Compound Exercises
A compound exercise is where the exercise moves through 2 or more joints, which in turn usually means hitting more than one muscle group at the same time, which then also means bigger muscle growth.
When doing any sort of weight training, whether to lose weight, tone up or build muscle, compound moves should be at the top of your list. Because compound moves engage more muscle tissue than isolation exercises the more growth will occur and also more calories burned.
The big compound moves are as follows:
There are more but incorporating these exercises into your workout is a absolute must if you wish to boost muscle growth and burn more calories.
If you’re a fairly skinny person wanting bulk up and build muscle then compound moves are definitely the best way to achieve this and you may want to leave any isolation exercises out as this will invariably just burn more calories, which is not what you really need. However if you’re a bit chubby then adding isolation exercises on top of these will help you burn a few extra calories and therefore help lose a bit more fat.
I’ll cover isolation exercises another time.
Happy Training!
