If you have done enough research, it should be clear to you that, in order to gain massive muscle (anywhere from 10 pounds to 60 pounds or more), these are the exercises that you MUST have in your training program:

• Squat: It is not easy to Squat. In fact, none of the exercises listed here are easy to perform. They all require at least 3 sessions of practice with careful supervision from an experienced trainer (can be personal trainers or friends who know the techniques well). You will also have to read about the techniques before even practicing any exercise for the first time (because not all trainers know the right techniques; you cannot just follow them blindly. Also, unless you pay for a personal trainer, no friend will have the patience to show you all the techniques). There are no other way around it. You HAVE to do these exercises to get big. And because of that, you HAVE to get the right techniques to prevent injury (with such heavy weights that you can lift with deadlift or squat, injury from bad forms may last for years or maybe forever).
• Deadlift: You can lift extremely heavy weights with deadlift, but you can also mess up your back so badly you can never walk normal again. The thing is, with the right techniques, you can train with these exercises well until your late 40s or 50s. Doesn’t it feel good to be able to lift massive weights? You are training to get big, but you are also training to be stronger. After all, that’s the reason why most of us at least at one point or another bench press 225 pounds when our spotters were doing most of the lifting instead of ourselves.
• Benchpress (or dips): You already have enough experience with bench pressing. Dips is a bit harder in technique but it is a great exercise when you are stuck with your bench press. If you think bench press is important, squat and deadlift are both way more important in terms of helping you get stronger and bigger. If you feel great for being able to bench press 180 pounds, you will feel even better for being able to squat 300 pounds and deadlift 320 pounds. Overall, benchpress receives more attention and energy than it deserves. If you want to train right and train smart, then make squat and deadlift your priorities instead of bench press.
• Press: Have you seen some guys with big arms but small shoulders? They are everywhere. That’s because they pump up their biceps too much while ignoring to do any press. You don’t look good with big arms and small shoulders, but you look great with big shoulders and moderately big arms. Just look at any great physique and pay some attention to the proportion of the arms to the shoulder, and you will see what I mean. And press is the best exercise to train for bigger shoulder.

These four exercises are called Compound Exercises. They work multiple muscles of your body so that not only will you gain a lot of muscles with just these four exercises, you will also become a lot stronger (and by stronger, I mean “functionally stronger,” being able to lift much heavier objects of all shapes). Of course there are other assistant exercises like calf-raises and bicep curls, etc, that you must also perform in order to have a completely great physique. However, in terms of importance, these four exercises MUST be the ones that you focus most of your attention and energy on, especially early in your work out program. In other words, if for some reasons you can only work out once a week for a month or so, then it is these four exercises that you must perform in that one session instead of anything else.

There is no way this short post can do justice to the importance of these exercises. But if you do some more research on these four exercises, the reasons for why you HAVE to include them in your program will become clearer. Also, these exercises MUST be performed with barbell in their traditional variations. Easier variations or variations with the dumbbell for the sake of easier techniques will give you no result, or if any at all, much smaller benefits than the correct variations will (in some cases, certain variations can be done if the trainer has some injury or abnormal body structure. But these cases are extremely rare. You should not be among that group).

Read this “Starting Strength” is your Bible for training. It is a great book that will show you all the right techniques for these four exercises. You should be able to train like a pro after that.

RECAP: The four compound exercises: Squat, Deadlift, Bench Press (or Dips), and Press must be included in your training program if you want to get bigger and stronger. There is simply no exercise more important than these four.

Training for ectomorphs (born to be skinny people), 9.0 out of 10 based on 2 ratings