Great-Workout Blog

If you’re like most people I know, you’re so busy, that you struggle to find the time to hit the gym. You might have good intentions, but you probably also have what feels like a hundred other conflicting priorities (i.e. work, study, family etc).

If this sounds like you, compound exercises could be just the thing you need.

By using compound exercises, you’ll make much faster progress than you would if you use isolation exercises. In fact, you should always include compound exercises in your workout routine anyway. But this becomes even more important when you’re pushed for time.

What are Compound Exercises?

Compound exercises are exercises that move the body through more than one joint. By contrast, isolation exercises require only one joint.

Because compound exercises use more than one joint, they use more muscles. Compound exercises generally require you to use your largest muscle groups too - like your leg and back muscles.

Benefits of Compound Exercises

Because compound movements exercise multiple muscle groups in one go, this is where you can save precious time. By exercising more muscles with one exercise, you won’t need to do so many different exercises. Therefore, you won’t need to stay in the gym for so long.

Also, you’ll find that you can lift much more weight when you perform compound exercises. This is partly due to the fact that more muscles are being used, but it also has to do with the fact that most compound exercises force you to use your large muscle groups.

“The Big Three”

Here are three compound exercises that are commonly known as “The Big Three”. These three movements are so effective, that most power lifters only use these three exercises when they train. They are:

• Dead lift (Mainly for your back muscles, but great overall body exercise. Your legs will love this exercise!)
• Squat (Hits mainly the legs, but works the whole body to some degree.)
• Bench press (Mainly for chest muscles, but your shoulders and triceps will get a great workout too.)

If you were to include only 3 exercises in your workout routine, make it these three. By performing these three movements, you’ll work your whole body.

More Compound Movements

Here are some more compound exercises:

• Leg Press (Legs)
• Lunge (Legs)
• Dumbbell Shoulder Press (Shoulders, triceps)
• Upright Row (Shoulders, biceps, forearms)
• Dumbbell Row (Back, biceps)
• Chin Up (Back, biceps)
• Parallel Bar Dip (Chest, triceps. Also shoulders to some degree)

So, if you’re struggling to find time for your workouts, try eliminating all/most of your isolation exercises and concentrate mainly on compound exercises. By doing this, you’ll spend less time in the gym, while getting equal or even better results.

Making certain that your muscles are always developing can be a seriously complex business. Yet strangely, a lot trainers start focusing on the more complex aspects of weight training long before they have ever mastered the very basics. In fact, you can see this in gyms all the time. Trainers pour in, do the exact same exercises that they have always done for God knows how long, without ever making any noticeable muscle gains.

If you don’t want to be a member of the teeming millions who just works without progress, you have to start thinking about some ways you can ensure that you always keep progressing.

Slow it Down

Obviously, you are going to have to use momentum on some more complex exercises, but you should never be in a contest to see how fast you can swing the weights around. By taking your time on every repetition, you increase the amount of stress on your muscle, which ultimately spurs more muscle growth.

Generally, it is preferable if each exercise lasts about four seconds, with two seconds to lift the weight and two to lower it. Unfortunately, even experienced trainers often underestimate the importance of the negative portion of the exercise. Lowering that weight just as slowly as you lift it will help you see bigger gains in the long run.

Do Something You Have Never Done Before

Variety is far more than just the spice of life, it is also the spice of a healthy fitness regimen. Your muscles are surprisingly adaptive, so if you go day in and day out doing the identical exercises that you have been doing for years, you do yourself no favors.

Every six weeks, you should switch things up and start doing exercises that you may not be used to. Yes, it will take a little time to learn proper technique, but you will be rewarded in the end.

Focus on Compound Exercises

The more muscles that each exercise recruits, the better. The compound exercises have numerous advantages over more simple isolation exercises. Firstly, they simply can make your workouts shorter because they work more with less movement. Secondly, by recruiting more muscles, you actually encourage more production of testosterone, which can help your gains greatly.

Cut Your Workouts Down to Size

It’s great if you get a lot of stimulation from going to the gym, but if you really want to see constant progress, each individual weight training session shouldn’t last more than an hour. After this point, all the energy that you are expending is actually causing your body to eat muscle.

If you are one of the those lucky people who happen to have a lot of time on your hands and enjoy devoting yourself to your training, it is possible to manage a split routine, where you split different parts of a long workouts into two separate workouts during the day. For the rest of us who have to hold down a job, keeping it under an hour a day should work sufficiently.

Fitness Expert Chris McCombs is a West Hollywood Personal Trainer California. While walking out of a burrito joint Chris discovered a radical approach to burning fat at a rapid rate which he helps people all over do today. Chris is also a fitness trainer marketing expert and helps personal trainers and other people in the fitness industry to triple their income and cut their work hours by more than half.