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To be get fit you don’t need to be in the gym every single day of the week – for many people, this is unrealistic or unsustainable. Most people believe that to get in shape, you have to focus one body part/section a day, which is a routine called “Splits”. This means that you split up your body parts and designate a whole workout to one specific area. What if I told you that you could improve your body composition and only have to go to the gym 2-3 times a week? Doing a full body lift is the way to go for overall fitness without the huge time commitment that the split routine has.

Squats:

A full body lift mainly utilizes compound exercises. Compound exercises are multi-joint movements that work several muscles or muscle groups at one time. For example, the squat (weighted or unweighted) engages the core, lower back, quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, and glutes.

Deadlifts:

Similar to the squat, the deadlift also incorporates a lot of your lower body as well as your upper body. It engages all of the same muscles with addition of arms being used to hold the bar and increase grip strength.

Push:

Next, we have our pushing movements which will engage your chest, shoulders, triceps, and core. These include bench press, dumbbell press, pushups, and shoulder press. The great thing about all of these movements is that they can be modified simply by changing the incline at which you perform the movement – just for some variation.

Pull:

Then, we have our pulling movements which will engage your back (upper and lower), biceps, and forearms. These include: bent rows, pull downs, over and underhand pull-ups, and any pulling machine. Much like the pushing movements, you can mix in some different angles to work all parts of your back.

For Example…

If you add some exercises from each category you will get a workout like this:

Sample workout:

  • Barbell Squat: 10 reps x 3 set
  • Deadlift: 10 reps x 3 sets
  • Bench Press: 10 reps x 3 sets
  • Pull ups (Underhand): Max reps x 3 sets
  • Sit ups 50 reps

Written by GUADS guest writer Eric