I encounter questions about what is the best exercise to gain strength or to gain muscle size all the time. "Are compound movements good for growth?" are compound exercises useless?" "what are multi-joint movements?" "should I do isolation exercises for strength?" "what about single joint exercises?" "what is the best exercise to build muscle?" "what is the best exercise to get stronger?" "I just want the gains"
I truly believe there no one single exercise any one must do to gain size or strength in a specific muscle. I do believe in effective and efficient workouts. As a result I recommend focusing on compound movements, also called multi-joint exercises. It's not to say you can't do any isolation, or single joint exercises ever, but I've seen more success from those training on programs that preference the compound movements. Optimize Strength and Muscle Gains by Implementing Compound Exercises in your training regimen.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:19 What are compound movements
01:07 The Adaptations
01:32 Can I only use free-weights for compound exercises?
01:48 Performance & Practice
02:14 Programming