Say you have only got 30 minutes of time at the gym, what are the best exercises to do in that short amount of time? The best exercises involve using the largest amount of muscles for any one movement. This means that complex lifts and movements are the best exercises to do.
What is a complex lift you ask?
A complex lift involves using the totality of your body in order to make one full movement.
Why is that better; because, muscles only grow after being placed under tension. Increasing the number of muscles and the frequency at which they are tensed provides more opportunity to grow them; something called hypertrophy.
So what lifts or movements will be most effective?
- Bench Press
- Deadlift
- Squat
- Over Head Press
- Front Squat
- Pushup
- Pull-up
All of these movements are full body exercises doing all of them with proper form will allow you to hit near 100% of your muscles groups in only 7 exercises, fantastic! Body weight exercises have the added benefit of requiring you to move 100% of your mass. In contrast, when you first start weight training you may not have the confidence to put 100% of your mass above your face or on your back.
Alan Thrall’s videos are extremely informative and I have linked to them as examples.
Thanks for reading.
-Kyle
Flor Luna
I really, really like this post!