Whether this is the first time you heard it, or if its something you’ve been told long ago, the fact of the matter is, compound exercises are the best forms of weightlifting. Targeting specific body parts to improve certain muscles are also important, but they are less effective and should not be done unless you’re also doing compound exercises.

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As the UAE is continuing to develop athletics and physical activity into its culture, it’s important to know why compound exercises are important and how you can add it to your exercise regime. 

What Are Compound Exercises?

compound exercises

Compound exercises are exercises that involve multiple muscles and joints and works all of them through one motion or movement. This is the opposite of isolation exercises, which is the type of exercise that only focuses on one particular muscle or joint.

Compound exercises are very important because they can improve your overall health, physique, and strength. Apart from building muscles, compound exercises also improve bone strength, joint flexibility and shed away fat. Examples of compound exercises are:

  • Push-ups: Targets chest, shoulders, back, arms, core
  • Dips: Targets chest, shoulders, back, arms, core
  • Pull-ups: Back, arms, core
  • Bench press: Targets chest, arms
  • Squats: Targets Legs, back, core
  • Deadlifts: Targets chest, back, shoulders, legs, core

The Benefits of Compound Exercises

Benefits of Compound Exercises

1. Burn Fat

As compound exercises work multiple parts of the body all at the same time, its very easy to turn up the heat and break a sweat. Compound exercises require lots of energy and endurance to be appropriately performed.

Your body will look for fat and burn it off as energy. The development of more muscle tissue also means you’re increasing your metabolism, in turn, burning fat more quickly.

2. Build Muscles

You can’t build a perfect or ideal physique without compound exercises. Isolation exercises are great if a particular muscle is lagging behind the rest. Compound exercises are imperative as they build all your muscles at once, creating a well-proportioned physique.

3. Strengthen Joints

Again, compound exercises are more important than isolation exercises because they focus on building strength from a practical point of view. All the joints in your body, as well as bones, will benefit from the movements. This helps to create stronger, durable and more flexible joints.

4. Better Posture

Apart from muscles and joints, compound exercises promote strength, stability, and growth in everything in between. So apart from increased muscle and strength, your posture will also benefit.

A lot of compound exercises such as squats and deadlifts will help align muscles, joints, and bones in the correct shape. To learn more about how compound exercises can benefit the posture, read our blog here.

5. Increase Strength

This may seem like an obvious one, but compound exercises can help you build strength more than any other type of exercise or sport. Isolation exercises help to make certain muscles and body parts bigger, but it doesn’t make you stronger in a practical sense.

Compound movements demand strength from your toes, all the way to your head. This means your body as a whole will develop better strength and endurance.

6. Better Body Balance

The core is one of the main factors why people prefer compound exercises over isolation exercises. The reason being is that compound exercises help to stabilize your whole body by developing strength and endurance in your entire body. Having a strong core is important as it helps to ease joints, prevent injury as well as maintaining proper posture at all times.

7. Can be Done at Any Intensity

Whether you’re new to weightlifting or are concerned with your limits, weightlifting can be done at any intensity that suits you best. Unlike playing competitive sports, compound exercises can be done at your own pace and your level.

If you need to take extra rest in between rests, it’s fine. If you need to lift very little weight or even just lifting your body weight, it’s fine. As long as you are progressing a little bit every time, you’re on the right track.

Things to Keep in Mind

Benefits of Compound Exercises

Diet is extremely important when it comes to physical activity, and even more so when you’re weightlifting or doing resistance exercises. Like most other forms of weightlifting, compound exercises demand a lot of energy, focus, and strength from your body.

If you aren’t getting your recommended nutrients as well as consistently hydrating, not only do you run the risk of injuring yourself while training, you won’t recover as quickly and you won’t achieve the targets you’re trying to achieve. 

If you suffer from a health complication, physical disability or are recovering from a recent injury, compound exercises may not be suitable for you. Weightlifting can be very dangerous if you aren’t able to keep up with the workout.

The first thing you can do is research the different exercises involved in compound exercises, as well as speaking with a personal trainer about how to perform them. Your best option is to speak with your doctor to assess your health and the best course of action you can take to improving your health. 

Head over to the Okadoc app to immediately book an appointment with your health practitioner.