One exercise I personally think many newer lifters should be very cautious with is the behind-the-neck shoulder press.
Years ago, it was much more common in bodybuilding routines, and some people still swear by it. But over time, I’ve seen too many lifters force themselves into positions their shoulders simply are not built to handle safely.
The problem is that the exercise demands a combination of shoulder mobility, stability, posture, and control that many people honestly do not have, especially beginners sitting at desks all day with tight shoulders and poor thoracic mobility already.
Once heavy weight gets involved, the position can place a lot of stress on the shoulders and rotator cuff very quickly.
I also think many people perform the movement incorrectly without realizing it. They force the bar too low, arch excessively, lose shoulder positioning, and turn the exercise into something much riskier than it needs to be.
For me, the bigger question is always this: What are you gaining from the exercise that cannot be achieved more safely another way?
There are already many excellent shoulder exercises available. Dumbbell presses, machine presses, lateral raises, cable work, and more controlled pressing variations can build impressive shoulders without putting the joints into awkward positions repeatedly.
That does not mean nobody should ever do behind-the-neck presses. Some experienced lifters with exceptional mobility and years of training may tolerate them perfectly fine.
But I think newer lifters often assume an exercise must be good simply because they saw advanced bodybuilders doing it online somewhere.
Experience changes exercise selection a lot.
As people train longer, they usually stop chasing exercises that only look hardcore and start paying much more attention to longevity, recovery, joint health, and staying able to train consistently for years without unnecessary injuries.
Most workouts are just me showing up, putting my headphones in, and getting the work done whether I feel like it or not. That’s the reality of bodybuilding after enough years. Nobody sees the hundreds of regular training sessions behind the photos and stage shots. They just see the result afterward.
I’ve learned that consistency beats excitement every time. The days where you least feel like training are usually the days that test whether you’re serious about your goals or just interested in them when it’s convenient.
People love searching for secret arm exercises, but after enough years in bodybuilding, I’ve realized bicep growth usually comes more from consistency, execution, and proper tension than constantly changing movements every week.
There are a few exercises I continue returning to because they consistently work when performed correctly.
The standing dumbbell curl is still one of the best overall bicep exercises in my opinion. It’s simple, but small details change the effectiveness completely. I try to avoid swinging the weight excessively and focus on controlling the negative portion instead of rushing through repetitions. Letting the arm fully extend at the bottom while keeping tension on the bicep makes a huge difference compared to doing half-reps with momentum. You can do these with either dumbbells or a barbell, and for variation, you can use an underhand grip or an overhand grip.
Incline dumbbell curls are another exercise I think many people underestimate.
The stretched position during the movement creates a very different feeling compared to standard curls. Sitting back on an incline bench forces the biceps to work from a deeper stretch, and that usually creates excellent tension when the movement is controlled properly. The mistake many people make is going too heavy and turning the exercise into shoulder movement instead of isolating the biceps themselves.
I also still like preacher curls, especially for strict contraction work.
Preacher curls remove a lot of momentum and force the biceps to do the work directly. They can feel humbling very quickly because weights that seem easy during standing curls suddenly feel much heavier once cheating is removed from the movement.
One thing I’ve learned with arm training is that chasing heavier weight endlessly often hurts progress more than it helps. Biceps respond very well to controlled execution, full range of motion, and consistent tension.
I also think patience is important with arms specifically because people tend to expect dramatic changes very quickly. In reality, arm development usually takes much longer than newer lifters expect, especially once beginner progress slows down.
Over time, I’ve found that simple exercises performed well repeatedly almost always outperform constantly searching for flashy “secret” movements online.
One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about this blog is the interaction with readers. Over the years, I’ve received questions about bodybuilding, training, nutrition, supplementation, motivation, career experiences, personal interests, and plenty of topics that don’t fit neatly into any category.
From time to time, I put together an Ask Alessandro feature where I answer questions submitted by readers. Some are fitness-related. Some are personal. Some are completely unexpected. The best ones are often the questions that spark interesting discussions or offer insights that others may find valuable as well.
If you’ve ever wondered how I approach a particular aspect of training, what I think about a current trend in fitness, how I balance different priorities, or simply wanted my perspective on something, this is your opportunity to ask.
Questions can be submitted at any time through this website and will be considered for future editions of Ask Alessandro. While I can’t guarantee that every question will be featured, I do read the submissions and frequently draw from them when putting together new Q&A posts.
So whether your question is about building muscle, staying motivated, lessons learned through the years, favorite books, hobbies, business, travel, or something entirely different, I’d love to hear it.
After all, if you’re thinking about it, there’s a good chance someone else is too.
You can also view my first two Volumes of Ask Alessandro. In my first edition, I answered some of the questions I receive the most often: how tall am I? How much do I weigh? How did I get started in bodybuilding? And much more.
And in the second edition, I answered questions about my role models, what people misunderstand about the life of a bodybuilder, how I choose to travel, and many other reader questions.
When I look at photos like this, I don’t just see the physique. I remember the routine behind it — the training sessions, the structured days, the meals, the travel, the exhaustion, and the consistency required to keep showing up over and over again.
At the time, most of it just felt normal. Looking back now, I can see how much those ordinary days added up.
Contest prep has a way of making time blur together. By peak week, everything becomes extremely structured — training, meals, water, sleep, posing, recovery.
Photos like this from 2024 always take me back to that mindset. Focused, tired, excited, and completely locked into the goal after months of preparation.
A lot of people only see the few minutes on stage. The real experience is everything that happens before it — including standing half awake in a spray tan tent while someone coats you like a piece of expensive furniture.
Bodybuilding is, by definition, an aesthetic pursuit.
The name itself says it clearly. We are building the body. Shaping it. Refining it. Improving it through years of training, nutrition, recovery, discipline, and repetition. Physique matters in this world because the physique is the work itself.
So yes — bodybuilders pay attention to appearance. More than most people.
We notice small changes. A sharper waistline. Fuller shoulders. Slightly better conditioning. A softer look after a few uncontrolled meals. We analyze progress photos, lighting, posing, symmetry, and detail. Over time, it becomes second nature.
There is nothing strange about that.
But there is also a line that can quietly become blurred.
At some point, the mirror can stop being a tool and start becoming a judge.
That is where things become dangerous.
The truth is that bodybuilding gives people far more than aesthetics alone. The physical transformation may be what draws most people into the lifestyle initially, but if they stay long enough, they usually discover something deeper underneath it.
Structure, discipline, patience.
Self-respect, consistency.
The gym teaches people how to keep promises to themselves. It teaches restraint, emotional control, and long-term thinking. It creates routine during chaotic periods of life. It gives many people confidence they never had before. For some, it becomes therapy. For others, stability.
Those things matter far more than whether your abs are visible every hour of every day.
The problem is that modern bodybuilding culture — especially online — can make it easy to forget this. Social media constantly pushes comparison. Perfect lighting. Perfect pumps. Perfect angles. Perfect conditioning maintained for a single photo taken at a specific moment under very controlled circumstances.
If you are not careful, you can slowly begin attaching your entire sense of self-worth to how you look on any given day.
That mindset becomes exhausting.
Even worse, it becomes impossible to satisfy, because physiques are never static. The body changes constantly. Water fluctuates. Conditioning fluctuates. Fullness fluctuates. Energy fluctuates. No athlete looks stage-ready year-round, no matter what social media tries to sell.
And yet many bodybuilders still live mentally trapped inside constant self-analysis: Too small. Too flat. Too soft. Not lean enough. Not full enough.
Not enough.
The irony is that this obsession can actually pull someone further away from the very lifestyle they claim to love. Training becomes anxiety instead of growth. Meals become stress instead of fuel. Progress becomes invisible because the athlete can only focus on flaws.
I understand this mentality because I live inside the same world.
Every serious bodybuilder cares about appearance. Pretending otherwise would be dishonest. We work extremely hard to refine our physiques, and naturally we want to see the result of that effort reflected back at us.
But bodybuilding works best when aesthetics remain part of the lifestyle — not the entire meaning of it.
The healthiest athletes are usually the ones who understand that their physique is something they pursue, not something that defines their value as a person.
Because eventually, the stage lights turn off.
The show ends, the photos are posted, and life continues.
And what remains underneath all of it is the real reason this lifestyle matters: the discipline it built inside you long before the physique ever arrived.
The biggest mistake I see people make when they start their physical transformation is this: they say, “I’ll follow a super strict diet for two or three months, lose weight… and then that’s it.” It doesn’t work. Ever.
If you follow an extreme method that’s hard to sustain and you reach your goal… what do you think happens when you stop that diet?
Everything falls apart.
A truly solid program is meant to build habits you can carry with you for life.
Because when you reach your goal and think, “Okay, now I’ll maintain, now I’ll enjoy food a bit”… you’re like a sponge. You regain weight at an insane speed.
And it’s devastating: you put in a huge amount of effort to lose 5, 10, 15 pounds… and within a few weeks, it feels like you’ve gained almost all of it back.
When you truly understand that staying in shape requires ongoing effort, and that the method you use to reach your goal is more or less the same one you’ll need to maintain it… then you ask yourself: “Can I really do this for the rest of my life?”
And that’s when you realize that extremes aren’t the way.
Most people start bodybuilding motivated by physical change.
They want to look stronger. Leaner. Healthier. More confident. That motivation is real, and there’s nothing wrong with it. Bodybuilding is, after all, an aesthetic pursuit.
But over time, your motivation should grow into something bigger than the mirror alone.
The discipline learned in the gym should help you enjoy life more — with more confidence, more energy, more freedom, and more appreciation for the experiences around you.
Because your body is a vessel.
And a vessel means very little if you never actually use it to live.
Sometimes being motivated means training hard. Sometimes it means slowing down, recovering, traveling, being present, and appreciating the life you’re building outside the gym too.
Train hard. Improve yourself. Stay focused.
But stay motivated to enjoy life along the way — not just optimize it.
Most people think the set is decided at the end — when the weight gets heavy, the breathing gets loud, and the reps slow down. That’s where effort is obvious, so that’s where attention goes.
But over time, I’ve learned something that completely changed how I train.
The most important rep in a set usually isn’t the last one.
It’s the second.
The first rep is rarely honest. You’re settling into the machine or the bench. You’re adjusting your feet, your grip, your posture. The nervous system is still switching on. Sometimes momentum sneaks in without you even noticing. That first rep often tells you what the weight can do — not what the muscle is actually doing.
By the second rep, all of that is gone.
You’re positioned. The movement has started. The weight is no longer a surprise. And whatever muscle takes over on that second rep is the muscle that will dominate the rest of the set.
That’s why I pay close attention right there.
If the second rep lands exactly where I want it — clean tension, correct line of pull, the right muscle doing the work — I know I can build something with the set. I can push it. I can layer fatigue on top of good mechanics.
But if the second rep feels wrong, I don’t try to force my way through it.
I stop.
That’s the part most people skip. They assume the set will “fix itself” as they go. In reality, it usually drifts further away. Stronger muscles start compensating. Joints take on more load. The movement turns into survival instead of sculpting.
So I reset.
Maybe it’s a small adjustment — a slightly different seat height, a narrower grip, less load, a slower start. Sometimes it’s just taking a breath and re-centering before starting again. But I don’t let a bad second rep dictate the next ten.
This approach saves time, protects the body, and makes every working set more productive. It also changes how you think about training. You stop chasing fatigue for its own sake. You start valuing quality early, when you still have control.
Over the years, this has helped me bring up weak points more effectively than adding extra volume ever did. When the right muscle is involved from the start, it stays involved. When it isn’t, no amount of grinding at the end will magically fix it.
Here’s the simple rule I follow:
If the second rep isn’t right, the set doesn’t count.
Not in an obsessive way. Just in an honest one.
Sculpting isn’t about how much discomfort you can tolerate at the end of a set. It’s about how deliberately you can apply tension from the beginning. And most of the time, the second rep tells you everything you need to know.
One thing that surprises a lot of people is that even professional athletes deal with muscle imbalances, uneven activation, and movement patterns that need to be corrected. It’s completely normal — your body is always trying to compensate for the stronger side, the dominant limb, or the easiest pathway.
Over the years, I’ve learned that fixing these patterns is one of the most important parts of training. If you don’t correct them, you strengthen the imbalance, not the muscle — and eventually your physique stops improving.
Today, I want to share how I work on imbalances, correct faulty mechanics, and improve neuromuscular control. These are the methods that help me train smarter, stay healthy, and keep progressing year after year.
1. Your Body Will Always Compensate Unless You Teach It Not To
The first thing to understand is this: your body naturally shifts work toward the stronger side.
If one lat is more developed, if one shoulder fires earlier, or if one trap takes over, the body automatically follows that pattern — even if you don’t notice it.
For example, I have a left lat that’s weaker than the right. During certain pulling movements, my shoulder wants to rise or rotate forward instead of allowing the lat to contract. That’s the body compensating.
You don’t fix this by adding weight. You fix it by teaching the muscle to activate correctly.
2. When the Form Breaks, I Stop and Reset the Rep
This is one of the most important rules in my training:
If the rep stops hitting the right muscle, I release the tension, reset the position, and start again.
Most people do the opposite — they keep pushing through bad reps.
But every bad rep teaches your body the wrong movement pattern. You’re reinforcing the compensation instead of correcting it.
A proper reset allows you to:
realign your joints
shift tension back to the target muscle
rebuild proper form
prevent the stronger side from taking over
avoid unnecessary strain
Sometimes one correct rep is more valuable than ten wrong ones.
3. Small Technique Adjustments Make a Huge Difference
Imbalances aren’t always fixed with big changes — most of the time, it’s subtle adjustments that produce the breakthrough.
Some cues that help me correct activation include:
Elbow slightly outward to engage mid-back instead of traps
Chest lifted to open the shoulder line
Reducing the bottom range to avoid triceps or traps taking over
Driving the elbow toward the hip instead of pulling with the hand
Leaning forward or back a few degrees to target a specific region
Changing the bench angle to shift into the right plane of motion
When you start playing with angles and posture, you realize how much you can change the feel of a movement without changing the load.
This is how you target the weak side more effectively.
4. Machines Can Help You Rebuild Control
Free weights are great, but when I’m fixing an imbalance or trying to re-learn the correct activation, machines often work better.
Why?
Because machines:
stabilize the movement for you
limit compensation
help you isolate the target muscle
keep tension constant
give you the chance to focus entirely on feeling the right muscle
When one side is weaker, your body tries to twist, rotate, or hitch to help — machines make those shortcuts harder.
They’re a great tool for correcting technical issues.
5. Off-Season Is the Best Time to Fix Imbalances
Many athletes try to correct movement patterns during prep, but that’s the hardest time to do it. Low calories mean low energy, and your nervous system is already fatigued.
The off-season is when I focus the most on:
re-learning the correct motor pattern
improving activation in the weak areas
training with slightly higher calories
giving the muscle enough recovery to adapt
building balanced strength from both sides
If you fix the movement pattern now, the muscle grows more evenly when you start increasing intensity again.
That’s one of the secrets to long-term improvement.
6. Train Smart, Not With Ego
I say this often because it’s true:
Weight doesn’t matter if it’s not hitting the right muscle.
Training smart means:
choosing form over load
stopping bad reps before they become habits
working on activation first, intensity second
accepting that the weak side will fatigue earlier
adjusting your technique instead of forcing it
If you let your ego run the session, you’ll end up reinforcing every imbalance you already have.
If you train with your mind, you fix them.
Final Thoughts
Correcting imbalances is one of the most advanced — and most important — parts of bodybuilding. Anyone can lift heavy. But not everyone can feel the right muscle working, notice when it stops working, and adjust in real time.
When you commit to proper activation, resetting bad reps, improving technique, and fixing movement patterns during the off-season, your physique changes dramatically. Your poses look cleaner. Your strength becomes more balanced. And your progress becomes sustainable.
This is how you build a body that grows evenly, performs well, and lasts.
There’s a point in every set where everything changes.
The movement slows down, the muscle starts to burn, and the reps stop feeling clean and easy. That’s usually where people decide they’ve done enough.
That decision is where progress separates.
In bodybuilding, growth comes from the reps that require full attention. When the muscle is fatigued and control becomes harder to maintain, that’s when the work starts to matter. If you step out of the set at that moment, you miss the reason the body adapts in the first place.
A lot of training stays just outside that threshold. The session gets done, there’s effort, there’s a pump—but the demand never gets high enough to force change. Over time, the body has no reason to respond.
The difference shows up in how you handle those final reps. When tension is high and everything wants to break down, you either stay with the movement or you don’t. Staying with it—keeping control, finishing the rep cleanly—is what builds the physique.
You see it most clearly on leg day. There’s no way to stay comfortable there. The fatigue comes quickly, and the only option is to stay focused or let the set fall apart. That kind of pressure teaches you how to hold your standard when it matters.
That same approach has to carry through every session.
The goal isn’t to chase discomfort for its own sake. It’s to recognize when you’ve reached the point where the body has to work harder to maintain control, and to stay there long enough for it to matter.
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