What Is The Best Exercise To Make Changes In Your Body?
Nov 1st, 2010 | By Todd Bowman | Category: Exercises, Total Body Workouts
3 Most Important Exercises To Add To Your Workout Routine
If somebody told me I had only 3 exercises I could ever do again, these would be my top 3 hands down. Thank God that will never happen but these 3 exercises are critical for helping my overall health, fitness and strength, not to mention my cardiovascular conditioning. If you want to know what is the best exercise, it’s almost impossible to really know.
The best exercise is one you love doing and one that you DO do. These 3 exercises will work your entire body and they don’t take that long to do either.
I have had many times where I’m traveling or I’m not in my normal workout routine. Perhaps I’ve been sick and am slowly getting back into my regular workout routine. Or perhaps you just need something quick.
This exercise routine is absolutely perfect and it’s quick too. So if you only have a few short minutes one day and want to get a total body workout this is the way to go.
The great thing about this workout is that it doesn’t focus on isolation exercises as much as using compound exercises.
Compound exercises typically are used in workouts like crossfit and routines like that. I also have been using clubbell training
Where most people go wrong is that the isolate their muscles too much. Changing your workout routine often is crticial to seeing results. The problem is when people are doing 100% isolation routines all the time.
Think about it, our bodies were designed to work as a single unit. If we were living in nature like the Garden of Eden, we wouldn’t be bench pressing would we? Would we be doing calf exercises? I doubt it.
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The reason why we want to gain tons of muscle and look a certain way is:
- We are highly egotistic
- We want to be attractive to the opposite sex
- We want to show up the other guys at the gym
But when you think about it, there’s really no reason to have a huge chest like a bodybuilder or 28 in biceps. It’s just not natural.
What is natural is working out your entire body as a single unit and these are just the right exercises to do exactly that. So if you want to know what is the best exercise, then you’ll want to add these into your fitness routines at the gym.
3 Exercises For A Total Body Workout:
Pull Ups -
To do this correctly you must start out with your palms facing away from you a little wider than shoulder width apart. As your lifting yourself up, keep your knees bent at a 90 degree angle. If you need help, you can have somebody hold your ankles as you pull yourself up.
Muscles Worked: Latissimus Dorsi, upper back, forearms, abdominals, Brachialis, Brachioradialis Teres Major, Deltoid (Posterior), Rhomboids, Levator Scapulae, Trapezius (lower, middle), Pectoralis Major (sternal)Pectoralis Minor,
Stabilizers: Biceps Brachii, Triceps (long head)
Common Mistakes:
Not locking your arms – start with your arms completely straight and each time you lower yourself make sure they straighten all the way.
Using the hips – don’t swing your hips too far forward for momentum.
Not going high enough – your chin should come all the way up to the bar, not just the top of your head.
Dips -
Dips are a great upper body compound exercise that primarliy uses your own body weight. Many people will attach a weighted plate that hangs from a chain attached to a weight belt. When first starting out doing dips, this is not necessary. Dips are one of the main upper body exercises I do for overall strength and conditioning.
Muscle Worked: triceps, anterior deltoid (front shoulder), pectoralis muscles (sternal, clavicular, and minor), and the rhomboid muscles of the back (in that order).
Common Mistakes:
Not locking your arms – When coming up your elbows need to lock and be totally straight
Not coming all the way down – When coming down, you need to make sure you go as far down as your chest will stretch. Ideally your chest should come down to where the bar is.
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Not warming up - Make sure to do light dips and move your arms and get your shoulders, triceps and chest nice, loose and stretched out prior to this exercise. It’s easy to blow out your rotator cuff on this one.
Step Ups -
Step ups are absolutely one of the best exercises you can do. This compound body weight exercise works your lower body as well as your upper body depending on which variations you add on. You can carry small bicep weights and do curls as your stepping onto the bench, you can use a medicine ball and bring that over your head to work your shoulders as well.
Muscles Worked: Quadriceps (thighs), hamstrings, glutes (butt), calves, hips, stomach, biceps
Common Mistakes:
Slumping the shoulders – make sure your back is straight and your shoulders back while looking straight ahead and not down.
Knee going over the foot – Your knee should not go over your foot and should remain at a 90 degree angle with your calf.
Going too fast - If you go too fast you could really injury your knee as your are unstable upon landing back on the ground.
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