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Look Good and Perform Like a Hero – 10 Alternative Exercises to Build Muscle and Transform your Upper Body

The following 10 movements are alternative exercises are all functional bodybuilding movements, working to achieve both aesthetics and performance. 

Alternative exercises

Functional Bodybuilding – Alternative Exercises

Want to look good and move well? Functional Bodybuilding is an approach to training that can be used a little or a lot to increase strength, correct imbalances, improve movement quality, and help you gain comfort and confidence in a variety of positions, without sacrificing aesthetics.

Revival Strength programs are built around Functional Bodybuilding principles, as well as mixing in Olympic weightlifting and classic functional fitness.

Try adding these alternative exercises into your training. 

1. Barbell Z Press

Don’t let the title be misleading. This is still a fantastic shoulder and upper body strengthening exercise. The mobility emphasis stems from the fact that in order to achieve optimal force in this lift you need to have good thoracic extension and posterior chain mobility. The movement itself can help promote this if done at lighter loads. You can also progress the mobility requirements by starting off sitting on a small stack of weight plates and removing one at a time until your butt is on the floor.

2. Trap Three Raise

The trapezius muscle has multiple different actions. One of which is to depress the shoulder blade through the contraction of the lower 1/3 of the muscle. This is what we are aiming to train in this particular exercise. The goal is to keep the shoulder blade down while taking the arm through the demonstrated range of motion. Do not elevate the shoulder blade by contracting the upper trap.

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