Heavy Squats are well known for being one of the best muscle-builders with a serious a fat-shredding effect. What is even better than the squat is performing a combination movement that has the squat as one of the components. An example is the thruster, either with a barbell, dumbbells or kettlebells. There are many others
The way it works is the more muscles you use in an exercise the more energy is required to do the movement so you burn more fat and get stronger as well.
I will be perfectly honest, these combination exercises suck. They are hard, they may make you feel like you want to puke, and you might, so don’t go crazy. You have to build your work-capacity over time or suffer the consequences!
So here are my favorite exercises for fat loss and lean muscle gain:
Exercise#1- Swing, Flip and Squat or any Squatting Combination Exercise- Squat Thrust/Burpee Variations, Squat to Overhead Press, squat thrust to snatch etc.
Exercise#2- The Swing- Kettlebells, Med Balls, or Sandbags
Exercise#3- Any Lunge Combination Exercise- Alternating Lunge and clean to Press, Alternating Lunge plus Twist, etc.
Exercise#4- Any Push-Up Combination Exercise- Push-ups plus Knee-Ins, Push-up Rows, Spiderman Push-ups, Burpees, staggered, walking etc.
Exercise#5- The Chop- Med Balls, Bands, or Sandbags
Exercise#6- Olympic Lifting Variations: Kettlebell Cleans, Snatches, High Pulls and Jerks
Exercise#7- Renegade Rows and combination such as a pushup a Renegade row to a double clean
Exercise#8- 1/2 kneeling overhead press or Windmills for core activation
Exercise#9- Turkish Getups for total body control, ab work, leg work, shoulder stabilization and strength
Exercise#10- one leg deadlift with kettlebell or barbell. Try it with the weight on the same side as the working leg (ipsi-lateral) and with the opposite hand (contra-lateral)
Try these out and add at least on of them to your workout and see how much more effective your training becomes.
In the weeks ahead I will be sharing more great exercises like those above and I will be posting videos of them on my site as well as YouTube, so stay tuned.
By: Dave Randolph
About the Author:
I have been studying kung-fu since 1989. I started teaching in 1993.
In 2002 I started training with kettlebells and was one the first 100 people in the U.S. to be certified as instructor with Pavel Tsatsouline.
I’ve been teaching kettlebells and fitness since 2002, and went full-time in January of 2007.
For more info on my systems visit http://www.iron-body.com
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