9 Best Full-Body Strength Training Exercises to Lose Fat and Gain Muscle

Full-body strength training exercises. (Image via Pexels/Photo by Leon Ardho)
Full-body strength training exercises. (Image via Pexels/Photo by Leon Ardho)

Full-body strength training exercises should be a part of your workout routine. These exercises work on almost all the major muscles and even activate the smaller muscles.

Additionally, full-body strength training exercises help in more than just improving strength and endurance.

Full-body strength training exercises

Here are some of the full-body exercises that you can incorporate into your workout routine.

1) Push-ups and pull-ups

This is an exercise you can do at any time, regardless of where you are.

Push-ups help with working your arms, especially your triceps, and your chest. Next, changing your hand position can increase or decrease pressure on your triceps and chest.

Usually, push-ups are recommended as a warm-up exercise or finisher exercise on chest and tricep days.

On the other hand, pull-ups work on the lats and biceps depending on the hand position. However, it works on both muscle groups with varying intensity at all times.

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2) Squats

This is probably one of the most important full-body strength training exercises. Squats work on your entire lower body and help in improving your overall endurance, strength, and physical fitness. Additionally, squats work on balance and stability as well!

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3) Chest press & lat pull down

This combination will work with your chest, back, and arms. Even if you don’t want to incorporate other exercises into your workout routine, a compound chest movement and compound lats movement will get the job done!

4) Devil’s press

This is an interesting full-body strength training exercise. This is a CrossFit movement and you’ll need a pair of dumbbells for this.

The exercise works on almost all muscles such as shoulders, lower back, chest, and triceps. Additionally, this helps with cardiovascular movement as well.

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5) Burpees

If you only want to pick from full-body strength training exercises, burpees is the way to go. The effort required helps with fat loss and strength gain. It helps with improving your muscle endurance and strength while burning extra calories for the additional energy required to do the exercise.

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6) Walking lunges

If you’re into exercises that focus more on the quads and hamstrings, you must try walking lunges. If you add a pair of dumbbells, it’ll increase the resistance which will result in the body burning additional calories.

7) Deadlift

Another top pick among the full-body strength training exercises is the deadlift. Each variation of the deadlift works on more than one muscle group, especially the lower back and legs.

Moreover, deadlifts help in increasing muscle endurance and strength while helping with fat loss.

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8) Leg press

This exercise will focus more on your legs, but it does have some overall impact, primarily due to the effort required for the movement. You can choose to do leg presses one leg at a time (single leg press) or both legs at the same time.

A point to note for leg press is that the distance between your feet will determine whether the majority of the impact is on your quads or hamstrings. If they’re close, it’ll be on your quads. If they’re apart, the pressure will be on your hamstrings.

9) HIIT

High intensity interval training is excellent for cardio and strength training. It works on your overall physical fitness and muscle endurance. Ideally, you should have at least two HIIT sessions throughout the week.

Bottom line

Full-body strength training exercises have an impressive impact on your body. It’ll help with building muscle endurance, burning fat, improving balance, stability, and flexibility.

You must try to focus on such exercises that will work on more than one muscle group at a time. This is achievable when you focus on compound movements, as mentioned above. However, always remember to warm up before doing any compound movements.