Three Exercises to Total Body Fitnessby Ken Schweickert |
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You don't always have to isolate every single muscle with a plethora of exercises to build the physique you want. In this workout we will involve your whole body in only three exercises--all of which can be done effectively using only your own bodyweight. Whether you are an experienced gym-regular or just looking for something to burn off some calories, you can find a use for this routine.
When you do any exercise, there are actually many more muscles involved in creating the movement than just the main group you are focusing on. There are muscles contracting around the most active area to keep the weight balanced, make the motion as smooth as possible, and to provide a little extra force. There also are many muscles all along your body contracting to keep you balanced. To create this workout, we will only be choosing the exercises that involve the largest variety of muscles and that get those muscles working the hardest.
The first of these exercises is the push up. This classic exercise is most known for working the muscles of the chest (pectorals, anterior deltoids). It also focuses on your triceps to create the pushing motion with your arms. You can shift the range of muscles most involved by simply propping your feet up on a chair so that your body will effectively be performing at an incline, or by widening or narrowing the distance between your hands. The push up is closely associated with the bench press, but the push up adds a factor that the bench press does not have: The push up requires you to support your body on your hands and toes while performing the motion. This will involve a lot more muscles to maintain the plank formation; so be sure to squeeze your core to stabilize yourself. There are muscles in your back maintaining your form as you move your arms, and your neck and upper back are holding your head straight. Even muscles down in your legs are contracting. Your forearms are getting a lot of use to stabilize and move your arms. So you can see that simply adding the extra factor of additional balance has triggered many more muscles to a greater extent when compared with the bench press. Now the question is how significantly are the indirectly-involved other muscles being used? Many of them are not being used enough that you could get off without doing some other exercises. Some of them, however, actually do not need very much attention to themselves. Because this is intended to be a simplistic workout, we are focusing on the largest muscles first, and then working the smaller ones. This might not satisfy some hardcore lifters, but depending on what reasons you have for exercising, you may never actually need to work these smaller muscles more so than they are involved in this exercise routine.
The next exercise we are going to do is the pull up. This is another classic. It is well known for it's involvement of the back (most specifically the latissimus dorsi; it also recruits other muscles of the back to an extent including the rhomboids, deltoids, inferior section of the trapezius, and other posterior muscles deep to the deltoids). This exercise will make you tense a little at your core as well (although not so much as the push up). You will give your biceps a great workout as you pull yourself along with your arms. Also, your forearms are involved even more so in this exercise than they were in the push up. Again, you can shift around the focus slightly by varying the width between your hands. With the pull up, you can also vary your grip to make it either underhand or overhand, or even staggered. By now you have worked the largest muscles of your upper body, given your arms and shoulders a lot of attention, and have given your core some focus too.
We will finish off with explosive body squats. These will finalize your efforts at the midsection of your body and finally give your legs some significant attention. To perform this exercise, you will place your hands behind your head and stand with your feet just a little farther apart than your hips are wide. Throughout the entire motion you will keep your back straight--curved slightly back at the lower section. Also, keep your neck back and try to look straight forward for the whole exercise. Lower yourself down until your knees are bent at about 90 degrees (plus or minus a few degrees depending on personal preference). Then push off explosively to bring yourself up and launch your feet off the ground. Catch yourself as you come back down and let your knees bend you to descent again (do not try to land on straightened legs). As soon as you are squatted down again, launch yourself again. Now this exercise is clearly providing a good workout for your legs. However, because we have added the explosive factor into it (something that a regular barbell squat does not have) you are involving a whole new set of muscles for all kinds of behaviors because this motion is so complex. You will be tightening your abs quite a bit so it will contribute to a six pack (every time I mention that word in an article at least ten more people will read it). Finally, since you are performing this exercise at such intense, continuous conditions it will provide a cardiovascular component.
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