Bodybuilding is one of the greatest sports you can do, and it has a ton of health benefits as well. Having said that, if I told you that no hard work was involved in adding muscle to your body I wouldnt be telling the truth.

To build muscle does involve hard work, and for that reason you want to make sure that the work that you do is intelligent and well planned.

Part of that planning is to make sure that you expend your precious energy wisely, which means choosing the right exercises to do.

The two best exercises that have been historically proven time and time again to pack on muscle are the squat and the dead lift. Ask any top bodybuilder and I can guarantee that there isnt one of them who hasnt paid their dues either in the squat rack or on the dead lift platform.

And the really good news is that you only really need to choose one of these exercises to reach your genetic potential and add pounds of hard muscle to your frame.

Lets look at why these exercises are so efficient at building muscle.

More than two thirds of your muscle mass is contained in your legs and back. Therefore it makes sense to do exercises that build the major leg and back muscles, which is exactly what the squat and dead lift do.

This is where I see so many amateur bodybuilders go wrong - they concentrate on detail movements like bicep curls, and if they do any major compound work they do upper body movements like the bench press.

Im not for one second saying that the bench press is a waste of time - its one of the best upper body muscle builders there is - but the bench press does not build anywhere near as much muscle as the dead lift or squat.

I assume that you have no physical restrictions that prevent your doing these movements.

Even if right now youre not able to squat with any weight on the bar at all, or if you cant dead lift any weight at all, then start doing the movement with an empty bar, to get used to the groove of the exercise.

You should be able to add small amounts of weight as you build up more strength. Just keep doing the exercises once a week, adding small amounts of weight each time you train.

By the time you can dead lift or squat with say the equivalent of your bodyweight on the bar, you may find that youre naturally better suited to one movement or the other.

When you discover this, then just do the exercise that suits your body best, and continue to build the weight up.

If you have short legs youll probably find that youre better suited to the squat. If you have longer legs or are tall, you may find the dead lift suits you the best.

Now just keep adding weight to the bar in small increments for your chosen exercise. Learn perfect exercise technique and practise it on each and every rep you do.

I guarantee that this will build some serious muscle on your body, no matter how old or out of shape you are now - and it will do it a sight faster than any complicated 4 day a week training program.
Of course you will need to incorporate other movements in your routines to build a balanced body, but make sure that you design all of your future routines around either the squat or dead lift.

Get stuck in to either the dead lift or squat and watch your body respond!