Compounded Progress

The Benefits of Incorporating Compound Exercises in Your Strength Training Routine

Strength training is an essential component of any fitness regimen. It not only helps in building muscle mass but also aids in increasing strength and improving overall health. When it comes to strength training, one of the most effective methods is incorporating compound exercises into your workout routine. Compound exercises involve multiple joints and muscle groups working together in a single movement, making them highly efficient and beneficial for achieving various fitness goals. In this article, we will delve deeper into the reasons why compound exercises should be an integral part of your strength training program.

1. Increases Muscle Mass and Strength Simultaneously

Compound exercises engage multiple muscle groups simultaneously, allowing for more muscle fibers to be activated in each movement. This results in greater muscle stimulation and growth compared to isolation exercises that target only a single muscle group at a time. By incorporating compound movements like squats, deadlifts, bench press, and pull-ups into your workout routine, you can maximize muscle recruitment and achieve noticeable gains in muscle mass and strength.

2. Improves Functional Strength and Athletic Performance

Functional strength is the ability to perform everyday activities and athletic movements efficiently. Compound exercises mimic real-life movements and activities, making them highly effective in improving functional strength. By training your body to work as a cohesive unit through compound movements, you can enhance your performance in various sports and activities that require strength, coordination, and agility.

3. Enhances Calorie Burn and Promotes Fat Loss

Compound exercises are known for their ability to stimulate the metabolism and promote calorie burn both during and after the workout. Since these movements involve multiple muscles working together, they require more energy expenditure compared to isolated exercises. Incorporating compound exercises into your strength training routine can help accelerate your fat loss goals by increasing your overall caloric expenditure and boosting your metabolic rate.

4. Saves Time and Increases Efficiency

One of the main advantages of compound exercises is their efficiency in working multiple muscle groups in a single movement. This not only saves time during your workout but also allows you to get more done in less time. Instead of spending hours focusing on isolated exercises, you can achieve a comprehensive full-body workout by incorporating compound movements into your routine. This time-efficient approach is especially beneficial for individuals with busy schedules looking to make the most out of their gym sessions.

I’m not an advocate of being a gym rat and I feel you should do the minimum effective dose when performing your strength training. If you want to do extra activity, find other activities outside the gym.

5. Reduces the Risk of Imbalances and Injuries

By engaging multiple muscle groups in compound exercises, you can help prevent muscle imbalances that can lead to injuries and postural issues. Isolation exercises, while beneficial in targeting specific muscles, may not address the overall functional strength and balance of the body. Compound movements promote balanced muscle development and coordination, reducing the risk of overuse injuries and enhancing joint stability.

This is applicable for the average person, but especially if you are engaging in high impact activities such as climbing and martial arts like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

How I Incorporate Compound Exercises

In your tool box you want to primarily be using these type of exercises as your bread & butter foundation -

Pushing - Dumbbell presses, push up variations, parallel bar dips, barbell presses

Pulling - Chin-up’s, pull-up’s, dumbbell rows, cable pulldowns & rows, barbell rows. horizontal bodyweight rows

Quad dominant lower body - Squats, Split Squats, Lunges

Hip dominant lower body - Deadlift’s, romanian deadlift, sumo deadlift, trap bar deadlift, single leg deadlift

The versions that you use will be relative to your level and regressions of the body-weight exercises can be found for even a beginner.

In Conclusion

Incorporating compound exercises into your strength training routine is a smart and effective way to maximize your workout results and achieve your fitness goals. Whether your aim is to build muscle, improve strength, increase athletic performance, or lose fat, compound exercises offer a myriad of benefits that can take your fitness journey to the next level. By integrating movements that challenge multiple muscle groups simultaneously, you can enhance your overall strength, functionality, and physique. Remember, it's essential to consult with a fitness professional or trainer to ensure proper form and technique when performing compound exercises to reap the full benefits of these powerhouse movements.

Using Double Progression for Better Results

Understanding Double Progression in Strength Training

Strength training is a vital component of any fitness routine, and one popular method to continuously challenge your muscles and make progress is through a technique called double progression. Whether you are a beginner looking to build a solid foundation of strength or an experienced lifter aiming to break through plateaus, double progression can be a valuable tool in your training arsenal.

What is Double Progression?

Double progression is a training method that involves increasing the weight lifted only after a certain rep range has been reached. This approach allows for a balance between volume and intensity, ensuring that you are progressively overloading your muscles over time. The two components of double progression are:

1. First Progression: This involves increasing the number of repetitions while maintaining the same weight. For example, if you are performing squats with 100 pounds and aiming for 3 sets of 8 reps, you would increase the weight to 105 pounds only after you can complete all sets and reps with good form.

2. Second Progression: Once you reach the top of the rep range with good form consistently, you then increase the weight for the next workout. Continuing with the previous example, if you were successfully doing 3 sets of 12 reps with 100 pounds, you would increase the weight to 105 pounds and go back to aiming for 3 sets of 8 reps.

How to Implement Double Progression

1. Choose Your Exercises

Primarily select compound exercises that target major muscle groups, such as squats, deadlifts, bench press, overhead press, rows, and pull-ups. These exercises allow for maximal muscle recruitment and provide a solid foundation for strength gains.

If you are particularly aesthetically minded or have a sports-specific reason for strengthening a particular attribute, then some additional isolation exercises may be added. Treat these as the icing on the cake, you still need the compound exercises as the foundation. 

2. Establish Your Rep Ranges

Determine a rep range for each exercise based on your goals. A common range for strength is 4-6 reps, hypertrophy is 8-12 reps, and endurance is 12-15+ reps. Choose a range that aligns with your objectives.

If you are a woman or smaller individual, it may be useful to use a broader repetition bracket before attempting to increase the weight: 4-10 reps, 8-14 reps and 12-20 reps. 

For example, if your body-weight is only 50 to 60 kilos, jumping up from 6 to 8 kilos on a dumbbell is a much larger relative to your body-weight than it would be for a individual who is 80 to 90 kilos in body-weight. 

This same rule can apply to isolation exercises where the leverage is not as good. Here a broader repetition bracket can work better. 

3. Start Light

Begin with a weight that is challenging but allows you to complete the desired reps with proper form. This sets the baseline for your progression.

In the quest to increase your repetitions and, eventually, the weight do not allow your form to deviate from how you started, and you might find you may need to stick to a particular set and rep range to help hone your form before progressing further. 

A common trap is to decrease the range of motion as the reps and weight increase, which gives you a false sense of progression. If you are unsure, film yourself to keep it honest. 

4. Track Your Workouts

Maintain a workout log to record the weight used, sets, and reps completed for each exercise. Tracking your progress is essential to ensuring continual growth.

You can use an app, spreadsheet or simply a pen and some paper, whatever keeps you consistent.

5. Progress Wisely

Focus on gradual increments in weight to avoid stalling or risking injury. Aim for small additions, such as 2.5-5 pounds for upper body exercises and 5-10 pounds for lower body exercises. Again, this is relative to your own body-weight. The smaller the person, the smaller the progressions should be. 

6. Listen to Your Body

Pay attention to how your body responds to the training stimulus. If you experience excessive fatigue, persistent soreness, or joint discomfort, adjust your training accordingly to prevent overtraining. Sometimes back cycling the weight to a slightly lighter load may be needed. Its a long game and 2 step forwards 1/2-1 step back is better than hitting a plateau.

Benefits of Double Progression

• Structured Progression: Double progression provides a clear framework for advancing your strength levels systematically.

• Prevents Plateaus: By consistently challenging your muscles with increased reps before adding weight, you can overcome plateaus and continue making gains.

• Balanced Approach: The method combines volume and intensity in a harmonious manner, promoting both muscle endurance and strength development.

• Adaptable and Scalable: Double progression can be applied to various training programs and adapted to different fitness levels, making it a versatile strategy for all individuals.

In conclusion, double progression is a practical and effective method for advancing your strength training goals. By intelligently manipulating rep ranges and weights, you can foster continuous progress and enhance your overall performance in the gym. Remember to stay patient, stay consistent, and embrace the journey of strength development with the double progression approach.

The Hierarchy Of Fat Loss

Type in how to loose fat into a search engine and you’ll get a flood of articles telling you different 100 different things.

Most go out on massive tangents, either trying to sell you some magical fat loss product focusing on minute things that probably won’t help fat loss at all unless you first have the fundamentals in place.

Here are 3 key fundamentals to stick to-

1, The Energy Balance Equation And Creating A Calorie Deficit

At the most basic level we have the 1st rule of thermodynamics. Energy cannot be created or destroyed so it has to be accounted for.

In order to loose fat you must be expending more energy than you are intaking.

but the insulin’s brah!?!….

A word on Insulin

Now there are people out there who claim that this law doesn’t apply and that its all about keeping your insulin levels low. These same people a lot of the time with also be promoting the idea that the solution to your fat loss woe’s is in a pill or powders to help control your insulin levels. Beware these snake oil salesmen!

Now It is true that when someone does get to a certain level of obesity that they might experience some insulin resistance. Obese people often develop pre diabetic symptoms and eventually type 2 diabetes. Research has shown is that type 2 diabetes can often be reversed by loosing a lot of weight.

For someone who is obese, a lower carbohydrate approach may well be the best initial approach to loosing fat. Swapping out processed heavily calorie ladened foods for more whole-food options is a simple way to quickly cut back on calories. As average chocolate bar contains around 200-250 kcal compared to a piece of fruit that typically is 80-100 kcal.

I do not recommend one type of diet, the best diet is one that you can stick to for a prolonged period of time. Consistency is what really counts.

A common pitfall is underestimating the amount of calories you are consuming. Type 2 diabetes of not, if you put someone in a completely controlled environment and ensure they are in a deficit they absolutely will loose weight.

 Protein needs are increased during a diet in order to help protect lean body mass and increased fibre has been shown to help keep the feeling of hunger at bay. So the age old advise on eating your meat-fish & greens is a good foundation to build upon.

In order to create a calorie deficit you can do this via changes to your diet and also increases in activity to expend more daily calories.

If you want to exercise for the sake of burning calories I’d recommend choosing something steady state with minimal movement complexity. Brisk walking, cycling or a cross-trainer are good options.

The energy cost of pure strength training is largely overestimated and that it also requires an extra level of movement complexity. In my opinion weight training under fatigue whilst trying to keep your heart rate up is a quick recipe for injuring yourself. The cost to risk ration is too great, it’s too easy for form to start breaking down.

This is a nice segue onto the reason it is however important to still strength train whilst loosing weight-

2, Strength Training To Preserve Lean Mass, Not Burn Calories

One of the issues when creating a calorie deficit is that your body doesn’t just discriminate to only burning off body fat. It will also start to break down muscle mass and bone density over time unless you give it a reason not to. Lean body mass is an important factor in how many calories your body burns at rest.

The common quagmire I see repeated dieters get into goes something like this-

The dieter creates a calorie deficit and looses some weight, but because strength training wasn’t incorporated concurrently a proportion of the weight they lost was lean body mass. After a time they resume their eating and steadily put the weight back on but this time with less lean body mass.

This repeats for several cycles and eventually you get a person who has high body fat, very low lean body mass and thus a much lower energy requirement to maintain their weight. They literally can end up being able to put on body fat on the amount of calories that a few years ago would have simply maintained their weight.

Does this sound familiar to you?

Don’t despair, there is a way to counter act this!

This is where the role of strength training comes in. Strength training gives your body a signal to hold onto lean body mass even when in a calorie deficit.

Calorie deficit + Strength training = Greater proportion of fat loss

I’d recommend 3-4 strength training sessions a week when in a calorie deficit to optimise your results For a complete beginner I’d recommend to start with 2 and gradually increase as you become accustomed to it.

3, Better Sleep, Better Fat Loss

Better sleep helps you loose more fat

In a study, 2 groups of people were put on a calorie deficit. One group in addition to this had restricted sleep. Both groups on average lost a similar amount of weight. However, for the participants who got only 5 1/2 hours sleep the amount of fat mass relative to lean body mass was significantly reduced (1.3 pounds of fat and 5.3 pounds of fat-free mass) compared to the group who got 8 1/2 hours sleep (3.1 pounds of fat and 3.3 pounds of fat-free body mass).

In addition to this the sleep restricted group had increased levels of hunger as their Ghrelin levels (‘hunger hormone’) increased.

It is well known that when we are sleep deprived we often get more cravings for foods, most commonly something sweet. This is a potential landmine when it comes to sticking to a diet if you are hungry and craving sweet things all the time.

Wrap Up

Focus on these three key areas first before considering further optimisation of what you are doing, anything else is just a waste of time and money.