One of the best ways to increase overall muscle mass and strength is through incorporating compound exercises into your regular workout schedule. Compound exercises work multiple muscle groups at the same time, and this maximum muscle recruitment ultimately leads to significantly more stimulus and building muscle quicker.
Benefits of Compound Movements
One of the benefits of compound exercises is that they’re a very efficient use of your time. With many of us having busy days, with only a short period of time allotted to work out, compound lifts can help us maximize our efforts, build quality lean muscle mass and improve strength.
When engaging multiple muscle groups at the same time, we can burn more calories in the same time frame compared to an isolation exercise, due to the excess demand on our body. This can ultimately help improve fat loss and aid in achieving your goals quicker.
Another major benefit of compound movements is their ability to improve our intermuscular coordination. With these complex exercises moving in multiple different planes, the muscles must work together to produce the force needed for the lift itself, as well as to control the force to perform the movement properly. The more frequently you perform compound movements, the more efficient your workouts and technique will become. These lifts teach our muscles how to work together, which can improve our overall quality of life with more refined movement skills.
Along with recruiting multiple muscle groups, the body must work extra hard to provide the oxygen and blood needed to perform compound lifts to the best of our abilities. When your movements require multiple muscles to be working at once, the heart needs to pump blood to keep your muscles fueled and active for the lift. This is why compound exercises are seen as very beneficial for cardiovascular health.
How to Include Compound Movements in Your Routine
With compound exercises requiring such high demand, be sure to keep them toward the beginning of your workout routine. This will help ensure that you’re not performing heavy technical movements with pre-fatigued muscles, thus minimizing the risk of injury.
Some of the most common and beneficial compound lifts that you can incorporate into your workouts include the following:
- Squats
Hot Tip: Make sure to keep your head up, your lower back arched and the bar set on the upper traps as you squat slowly.
- Deadlift
Hot Tip: Come to a complete dead stop after each rep, removing momentum and forcing a more muscular action.
- Pull-Ups
Hot Tip: Change the width of your grip to work on different parts of the back.
- Military Press
Hot Tip: Make sure not to lean back too far or this will become more of an incline press instead of a military press.
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