When it comes to strength training, one of the most effective strategies is to do total-body workouts.
Whether you are trying to build strength, build muscle, build stronger bones, or even lose body fat, total-body workouts can be extremely efficient at helping you to reach your goals.
There are three main reasons why.
First, doing a total-body workout means when you are doing an exercise that is focused on one area of your body, all of the other areas get to rest. In other words, the structure of the workouts dictates that one group of muscles work while the others rest and recover.
What this means for you is you can go from one exercise to the next with little rest overall because the muscles that are about to be worked have been resting during the previous exercises.
For example, if you do shoulder presses and then do squats and then do crunches, your shoulders are being worked first followed by your legs and then your core. While one group of muscles is working, all the other muscles get to rest, allowing you to move quickly from one exercise to the next.
This can help you keep your heart rate up while cutting your workout time down.
The second reason is the relative intensity for each group of muscles is going to be lower, allowing you to recover faster and come back and workout again sooner.
Compared to a workout that is just focused on your chest and shoulders, you may only be able to really work those muscles once a week if your entire workout consists of chest and shoulder exercises. However, because total-body workouts work your entire body, you can work the same muscles more frequently with less risk of being sore and achy after.
Third, total-body workouts force you to hit all areas of your body during the workout, so if your week gets crazy and you’re not able to get another workout in, you can rest assured that you worked your entire body at least once that week.
This is particularly useful if you are working, if you have kids or grandkids, if you travel a lot, or if you find a lot of last-minute things get shoved onto your schedule. Even if things get nuts for you, you know you got one total-body workout in and strengthened your entire body that week.
But here’s the big thing we see with a lot of total-body workout programs–they actually aren’t total-body.
They give the feel and appearance of being a total-body workout because they will work the legs, the arms, and the core all in one workout, but the exercises used are often repetitive and miss large groups of muscles.
For you, this means that you start developing imbalances within your body, leading to aches, pains, tightness, and possibly injury, which is the absolute last thing you want to have happen when you workout.
Instead, you need to take an approach that incorporates ALL muscle groups within your body, and that is exactly what we help you do within the Full Body Focus program in The Exercise For Life Membership.
Within Full Body Focus, we guide you through eight total-body workouts that hit all of your muscle groups over the course of the program. These workouts can be done in under 25 minutes right from your living room and are designed to help you build strength and mobility throughout your entire body.
If you would like to try out the Full Body Focus program, you can get full access to it within The Exercise For Life Membership for free for the next 30 days.
All you have to do to get started is click here.
Total-body workouts are extremely effective at building your strength, muscle, and health, but you need to make sure they are hitting all of your muscle groups so you don’t develop imbalances and risk injury.
Within the Full Body Focus program, this is exactly what we help you do. Join us in The Exercise For Life Membership to check it out and experience the difference!
We can’t wait to see you there!
In strength and health,
Julie & Charlie