10 best exercises named after people

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Welcome to The BarBend Newsletter. Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

• How to arch during the bench press

• 10 upper-body exercises named after famous lifters

• Bulking by Bumstead

Lifting

Arch Deluxe

The arch is a classic example of strength. Used in architecture for thousands of years, you can still see arched structures standing tall millennia after their builders’ societies collapsed.

For a gym-focused equivalent, look no further than modern powerlifters who use an arch to bench the most weight possible in training and competitions. But is the bench press arch safe? And an even more sinister question: is it actually cheating?

To answer the second question, per the rules of every powerlifting federation (all 10 billion of them), using an arch is perfectly legal. As for being safe and healthy, the answer lies in the mechanics of spinal loading and the physiology of the human back. We break it all down in the article below.

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Training

Lifting With Proper Nouns

You can achieve notoriety in strength sports by winning championships and setting world records — but sometimes, an athlete etches their name into the history books by creating or popularizing a movement that is so effective and essential to the craft that it soon bears their name.

Svend Karlsen sometimes gets lost in the shuffle when talking about all-time greats, but this strongman legend also had one of the best physiques and biggest bench presses of the early 2000s. Today, his Svend press is a useful tool for developing classic Viking strength. 

Likewise, and from only a slightly later time period, Dmitry Klokov has seemingly already been displaced from the public consciousness by random TikTok fitness personalities. The hardest lift you’ve probably never tried, though, is his Klokov press. This tough-as-nails military press variation will test the mettle of any gym-goer.

Bulking

Advice From Olympus

Chris Bumstead is potentially the most popular bodybuilder of the past 30 or 40 years. A six-time Classic Physique Olympia champion who has drawn favorable comparisons to Arnold, Bumstead has recently retired and assumed the position of an elder statesman of the sport.

CBum still has plenty of advice to share, and below, you’ll get his tips and tricks for slabbing more size onto your frame during a bulking phase. 

Contrary to some misconceptions, Bumstead doesn't think you should get too fat during your bulk and even suggests being at a desirable level of leanness before beginning your embiggening phase. He also thinks certain supplements are "must-haves" (creatine) and believes in taking charge of your nutrition rather than making dirty bulk meal prep runs to Papa John's.

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The Name Game

Quick Hits

💰 Buy This: Garage Gym Reviews’ Coop details how to construct a home gym on a paltry $100 budget.

🍃 Take This: Transparent Labs has combined big industry buzzwords “prebiotic” and “green” into a new vitamin-packed supplement powder. The BarBend team gets on the case and investigates its merits.

🏋️ #NonagenarianStrong: The New Yorker recently shared a documentary about a 90-year-old “Strong Grandma” and her quest to deadlift 100 pounds.

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