If you could only do five exercises for the rest of your life, which would you choose? Well, here’s a list of the five greatest compound exercises for mass building, strength and power.
Although we of course don’t have to choose only five exercises to perform for the rest of our lives, it is worth noting the benefits of these exercises and incorporating them into our routines.
Detailed descriptions of these exercises haven’t been included in this article for two reasons. One, anyone attempting these exercises should already be familiar with how to do them – this article simply wishes to point out the benefits of each exercise. And two, much better, illustrated descriptions can be found elsewhere.
The Flat Bench-Press
The flat bench press is great for building upper body strength. It is absolutely essential for training your chest and enables you to generate considerable power from this movement (pushing).
However, although the bench press primarily targets your chest, it is not an isolation exercise and also incorporates several other muscle groups. This includes your front shoulders (deltoids), and your triceps and forearms.
The Pull-Up
Perhaps my favourite exercise, the pull-up trumps all in developing your back. The focus is primarily on your lats, but your entire back is used to heave yourself up. It also feels great to know you can lift up your entire body weight.
Pull-ups also put heavy stress on your biceps and forearms, but this should be minimalised if you are trying to train your back. This can be done by widening your grip on the bar.
However, should you want to focus on your biceps, you can either bring your hands closer together on the bar, or switch to a chin-up rather than a pull up (underhand grip rather than overhand grip).
Power Clean and Press
The power clean and press is probably the exercise that incorporates most muscles (although technically it is two different exercises) due to its huge range of motion. Heaving a weight almost from the floor to right above your head is quite demanding on your whole body.
The main muscles used, however, are your upper back, shoulders and buttocks.
Squat
The squat is a fantastic exercise for the largest muscle in your body, your quads. But it is in general a great exercise for your legs. It works all of the major muscles in your legs.
Lifting a weight on your back from a bent position to standing straight also requires considerable use of most of the stabilising muscles in your body and your lower back.
Dead-lift
Bent-legged dead lifts are also a fantastic compound exercise that require the use of most muscles in your body.
Most stress is placed on your lower back, but as you reach the top of the lift, more stress is placed on your upper back and shoulders.
The exercise places stress on your entire midsection when initially lifting, including your abs and oblique’s.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is for educational purposes only and should not be used for diagnosis or to guide treatment without the opinion of a health professional. Any reader who is concerned about his or her health should contact a doctor for advice.
William Meade - William is a qualified ESL teacher, who specialises in private teaching. He has previously worked as private swimming and fitness coach.
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