5 Best Compound Exercises to Lose Weight and Build Muscle

The best compound exercises are ones that help you burn calories while enabling the muscle fibers to become thicker and stronger.

Compound exercises are those that engage more than one muscle group at the same time. There’s a primary muscle group that's focused on and one or two secondary muscle groups as well.

These exercises need a significant amount of effort. That means the body needs to burn additional calories to generate the energy, enabling weight loss. In addition, compound exercises push the muscles to take on resistance. To ensure that the fibers can withstand resistance, they tear and grow back thicker and stronger, which adds muscle mass.

Hence, compound exercises allow the body to burn calories and add muscle mass at the same time.

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Best Compound Exercises to Lose Weight and Add Mass

The following are five of the best compound exercises you can focus on if you want to work on each muscle group - small or big - in your upper and lower body. Let's get started:

1) Bench Press

The bench press is usually one of the most common compound exercises. It primarily focuses on the chest and then the triceps and shoulders.

Ideally, you should ensure to focus on your pectoral muscles and not let the triceps take over. If you want the bench press to focus on your triceps, try a close-grip bench press.

You can find a guide for doing bench press here.

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2) Bent-over Row

Another big muscle group in the upper body is the lat muscles. The bent-over row primarily focuses on these muscles. It also focuses on the biceps and rear delts as well.

You can use a pronated or supinated grip for the row, but it’s important to not let your biceps take over completely. Here is a guide to doing bent-over rows.

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3) Shoulder Press

While your biceps and triceps get worked on during compound exercises for the lats and chest, the shoulders need separate attention.

As the shoulder is made up of three delts, it’s important to focus on all of them. So, you need to work on your anterior, lateral, and rear delts.

One of the top compound exercises, the shoulder press allows you to work on your lateral and anterior delts and enables the activation of the rear delt muscles. You can find a guide for doing shoulder press here.

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4) Squat

Squats are the king of lower body exercise and one of the best compound exercises. They work on the quadriceps, but the lower back, glutes, hamstrings, and calves get engaged as well.

If you want to shift your focus from your quads to the hamstrings, try wide-stance or sumo squats. Meanwhile, go for toe squats if you would like to focus on your calves.

You can find a guide for doing squats here.

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5) Deadlift

Deadlifts are a full lower body workout. You can work on your lower back and legs during this exercise.

Deadlift variations focus on primary muscle groups. For example: stiff-legged deadlifts focus on the hamstrings but also engage the other muscle groups. It’s advised that you ease yourself into deadlifts slowly. So, start with dumbbell deadlifts before the barbell variation.

You can find a guide for doing deadlifts here.

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Bottom Line

The best compound exercises help you to work on several muscle groups at the same time and ensure that the secondary muscle group is engaged as well.

To lose weight, you need to be in a calorie deficit. However, you can add muscle mass during a deficit, but you must have one gram of protein per lean bodyweight.