How to Choose the Best Exercises for Muscle Growth (Exercise Tier Rankings Explained)

Walk into any gym and you'll see people doing dozens of different exercises. Cable kickbacks, Smith machine squats, reverse grip tricep pushdowns on an incline bench — the variety is endless. But here's a question most people never stop to ask: are the exercises I'm doing actually the best ones for building muscle?

The answer, for most people, is no. Not because they're doing "bad" exercises, but because they're spending too much time on B-tier movements when S-tier options exist. And that matters more than you think.

Let's talk about what makes an exercise great for muscle growth, how to rank them, and how to build your training around the movements that give you the most bang for your buck.

What Makes an Exercise "Good" for Muscle Growth?

Exercise science has given us a pretty clear picture of what makes a movement effective for hypertrophy. It comes down to a few key factors:

1. Range of Motion (ROM)

Research consistently shows that training through a full range of motion produces more muscle growth than partial reps. More importantly, exercises that load the muscle in a stretched position seem to be especially effective. This is why exercises like Romanian deadlifts, incline curls, and overhead tricep extensions are so effective — they place maximum tension on the muscle when it's lengthened.

2. Muscle Activation and Tension Profile

The best exercises maintain tension on the target muscle throughout the full range. A good example: compare a dumbbell fly to a cable fly. With dumbbells, tension drops to almost zero at the top. With cables, tension stays constant. That matters for hypertrophy.

Similarly, some exercises are just better at isolating specific muscles. Leg press hits your quads, but hack squats with a narrow stance hit them harder. Understanding which exercises maximize activation for your target muscle is key.

3. Loading Potential

Can you progressively add weight to this exercise over time? This is where compound movements shine. You can keep adding plates to a squat, bench, or row for years. Some isolation exercises have natural loading limits — you're never going to lateral raise 50kg dumbbells with strict form. That's fine, but it means compounds should be the foundation of your program.

4. Stability and Safety

An exercise that consistently gets you injured is a terrible exercise, no matter how "effective" it is. The best movements let you push hard without excessive joint stress. Behind-the-neck presses might hit your shoulders, but the shoulder impingement risk makes them a poor choice for most people.

The Exercise Tier System: S, A, B, and C Tier

Not every exercise is equal. Here's a practical ranking system:

S-Tier: The Foundation

These are the best of the best. High loading potential, great ROM, excellent muscle activation, and proven track record. Build your program around these.

• Chest: Barbell bench press, incline dumbbell press
• Back: Pull-ups/chin-ups, barbell rows, cable rows
• Quads: Barbell squat, hack squat, leg press
• Hamstrings: Romanian deadlift, seated leg curl
• Shoulders: Overhead press, cable lateral raises
• Biceps: Incline dumbbell curls, barbell curls
• Triceps: Overhead cable extensions, close-grip bench press

A-Tier: Excellent Support

Great exercises that complement S-tier movements. They might have slightly less loading potential or a less ideal tension profile, but they're still highly effective.

• Chest: Cable flies, dips
• Back: Lat pulldowns, dumbbell rows, face pulls
• Quads: Bulgarian split squats, leg extensions
• Hamstrings: Good mornings, Nordic curls
• Shoulders: Dumbbell lateral raises, reverse flies

B-Tier: Situationally Useful

These have a place in your program, but shouldn't be the core. Think of them as accessories and variety tools. Machine exercises with limited ROM, exercises where loading plateaus quickly, or movements where form breakdown is common.

C-Tier: Skip Unless You Have a Reason

High injury risk, poor muscle activation, or outclassed by better options. Behind-the-neck anything, upright rows with a narrow grip, Smith machine squats for most people. Not "bad" per se, but there's almost always a better choice.

How to Build a Program Using Tier Rankings

Here's a simple rule of thumb:

• 60-70% of your volume should come from S-tier exercises. These are your bread and butter.
• 20-30% from A-tier. These fill gaps and add variety where it's useful.
• 0-10% from B-tier. Fun stuff, pump work, machine finishers.
• C-tier? Just don't.

A practical push day might look like: barbell bench press (S), incline dumbbell press (S), cable flies (A), overhead cable tricep extension (S), and lateral raises (A). That's 5 exercises, mostly S and A tier, covering all your push muscles with the best possible movements.

How GROW Ranks Your Exercises

One of the things we built into GROW is an exercise tier ranking system. Every exercise in the app's database is categorized by tier, so you can see at a glance whether the movements in your routine are actually optimized for growth.

When you're building a workout in GROW, you'll see tier indicators next to each exercise. It's not about telling you what to do — it's about giving you the information to make smarter choices. If you're doing three B-tier chest exercises when two S-tier options would give you better results in less time, wouldn't you want to know that?

The rankings are based on current exercise science research — factors like stretch-mediated hypertrophy, EMG data, loading potential, and injury risk profiles. And they're updated as new research comes out.

Common Mistakes in Exercise Selection

Doing Too Many Exercises Per Muscle Group

You don't need 5 chest exercises. You need 2-3 great ones, performed with progressive overload. More exercises doesn't mean more growth — it just means more fatigue and longer workouts.

Chasing Novelty Over Consistency

That new cable variation you saw on Instagram looks cool. But if you abandon your barbell rows — which you've been progressing on — to try it, you're trading proven progress for unproven novelty. New exercises should supplement your core work, not replace it.

Ignoring Stretch-Position Exercises

Recent research has hammered home the importance of exercises that challenge muscles in a lengthened position. If all your movements load the shortened position (think: leg extensions for quads), you're leaving growth on the table. Add exercises like sissy squats, incline curls, and overhead extensions that challenge the stretch.

The Bottom Line

Exercise selection isn't just about what "feels good" or what your favorite influencer does. It's about choosing movements that score highest on the factors that drive hypertrophy: range of motion, tension profile, loading potential, and safety.

Rank your exercises. Build your program around S-tier movements. Add A-tier accessories. And stop wasting sets on C-tier exercises that give you half the results for the same effort.

The best exercises for muscle growth aren't secret. They're just the ones most people don't prioritize.