keeping the bar as close to your body as possible, making the shoulders do the work.
More: How to Prevent Shoulder Pain During a Press
Weighted Dips
Many people say you should do "curls for the girls," but if you truly want to have sleeve busting arms you cannot neglect weighted triceps dips. The tricep muscles makes up two-thirds of the arm, and is one of the quickest ways to achieve bigger arms.
The key to this exercise is keeping the elbows in towards the body and not letting them flare out. This keeps the tension on the triceps. Look just above eye level to prevent the chest from taking over the movement.
Selecting an appropriate weight allows you to maintain good form and keeps stress off the lower back. Keep your core engaged and abs tightened through the movement.
Know How to Grow
Keep in mind that exercise machines aren't completely arbitrary. They are an excellent complement to these heavy compound movements, and are great for pre-exhausting and isolating muscle groups. Always balance compound-mass movements and machines to prevent overtraining or under-growing.
More: 7 Muscle Myths
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