Get Fit and Stronger With These Big 6 Compound Exercises
If you are looking to increase muscle mass, improve performance, and have a better quality of life, then one full of compound exercises will certainly give you what you need.
Building a solid base of muscle power throughout the body has many benefits such as they raise the heart rate to provide a cardiovascular benefit, burning more calories, and can help improve the balance and coordination of your body. Here are our most recommended six movement patterns and compound exercises for a beginner-friendly gym-goer.
Best Compound Exercises and Get Stronger
Deadlift
The deadlift is one of our big posterior chain hinging movements. Approach the bar so that it is centred over your feet, then push your knees forward, so your shins are touching the bar you then securely grip the bar with your hands shoulder-width apart. Take a deep breath in through your nose, squeeze your abs as hard as you can, chest up nice and tall, and push through the ground to stand up. There you go. That's a really good looking deadlift. That's our big hinging movement.
Focus: Quads; Hamstrings; Will also contribute to strength in lower back; Lats & traps.
Tip: Grip is usually the weak link on a conventional deadlift so giving it extra attention will help you in the main version. The ‘over & under grip' is a common technique (one hand's knuckles point towards you, the other hand's knuckles point away from you.)
Vertical Press: Overhead Press
Grab the bar at about shoulder width, more or less. As you come under the bar, elbows need to come underneath the bar, you need to make sure your wrists are nice and straight as you pick it up. When you're setting up, just for the lift, feet at about shoulder width. We're going to gently tuck our pelvis underneath us, deep breath in through our nose as always, squeeze our abs, there we go, and when you press up above your head, you just make sure your arms are in line with your ears. Then as you come back down, end at about your chin height, before pressing up again.
Focus: Mainly delts (shoulders), triceps. (Also contributes to core and hip stability especially once the load increases.)
Tip: Aim to keep your forearms vertical throughout the move to keep the weight balanced and put the load through the elbow rather than the wrist.
Vertical Pulling: Lat Pulldown
We're going to be looking at one of the other big six movements now. This is going to be our vertical pulling a movement. We're going to use the lat pulldown to show this, because it closely mimics the pull up as well. Grasp the bar with a wide grip while keeping your knees underneath the pad, Pull the bar down until it's approximately level with the chin. Exhale on down motion. you drop your shoulder blades down, I need you to drive your elbows down as low as they can go, and then end it just below your chin. As you come up, release those shoulder blades again. That is your vertical pull.
Focus: Lats, low traps. Also contributes to bicep strength as well, depending on which machine attachment is used and how one executes the movement.
Tip: It's important to target your back muscles to help with proper posture and to help transition you towards stronger pull ups and chin ups.
Horizontal Pulling: Horizontal Cable Row
Grab the handles, sitting up nice and straight like so. The next thing you're going to do, as you go for the pull, you're going to slowly retract your shoulder blades together, pulling in nice and tight into your body. Then as we go back, we're then going to release our shoulder blades to reset the movement.
Focus: Lats, Traps, Biceps
Tip: To properly do a horizontal cable row, it’s important to keep your core strong and stable. The more stable your core and spine can be during this movement, the better your Lats and Traps can contract.
Horizontal Pushing: Bench Press
Grab the bar itself, just outside your shoulder width, and when you are ready to pick up the bar, you need to retract your shoulder blades, unrack that bar for me and have it hovering just above your shoulder blades. When you go for the lift itself, you need to bring it down to the middle of your chest and then drive up through the bench, right above your shoulder blades.
Focus: Pectorals (chest);Triceps; Anterior Delts (important to note that if anterior delts are doing more work than the pecs, then technique will require improvement. Pecs are the primary target muscle in this movement).
Tip:
The most important thing to do is remain engaged with your Pecs. That way, you’ll be able to tell you have the right angle and your shoulders are in the healthiest and safest position to press heavier.
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