Better Health & Living

Muscles trained: Core (with special emphasis on the external obliques--the muscles on your flanks) and shoulders

Benefits: One of the best exercises for increasing spinal stability

Here's one that will quickly go right to the top of your list of "must do" core exercises. Because it increases both spinal stability and the overall endurance of the entire lumbar area, the side bridge is a lot more effective than the ever-popular crunch.

How to do it: Lie on your side on the floor with your shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles directly aligned with each other. With your bottom arm directly beneath your shoulder and bent at a 90-degree angle so your forearm is perpendicular to your torso, brace your core as you raise your body until it forms a diagonal line. In the top position, only the side of your bottom foot and your forearm should be in contact with the floor. Try two sets of 8 to 10 reps per side.

Muscles trained: Those supporting the rotator cuff

Benefits: Increases shoulder strength and stability

This is without question the most important exercise that virtually no one does. It involves a motion we don't use very often, if at all, during daily living and muscles that are almost completely unutilized by most of the more popular exercises in the gym. In fact, loading up on bench presses, flys, and lat pulldowns at the expense of strengthening your rotator cuff practically ensures that you'll have a shoulder injury at some point down the road--which is reason enough to consider adding this exercise to your repertoire.

How to do it: Stand beside an adjustable cable column with the pulley set around waist height. Begin by reaching across your body with your outside arm, with your elbow bent at a 90-degree angle, and grabbing the handle. Without moving your upper arm, move your forearm in front of your body as far as you can without turning your torso. Work up to two sets of 12 to 15 reps per side.

Muscles trained: Glutes (butt), hamstrings (thighs), and spinal erectors (lower back)

Benefits: Increases lower-body strength and helps protect your knees from injury

Here's an exercise that allows you to use a piece of basic gym equipment in an entirely new way. By offering an effective way to strengthen your posterior chain--a term used to describe the glutes, hamstrings, and lower back working as a functional unit--this exercise goes a long way toward improving knee stability. Although it's a worthwhile exercise for just about anyone, the reverse hyperextension is especially important for women, whose anatomical structure makes them more prone to knee injuries.

How to do it: Lie face down on the bench with your hips on the pad and your legs hanging off the back of the bench. Grab the leg supports and brace your core as you use your glutes, hamstrings, and lower-back muscles to raise your legs until they're extended straight behind you, just past parallel to the floor. Work up to two or three sets of 10 to 15 reps.

Muscles trained: Upper back, biceps, and core

Benefit: Helps improve posture and shoulder joint stability

This peculiar-looking drill targets the often underused upper-back muscles responsible for pulling your shoulder blades together and promoting better overall balance of the shoulder joints. These muscles tend to be neglected in favor of "mirror muscles" (the ones that make you look good in the mirror) such as the chest muscles and anterior deltoids.

How to do it: Position a bar on the supports of a squat rack at waist level. Sit on the floor underneath the bar and grip it with your palms facing your feet and your arms slightly more than shoulder width apart. Extend your legs and, with your weight resting only on the backs of your heels, raise your hips off the floor and hang from the bar at arm's length. Once in position, initiate the pull by pinching your shoulder blades together as you use your upper back and arms to pull your chest toward the bar. In the top position, your chest should be as close to the bar as possible, with your arms away from your body. Work up to two or three sets of 8 to 10 reps.

Muscles trained: Biceps (upper arm) and forearm

Benefits: Builds biceps and forearms and helps increase grip strength

Considering how much attention the arms get from a training standpoint, you wouldn't think there'd be an arm exercise people aren't doing--but there is. The Zottman curl is one of the best arm builders you can do with a set a dumbbells. You lift the weights in the strong palms-up position and then turn your palms down as you lower the weights. This enables you to better overload and strengthen the forearms.

How to do it: Stand straight, holding a pair of dumbbells at arm's length just outside your hips with your palms facing forward. Begin by curling the weights up as you would during a regular biceps curl. When you reach the top, turn your hands so your palms are almost facing the floor and slowly lower the weights. Try two sets of 8 to 12 reps.