There Are No Must-Do Exercises (but Some Are Better Than Others)

Contrary to the claims of many well-meaning but uninformed trainers and coaches, you do not have to squat or deadlift to build overall muscular strength and size, you do not have to clean, jerk, or snatch to improve explosiveness or coordination for other activities, you do not have to do machine pullovers for ultimate upper torso development. 

There are no specific exercises that you must do, and no type of equipment you must use (but there are some exercises and types of equipment you should avoid).

The only thing you must do—if you want to effectively train your whole body—is include exercises in your program which effectively target all the major muscle groups (muscle groups involved in producing gross body movements). Some exercises are better than others for some muscle groups but many can be similarly productive.

What you should do is choose the best—most effective, safe, and efficient—exercises you can perform for each muscle group with your capabilities and the available equipment.

To design a program that effectively works your whole body start by identifying and listing the major muscle groups and their functions from your neck all the way down to your ankles. Then pick one or two exercises that effectively work each of these.

Use the following guidelines to choose the best exercises for each muscle group:

1. Choose exercises designed to track muscle and joint function, not those which mimic movements from sports or activities of daily living.
2. Choose exercises which can be performed slowly and do not require rapid acceleration or significant momentum. If you can not stop moving instantly and hold perfectly still at any time during an exercise it is a poor one and/or you are moving too fast.
3. Choose exercises which provide continuous, well-balanced resistance for the target muscle groups, not discontinuous or poorly balanced resistance. Avoid exercise “complexes” which involve alternating between repetitions of different exercise movements.
4. Choose exercises and equipment which are more stable with little or no challenge to balance, not exercises performed in an unstable manner or on unstable equipment. Whenever practical exercises should be performed bilaterally and symmetrically, not unilaterally or asymmetrically. Machines with fused or dependent movement arms are preferable to machines with non-fused or independent movement arms (AKA isolateral), all else being equal.
5. For each workout in your program choose the fewest exercises required to effectively work all the major muscle groups targeted, to minimize overall workout volume. Avoid the temptation to excessively isolate unless justified by a rehabilitation issue or bodybuilding or physique competition. Any more exercises than necessary to effectively work all the major muscle groups is counterproductive, increasing the resources and energy required for recovery leaving less for producing increases in muscular strength and size.

I recommend designing your workouts around compound/linear-form exercises if you are able to perform them (some people can’t perform some compound exercises due to hand, foot, or joint problems or other injuries). Compound exercises are generally easier to learn and master than simple/rotary-form exercises, more effective for cardiovascular conditioning because they involve a larger volume of muscle, and more time efficient because they allow you to effectively work multiple muscle groups together.

You do not have to perform these with specific equipment, though. You can get just as big and strong using free weights, machines, even statics with straps, chains, or basic household structures if you perform them correctly. In the long run your results from exercise have far more to do with how you train than what equipment you use.

As a starting point, I recommend building your workouts around six types of compound exercises:

1. Squat (hip and knee extension)
2. Hinge (hip and low back extension)
3. Vertical push (shoulder flexion, abduction, and elevation and elbow extension)
4. Vertical pull (shoulder extension, adduction, and depression and elbow flexion)
5. Horizontal push (shoulder flexion, horizontal flexion, (sometimes) protraction, and elbow extension
6. Horizontal pull (shoulder extension, horizontal extension, retraction, and elbow flexion)

These six types of compound exercises effectively work most but not all of the major muscle groups. You will need to supplement them with simple exercises for your neck, forearms, abs, legs to effectively work your whole body. Depending on your recovery ability you may divide these up over two or more full-body workouts, or into an upper/lower or push/pull/legs split or other split routine.

If you can’t perform a compound exercise due to an injury or disability, every compound exercise can be replaced with its component simple movements, if practical with the available equipment. For example, you can replace chin-ups or front-grip pulldowns with pullovers and arm curls and you can replace a squat or leg press with a hip extension and leg extension.

If you can’t hold a barbell to perform pullovers due to a hand or wrist injury properly-designed pullover machines apply the resistance to the upper arms through pads, so no grip is required. A few arm curl machines are designed with pads which apply the resistance directly to the distal forearms instead of handles so no gripping is required.

If no properly-designed pullover machine or arm curl machine which provides direct resistance is available you can perform a pullover and arm curl with just a pair of yoga blocks and a bench or sturdy table or counter-top using timed static contraction protocol. There are workarounds for most other injuries and physical limitations as well.