Burning calories requires movement of our body through day to day physical activities or exercising as well as metabolism, brain and other organ's activities.
There are two main types of exercises: compound exercises and isolation exercises.
Regardless of whether you’re just beginning your fitness journey or you’ve been on it for a while now, you can benefit from both types of exercise.
A compound exercise is one that uses multiple muscle groups at the same time to perform a movement. A good example of a compound exercise is the squat; it uses many muscles in the legs and lower body, quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, glutes as well as engaging the core and lower back(multiple muscles and multiple joints).
Isolation movements are the ones that work with one #muscle or muscle group. A bicep curl, for example, would focus almost entirely on the #bicep, and in just one plane of #movement. Now, if you combine a bicep #Curl with a reverse #Lunges for example you will have a compound exercise where multiple joints and muscles are working at the same time as well as balance and coordination.
Compound exercises are great to build a functional #body as they replicate movements that are more natural and ensure you are training as efficiently as possible. Take the squat again; it is replicating the movement for standing up, driving forward, jumping and many other movements you might see in sports or real life, with each muscle getting worked during the movement. They also help you burn more calories in a short space of time as you would work more muscles.
They seem helping to improve joint mobility and stability through moving in natural pattern and reducing the risk of injury due to lack of movements in different plane of motions as isolating exercises do.
Here is a sample of compound Exercises that you can do any where with a minimum equipment and kit in a small space :
-#TRX Over-head or Bodyweight Front lunges (quads, Glutes, calves, core),
-Bulgarian Split Squat or Reverse Lunges,
-Bench or Floor Press with Dumbbells (Pecs, Triceps, Delts)
-#Dumbbell Rows or TRX #Squat Rows (lats, biceps, Glutes, quads, calves)
-Crab Reach(shoulders, triceps, lats, quads, Glutes, abs)
-Leg Raises(abdominals and core, quads, hip flexors).
And here are some Isolation Exercises:
-Bicep Curl with Dumbbell (Biceps)
-Triceps Extension (Triceps)
-Leg Extensions (Quads)
-Seated Lateral Raises (side Delts)
as you can see, in isolation exercises there is only one plane of movement and muscles contractions are happening in a single joint.
Combining the two however, will bring a great range of motion (frontal, sagittal, and transverse) , challenging body in different plane of movements and will be helping us to burn a lot more calories in a short time.
here is an example of combination of the two workouts:
- Super Sets: 3 x 10 with Dumbbell
A1- Bench Press,
A2- Bicep Curl
- 3 x 10 Dumbbell Deadlift
- Super Sets: 3 x 10 with Dumbbells
B1- Standing Shoulder Press
B2- Side Lunges
- Circuit: 2 x 30 sec each with Dumbbells
C1- High Grip Squats
C2- Triceps Kick-Backs
C3- Standing Lateral raises
C4- Bent-Over Rows
C5- Sumo Squat Jumps
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