A compound exercise or a compound movement is an exercise in which multiple muscle groups and joints work simultaneously. There are several benefits of adding compound exercise to your workout.
Some major compound exercises are:
- Bench press
- Squats
- Deadlift
- Shoulder press
- Barbell bent-over rows
- Pushups
- Pullups
For example, the bench press is a compound exercise that works majorly on your chest muscles but involves shoulders and triceps too.
You can also do a compound movement by combining two different exercises together like dumbbell squats with shoulder press or lunges with a bicep curl.
In this way, you can add variety in your workout and target even more muscles.
Compound exercises are different from isolation exercises and provide several reasons to add them to your workout. Keep reading to know them.
SUMMARY: Compound exercise works on multiple muscle groups at the same time and provide a lot of benefits of adding them to your workout.
Benefits Of Compound Exercise
Compound exercise gives you a lot of benefits over isolated exercise. Here are the 5 main benefits of doing a compound exercise…
Builds More Strength and Power
In order to build strength, it is mandatory to lift heavy weights for a low rep range. Without lifting heavy, you can not gain much strength and power.
Now compound movements become very useful when your primary goal is to build strength. It is easier to lift super heavyweights while doing a compound exercise.
Why so? It’s because your body is using multiple muscle groups and joints which helps you in lifting very heavyweights. This is the reason people are enabled to lift hundreds of pounds in exercises like squats and deadlifts.
For example, you can lift more weight in deadlift than T-bar rows because, in addition to your back muscles, you use your core, hamstrings, and some other secondary muscles also.
One thing to remember while lifting heavy for gaining strength is to perform the exercise with correct form and body posture. This will make you less prone to injuries.
SUMMARY: Compound exercises give you the luxury to lift maximum weights possible which in turn builds more strength and power.
Better Muscle Gain Benefits
Compound exercise benefits you in gaining more muscle mass than other isolation exercises. Add all the major compound exercises for better muscle-building benefits.
Adding compound exercises in your regime utilizes more muscles throughout the workout. This, in turn, signals greater testosterone production which eventually helps you in gaining more muscle mass.
In addition, compound movements help in strengthens your stabilizing muscles. It improves your body balance and works on your core muscles too.
SUMMARY: Compound exercise builds core strength and boosts more testosterone which results in better muscle gain benefits.
Burn More Calories
This is one of the main benefits of doing compound exercise especially if your goal is fat loss. The total number of calories you burn during the workout depends on the type of exercise you are doing.
Exercises that involve more muscles, enable you to lift more weight and you burn more calories. Performing a compound movement involves multiple muscles at the same time.
This requires a lot of energy and you end up burning more calories. This is why an exercise like barbell squat is much more exhausting than leg extension.
SUMMARY: Since compound exercises recruit multiple muscles, they burn more calories than other exercises.
Improves Cardiovascular Ability
Along with training your skeletal muscles, compound exercise benefits you in improving your cardiovascular strength also.
Improving your cardiovascular ability means to train your heart to pump more and more blood in your body. So any exercise that elevates your heart rate strengthens your heart muscles and eventually enhance your cardiovascular ability.
Now every weight training exercise elevates your heart rate but compound exercises do this the most. Hence compound exercise gives you the maximum benefits in building your cardiovascular strength.
SUMMARY: Since compound exercise elevates your heart rate the most, they give better cardiovascular training benefits.
Time Efficient
Doing compound exercise can give you time-saving benefits. If you have a busy schedule or don’t have enough time for a long workout session, then it is the solution.
By doing compound movements you can get more in less time. About 6-8 exercises are sufficient to stimulate almost every muscle of your body.
Add compound exercises in your routine to do more time-efficient workouts. In addition, these exercises help in the overall development of your physique.
SUMMARY: Compound exercises give compounded results in less time. About 6-8 exercises are enough to train all the muscle groups.
Don’t Need Any Fancy Machines
Almost all the compound exercises can be done by using a barbell and some weights. There is no need for any other types of equipment like a kettlebell or fancy gym machines.
Some people give more importance to modern exercise protocols and fancy machines. But, sticking to the basics is all you need.
Compound exercises are at the heart of any workout. Bodybuilders like Reg Park and Arnold Schwarzenegger build their iconic physique by focusing on the basic compound exercises: squats, deadlift, bench press, barbell rows, & shoulder press.
SUMMARY: There is no requirement for machines and equipment to do compound exercises. A barbell and some weights are all you need.
Improves Intermuscular Coordination & Movement Efficiency
Training a single muscle group like in isolation exercises doesn’t train multiple muscle groups to coordinate their contractions. But compound exercises help in improving your body balance and movement skills.
While performing a compound exercise, you involve different muscle groups to complete the movement. For example, squats move the hips in all planes and works on multiple muscles of your legs (quads, hamstrings, and glutes). This improves the intermuscular coordination of your muscles.
In addition, compound movements work on your core strength and let you use your body as a single unit. This improves balancing and focuses on the overall development of your body.
SUMMARY: By involving multiple muscles in a movement, compound exercises help your muscles in coordinating their contractions and working as a single unit.
7 Compound Exercise Benefits: In A Nutshell
- Builds more strength and power
- Gain more muscle mass
- Burn more calories
- Improves cardiovascular ability
- Time-efficient
- Requires less equipment
- Improves intermuscular coordination
So these were the 7 benefits of doing compound exercise. You must add them to your workout regime to develop a proper physique. Especially if you are a beginner, compound exercises help in the overall development of your body and train your body as a whole.
Thank you for reading this so far. I hope you liked it and learned something valuable from this article. If you any queries regarding fitness, feel free to ask in the comments.
