The Only Exercise You Need

Shawn Perine
Mon, 30 Jun 2014 21:00:00 -0700
Lifestyle

Everyone has his or her favorite exercise, and while no single exercise covers every body part, there are a few compound movements that work more than others. Compound movements are those which involve the use of two or more joints, as opposed to isolation movements, which incorporate one joint only.

For example, a popular chest exercise is the dumbbell flye, in which you lie on a bench with a pair of dumbbells in your outstretched hands, and then bring them toward one another above your chest, as if you're hugging a tree. That's an isolation, or single-joint, movement because the only joint that should me moving throughout is the shoulder. However, a similar exercise is the dumbbell bench press. In this, you lower the dumbbells to your chest and press them straight back up. This is considered a compound movement because two joints come into play: your shoulders and your elbows.

There are advantages to both isolation and compound movements. Isolation exercises are invaluable to experienced lifters who are looking down to target specific areas. Typically you'll use lighter weights on isolation moves, as you're weaker when only a single joint comes into play: You can't go as heavy on dumbbell flyes as you can dumbbell bench presses. Where compound exercises hold an advantage is that they're typically better for building strength, and they work several body parts at once: Dumbbell bench presses work your triceps in addition to your chest, whereas flyes only hit the chest.
Updated: Tue Jul 01, 2014

Everyone has his or her favorite exercise, and while no single exercise covers every body part, there are a few compound movements that work more than others. Compound movements are those which involve the use of two or more joints, as opposed to isolation movements, which incorporate one joint only.

For example, a popular chest exercise is the dumbbell flye, in which you lie on a bench with a pair of dumbbells in your outstretched hands, and then bring them toward one another above your chest, as if you're hugging a tree. That's an isolation, or single-joint, movement because the only joint that should me moving throughout is the shoulder. However, a similar exercise is the dumbbell bench press. In this, you lower the dumbbells to your chest and press them straight back up. This is considered a compound movement because two joints come into play: your shoulders and your elbows.

There are advantages to both isolation and compound movements. Isolation exercises are invaluable to experienced lifters who are looking down to target specific areas. Typically you'll use lighter weights on isolation moves, as you're weaker when only a single joint comes into play: You can't go as heavy on dumbbell flyes as you can dumbbell bench presses. Where compound exercises hold an advantage is that they're typically better for building strength, and they work several body parts at once: Dumbbell bench presses work your triceps in addition to your chest, whereas flyes only hit the chest.

In an ideal workout you'll have a nice mix of compound and isolation moves, which allows you to get stronger and more coordinated as you also intensely target each muscle group. However, sometimes we all need to be efficient in our training. The pace of today's living can necessitate that we keep our workouts shorter than we'd like, in which case we need to make the most of the time we do have in the gym. For these times we want to focus on staple, compound exercises. Below are my favorite multi-joint moves, which, together, form a great whole-body workout:

Deadlift

Squat

Bench Press

Bent-over Row

Upright Row

Walking Lunge

Pullup

Dip

Clean & Press

Pushup

Of all these, though, one stands out as being the best at hitting nearly the entire body: The clean & press. At the start of the movement, you are engaging your legs, lower back and traps. Halfway through, your upper back, abs, shoulders and biceps are coming into play. On the press portion of the exercise you are using your chest, shoulders and triceps to get the bar overhead. When you think about it, the clean & press is a truly amazing exercise. If I were limited to being able to only do one lift, that would be it. It's not an easy exercise to master, but one you should learn if you often find yourself short on gym time. If you do it right you can essentially work your entire body with a single movement.