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When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. By praciticing compound movements, you are strengthening these muscles.ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. This means how effectively the muscles work together - in an exercise like a squat, the hip is moving on all three planes, meaning the muscles around the hip have to work together. As well as being an effective use of your time, compound exercises can help you burn more calories when you work out, elevate your heart rate and improve your flexibility and strength.Īnother huge benefit of compound exercises is that they can improve intermuscular coordination. Compound exercises work multiple muscle groups at the same time, compared to isolation exercises, which strengthen a single muscle group at a time. Then reverse the movement to get back to a standing position.Īll of the exercises in this workout are compound exercises, making this a great routine for targeting all of the major muscle groups in the body. From here, sit back, extend your legs out and away from your body, and do a sit-up, engaging your core. Sit up to squat: 12 repsįor this exercise, hold a dumbbell in both hands against your chest and bend your knees into a squat. As you push down into your feet to stand back up to your starting position, bring the dumbbell back to your chest.

As you lower down into a squat, extend your arms and press the dumbbell away from you into a chest press. Holding the dumbbell with both hands against your chest, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and bend at the knees to squat down. Make sure you keep your core engaged, keeping your torso upright, keep alternating legs, completing 10 on each side. Engage your core, and complete a curtsy lunge, crossing one leg behind the other, and bending your knees, lowering your hips until your left thigh is nearly parallel to the floor. Hold a dumbbell above your head with both hands. Holding the dumbbells in an underhand grip - with your palms facing upwards, squeeze your shoulder blades together and row the dumbbells up towards your chest, then extend your arms back to your starting position. If you have a set of dumbbells, hold one in each hand for this exercise, if not, hold the dumbbell with both hands. As you lunge, lower the dumbbell down towards your ankle, then as you push through the floor to your starting position, complete a lateral raise, lifting the dumbbell out to the side of your body. Step the opposite leg to the hand holding the dumbbell out to one side, and lower down into a lateral lunge, squeezing your core and your glutes. Lateral lunge to lateral raise: 12 reps on each sideįor this exercise, hold a dumbbell in one hand, with the other on your hip.

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