If you weight train it's very important to always do the right exercises to increase overall muscle mass and strength.
This is especially true for beginning weight trainers.
Doing too many isolation exercises instead of the major compound exercises won't help you build the muscle size and strength gains you're after.
Even if you have been weight training for a while there are certain compound exercises you should always keep as part of your routine.
The best weight training exercises to build overall muscularity are squats, deadlifts, bench presses, pull-ups, military presses, curls, triceps extensions, and calf raises.
Doing these exercises, or various forms of them, will help you build the most muscle size throughout the entire body.
Squats are the best exercise for leg development and possibly the best overall exercise you can if you weight train.
Not only will you build your quadriceps and hamstrings with squats, but you'll also get a big boost in testosterone that will help you gain more overall muscle size.
The best exercise for the all important lower back area is the deadlift.
Deadlifting will also give your entire lower body and even your upper back a lot of work because they require many different muscles to perform the lift.
Bench presses are the undisputed king of weight training exercises for the chest.
You'll build your pectorals quickly if you bench press properly and also get some secondary work for the front deltoids and triceps.
For upper back muscular development you'll need to train for both width and thickness.
The best exercises to gain upper back width are pull-ups and cable pulldowns.
Pull-ups are better than pulldowns due to the fact that you move your body through space, but it can be hard to get enough pull-up reps for a good set if you have not built enough strength in your upper back or you weigh too much.
To add more upper back thickness you need to do rows.
Rows can be done many different ways - with barbells, dumbbells, cables, or on rowing machines.
Military presses are great for building the shoulder muscles, though you may want to do dumbbell presses instead to better target the side heads of the shoulders.
If you do military presses you should lower the weight to in front of your neck instead of behind the head.
You're way more likely to hurt your shoulder joints if you lower the weight to behind your head.
Curls are the best exercise for the biceps.
Pretty much every bicep exercise involves curling and you do them with barbells, dumbbells, or cables.
Triceps extensions are another exercise that can be done many different ways and focus primarily on the triceps.
You can do them while standing, seated, or lying on a bench to hit the triceps from various angles.
The best weight training exercise for the calves is the calf raise.
You can do them on standing or seated calf machines (for the best results you should do both) or on a leg press machine for a change of pace.
Always keep these exercises, or the various forms of them, as the main exercises in your weight training workout routine.
Start your workouts with these major compound exercises and save the isolation exercises to finish off your workouts.
Chest flyes, leg extensions, tricep kickbacks, and other popular isolation exercises have their place for getting a nice burn in the muscles and finishing off workouts, but the major exercises will help you build real muscle mass and strength.