🏋️‍♂️ 3 killer shoulder and back workouts

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Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

• Build a strong silhouette with these back and shoulder workouts.

• Lose weight at the right pace by dropping two pounds a week.

• Thirty-minute treadmill workouts that (shockingly) aren’t boring.

Workouts

Have a Power Presence

Nothing fills out a T-shirt better than a set of boulder shoulders and a wide back. Work hard enough and you’ll cast a shadow that looks just like that big orange monster from Bugs Bunny. (Editor’s note: His legal name is Gossamer.) Work even harder, and you may even be allowed admittance into The Venerable Order of the Tank Top.

Training shoulders and upper back on the same day lets you do the agonist/antagonist thing with the widest part of your body. Not only good for joint lubrication, working your muscles through similar ranges of motion with opposing forces lets you train all around the muscle in three dimensions.

To make sure you’re doing these workouts the right way, we’ve built three different routines for beginners, intermediate, and advanced lifters. These aren’t just isolation-based workouts, either. They’re filled with strength-building compound moves that will kick your body into overdrive. Check out the routines below.

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Weight Loss

Reasonable Accommodation

Aside from the Shylock diet (a pound of flesh taken off just like that!), nobody can expect the kinds of rapid fat loss results advertised on late-night television and popular mid-2000s prime-time network shows. In reality, slow and steady wins the race, and aiming for small gains, positive habits, and a long-term plan to achieve your goals is the foundation you need to build for yourself.

To that end, we’ve compiled seven reasonable strategies you can implement to help you lose two pounds per week. If weight loss is your goal, these tips — from calorie reduction strategies to walking guidelines — can help you get there.

Cardio

Treading at the Mill

Perhaps the most common, and most depressing, piece of equipment in gyms across the globe is the treadmill. Responsible for the modern-day version of the undead, countless people get off work and metaphorically stare at a gray wall for an hour so they can say they’ve “worked out.”

But having access to a treadmill doesn’t mean you need to come into the gym with pennies on your eyes in case the ferryman is watching the front desk. You can actually use the treadmill to get a real workout in and feel alive while doing so. This is as simple as following a program of escalating intensities, which, itself, is as difficult as pushing buttons every minute or two.

Follow the plan listed here, listen to your body, then begin to improvise a bit. Hard work is secretly a lot more fun than the doldrums of mundanity.

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Everything Else

A Powerlifter’s Journey

• At 42 years old, BarBend writer Roger Lockridge decided to enter his first powerlifting contest (which means you can, too). Read about all the ups and downs along the way, plus get a full report on the contest itself.

• Put on your best makeup and get ready to do the Time Warp with an entire article devoted to the pelvic thrust (pelvic tilt, whatever). Be sure to get warmed up with a jump to the left and a step to the right, because these will really give you a monster pump.

• Grip is not only the first thing you notice about someone when you shake their hand, but it’s also a key indicator of overall strength. If you didn’t know crushing coconuts with your hands could help you live longer, you also might not know about these tools to get your grip as grippy as it can be.