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Welcome to The BarBend Newsletter! Here’s what’s on tap for today:

• Common muscle-building mistakes you’re probably making

• 15 bodyweight exercises, along with workouts and pointers

• Understanding how to do The Murph for Memorial Day

Training

Mending the Errors of Your Ways

Everyone makes mistakes, even if you’re 240 pounds of lean, flawless muscle. Staying with that idea, iron addicts, despite their dedication and adherence to a super-focused lifestyle, have the same propensity for blind spots as everyone else.

Below, you’ll find 12 of the most common mistakes people make when trying to build muscle. (And that probably means you.) From a lack of planning and progression to stale programming and subpar technique, chances are we’re all a little guilty of some of these.

So read the tips below and get a new perspective on your training. Maybe some tweaks will allow you to pack on some last-minute muscle this summer.

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Exercises

Lay Your Body Down. Then Pick It Up.

Bodyweight exercises — or “free-hand” movements, as Arnold used to call them — are some of the most underrated but effective moves you can do at the gym. They’ve helped build the bodies of the popular women’s and men’s gymnastic teams from last year’s Olympics, and forged unbelievable monsters from other Games gone by, like Aleksandr Karelin of Russia.

You might not have medalling aspirations, but you can still use these same movements and workouts to send your own training up to the heights of Mt. Olympus.

You can do a whole lot worse than spending your training life focusing on push-ups, pull-ups, and air squats. We’re also partial to the inverted row (GIFed above), which is a top-tier back-blaster that you can do at any gym.

We’re not forgetting about your lower body, either. If you want to test your legs without using a barbell, this routine will put any power rack session to shame.

Bodyweight workouts are always available, so get back in touch with some old acquaintances and revitalize your training for another go-around.

Workouts

Memorial Day Means Murph Day

Every Memorial Day, CrossFitters emerge from their boxes ready to rumble. Totaling a two-mile journey — plus 600 bodyweight reps while wearing a weighted vest — the Murph CrossFit workout will challenge even the most hardcore athletes. 

Murph sandwiches 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, and 300 air squats between two one-mile runs. If you’re performing this WOD (workout of the day) as written, you’ll be wearing a weighted vest the whole time. This popular benchmark workout is not for the faint of heart. It’s designed to push your fitness to the max, especially in the heat of a rising summer.

In the article below, you’ll learn everything you need to know about how to conquer Murph, as well as strategies to try as a beginner and at all levels of your training.

Quick Hits

💰 Shop now: Right now, you can shop some of the best Memorial Day fitness equipment sales of 2025. Our team has compiled the best deals from some of our favorite fitness brands like Rep Fitness, Sole, and Onnit. Browse some of our top picks and get started on building your dream home gym (or just stocking your supplement cabinet).

💪 Wake up to this: Bodybuilding is a monk-like sport. The discipline to suffer the same privations day in and day out is essential to success on the stage. Two-time Olympia Men’s Physique Champion Ryan Terry outlines what it takes with this peak into his essential daily morning routine.

🏋️ Try this move: Getting in a solid dynamic warm-up before squatting is key to moving more weight, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a better one than this.

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