2889: 7 Muscle Building Exercises You Have Never Done (But Should Start Immediately)
June 27, 2026
AI Summary
5 min read7 Muscle Building Exercises You Have Never Done (But Should Start Immediately)
Arthur Saxon, a 210-pound German strongman from the bronze era, once pressed 370 pounds overhead with one arm. That record still stands 120 years later. The exercise he used—the bent press—has since fallen into near-total obscurity, not because it stopped working, but because lifts go in and out of fashion. The Mind Pump hosts argue that rediscovering these forgotten movements is one of the most effective hacks for experienced lifters who have hit a plateau.
Why Forgotten Lifts Work
The hosts explain that lifts fall out of favor for reasons that have nothing to do with effectiveness. In the late 1990s, for example, hardly anyone in commercial gyms did barbell squats or deadlifts—bodybuilders of that era favored leg presses and machines. Those lifts eventually came back, but many other effective movements never did. The bent press, once the standard way strongmen challenged one another, is now virtually unseen.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (04:04) **The "Novel Stimulus" Muscle-Building Hack** - The hosts introduce the core concept: doing unfamiliar exercises forces new adaptations and can reignite gains for experienced lifters.
- 2 (08:11) **Exercise #1: The Bent Press** - An old-time strongman lift that has fallen into obscurity, requiring extreme core and shoulder stability.
- 3 (11:24) **Exercise #2: The Circus Press** - A one-arm dumbbell push press popular in strongman competitions.
- 4 (12:56) **Exercise #3: Zottman Curls** - A curl that supinates on the way up and pronates on the way down.
- 5 (14:21) **Exercise #4: Weighted Windmills** - A lateral stability movement that bulletproofs the lower back and shoulders.
- 6 (16:26) **Exercise #5: Heavy Overhead Carries** - Walking while holding a heavy weight locked out overhead.
- 7 (19:53) **Exercise #6: Heavy Farmer's Carries (or Heavy Suitcase Carries)** - Walking with heavy weights at the sides, creating full-body tension and stability.
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Show Notes
In this episode the guys break down the seven best muscle building exercises you have probably never done — the bent press, circus press, Zottman curls, weighted windmills, heavy overhead carries, heavy trap bar farm walks, and tibialis raises. They also get into AI being used to expose congressional stock trading corruption (56% of congressional stock purchases are on companies directly impacted by bills they later voted on), the whey protein shortage and a new manufacturing technique that makes it taste even better, the history of sketchy old school supplements like Hot Stuff and what was actually in them, old school protein shakes from the Weider era, and LMNT's new lemonade iced tea flavor. Then they coach live callers submitted through mplivecaller.com.
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