Exercise Suggestions:
Dave's Top 20

About the exercises upon which I suggest you concentrate: These are the building blocks most used by champions and children alike. They are the simple movements that involve the body’s complicated system of muscles, bones and ligaments advantageously, safely and joyously. They are the basics. They work best. The rest is up to consistent, strategic and intense performance supported, naturally, by sound nutrition.

Here’s my list, The Top 20:

1) Bench press
2) Dumbbell press, flat and incline
3) Lateral raise, sidearm, front, bentover
4) Stiffarm dumbbell pullover
5) Cable crossover
6) Pulldowns
7) Seated lat rows
8) Bentover row, one- and two-arm
9) Standing barbell curl
10) Dumbbell curls, standing, seated alternate, incline
11) Triceps pulley pushdown
12) Triceps extensions, lying and overhead
13) Dips
14) Chins
15) Squats
16) Leg extension
17) Leg curl
18) Calf raise, seated and standing
19) Deadlifts
20) Midsection, crunches and leg raise

The exercises listed above include 90 percent of the basics, though there are numerous more non-basic movements (thumbs-up curls, pullover and press, front squats) practiced to add variety and nuance. The truth is there are limitless movements when you consider grip and body-position variations, exercise finesse and the execution of personalized exercise grooves.

Of the Top 20, you can extract six or eight major moves on which to concentrate to avoid excessive instruction time and learning time and, therefore, devote more intense quality training time in the near-future workouts. This will assure greater muscle and strength response and a more solid training and musclebuilding experience.

Stick to the basic exercises that work the larger muscle groups completely and are responsible for fuller and more effective muscle growth. Exercise repetition is needed to gain the maximum an exercise has to offer. Changing exercises frequently for novelty is frivolous and defeats one’s purpose to grow in training understanding and muscle shape and muscle might. Isolated secondary exercises are important and are most beneficial at intermediate and advanced stages of training. They come just in time... later.

Your last rep of each set should be 10 or 12 and feel just right; near-perfect form and concentrated muscular action as you recognize 'muscle burn'-the sting within the muscle being worked increasing with each successive rep, a good pain, which when endured allows greater muscle overload and subsequent increased muscle adaptation. Look for the 'pump,' the full muscular feeling that is evident in immediate muscle increase during exercise as blood and water fill the muscle cells under demand of systemic support. 

Draper Exercise tips
Part two

Continued from Dave's Top 20 Exercises page

Prefix each workout with a concentrated midsection warm-up composed of any combination of crunches and leg raises and lightweight stiff-leg deadlifts and hanging leg-raises. Mix n’ match, intensify and moderate.

Once we're past the couple weeks of introductory exercises and we get the feel for the equipment, muscle resistance and our level of conditioning, we're ready to practice interesting exercise combinations that piece the workouts together. My favorite method: superset training, where two or more exercises that complement each other are performed one after another to enhance our output. This multi-set training not only condenses our workout time, but increases our productivity considerably.

With no down-time between sets, you become more involved in your training. There's no time for daydreaming, wishing you were somewhere else or becoming bored. In fact, a most desirable attitude of training develops, one that we wrongly think is reserved for athletes on the fringe of competition. This attitude of training is a valuable tool of confidence and provides a very real psychological benefit.

I’d alternate between two workouts, looking for consistency and time-plus-effort commitment channeled into four sessions a week. Considering these virtuous prerequisites, a Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday scheme works well, giving you Wednesday and the weekend off for rest and relaxation, balance and order.

Aching joints causing a switch to lighter dumbbells? It is these things of the mind and body that make light weights perfectly heavy for muscle intensity (maximized tension within the muscle) and provoke muscle responses you’ve never experienced. Spared the mean, mind-numbing struggle demanded by the deliciously heavy weights, you can pinpoint your focus. The lighter weights allow you to create, discover and investigate the movements and the repetitions, move from set to meaningful set and exercise to purposeful exercise, providing vascular demand and pumping and burning and sweating without bounds.

High rep deadlifts for a strong back - a classic favorite of hardcore lifters with a generous heart. This is an excellent addition to a mundane routine. Gives it guts and charm. Don't forget - warm up and stay warm. Fuel up with a protein shake, and lots of water. You'll perform far better, stronger, longer, inspired by an awesome pump and high spirits with less chance of injury.

Plan for your free weight routines to have consistent framework, but vary from one workout to the next to accommodate overload, recovery, injury and mood.

Dumbbells are a better and healthier exercises than the barbells in many ways because the hands can rotate to accommodate the needs of the overused and abused rotator cuff or shoulder girdle. With 360 degrees of direction in each hand there's a need for a lot of muscle stabilizing and coordination - more demand for muscular health and growth.

Muscling your dumbbells in place is also a structure and skill building process. Don't drop them, don't clang or crack them at the top. Control them. Be nice.

Use dumbbells whenever you have a choice. The bar in all its rigidness prevents you from rotating the hands just enough to engage the pecs correctly and more fully. Dumbbells offer this advantage. Further, the unyielding hand position forces the mechanics of this joint-like apparatus to remain fixed throughout the entire exercise. This control causes an unnatural tracking and a subsequent impingement of tissue and nerve. Injury eventually rears its ugly head as power and intensity are applied. Does this ring a bell, bombers?

Another seldom reviewed benefit of dumbbell training is the powerful clean necessary to set the weights in place, and the fight to return them to the starting position and back in the rack upon exercise completion. This is called good old-fashioned work -- bull work -- that builds the body in functional and muscle and energy connected ways static exercise does not and cannot. Go for it.

I prefer free weights for overall muscle building as they require total control exercised by the user only. Machines are useful, do build muscle and strength when you squeeze the life out of them and are particularly valuable when injury or other limitations prevent free-weight application (the press machine for a shoulder with lateral limitations, for example). The oft-heard comment, “machines don’t build muscle,” is false and is probably based on the fact that the muscle action is isolated and guided, thus demanding less lateral control of the user -- limited muscle engagement.

I would be remise if I didn’t emphasize the need for heavy back work for thickness and density, as well as profuse lat work for width and dramatic taper. According to moods, urges and needs, I alternate between bentover barbell rows, dumbbell rows and seated lat rows for power and mass. I throw in widegrip pulldowns to the front as a secondary set to chest and shoulder pressing (supersetting). 

Brother Iron, Sister Steel
A Bodybuilder's Book by Dave Draper Brother Iron, Sister Steel is a private journey into bodybuilding as only Dave can tell it. Training techniques, exercise descriptions and nutritional strategies form the book's foundation, but what glues this book together are his personal experiences and insights, humor and candidness, all of which speak to the heart and soul. The delight in the iron work, the play of the steel and the redefined motivation will have you striving forward to reach your fitness and training goals. Further your iron journey -- or take your first steps -- as you find yourself caught up in the style and rhythm that are Dave's alone. You'll see the lessons of Brother Iron, Sister Steel hit home as your training enthusiasm abounds. In your next match with the weights you'll see the work of your muscles with new clarity under the guidance of his insight. Honored as the Best Bodybuilding Book by Muscle and Fitness  (February 2006 issue) Dr. Ken Leistner writes, "This book is an inspiration... one of the best iron sport related books I have ever read." "You'll get hooked on Brother Iron, Sister Steel. In every word, Draper leaves the mark of his genius." ~Julian Schmidt, Flex Magazine "Solidly affirming... Entertaining, even philosophical. ...Fun, informative, and (I have to say it) brawny..." ~Fearless Reviews "Simply the best book on training. Bar none. I'll never need another bodybuilding book again." ~Douglas Malcolm, Bookideas.com Tai Moses, Metro Magazine, says, "Powerfully good writer... part exercise strategy, part memoir, part motivational training guide... Manages to be highly entertaining on all counts." About this book, Dave comments: The 15 years behind the counter and on the floor of my gym in California have signaled to me that everyone must exercise and eat right if he or she hopes to live a sound and fulfilling life. Too few do and far too many lives are in a shambles because of it. As conscientious gym owner, I am in a prime position to help the ailing, negligent and uneducated masses. And, certainly others and I do. Brother Iron, Sister Steel was written to engage that edge of the population who dare to walk in the gym only to walk out because purpose and desire were missed. It was written as well for the tentative trainee who wanders the floor with desire, yet remain is without a clue. The intermediates who love the pump and burn and want to dig in deeper will, undoubtedly, identify with the facts, tales, fascinations and frustrations of muscle building as visited by an old time... still and always one of the boys. The young and the hardcore... about them I cannot be sure, only that in the years to come, should they endure, they will appreciate the content and philosophy and, perhaps, wish they had referenced it sooner. Are you confused and have a question about your training? If there is an answer, chances are the answer is here. Be strong. Dave Draper