Growing up, I was fortunate enough to never really struggle with severe weight gain and all the challenges it can bring. However, as a fitness professional, I do know a thing or two about maintaining a healthy weight and burning fat off your body. As a real world fitness expert, I am always asked what the best exercises are for losing the most fat in the shortest amount of time…oh, and building lean muscle tissue while you're at it.

Cool. No problemo.

I’ll keep this as simple as possible. The best exercises for fat loss are also the best exercises for muscle gain and visa versa. These exercises all have one thing in common: they provide a UNIQUE challenge to your body AND involve as many muscles in your body as possible (known as compound movements).

Both the scientific research and the real world case studies have shown that total body workouts are superior for maximal fat loss and muscle gain. But let’s take this one step further…
Let’s dramatically accelerate results by preferentially selecting TOTAL BODY EXERCISES within each TOTAL BODY WORKOUT! For example, squats are well known for being one of the best muscle-builders with a serious a fat-shredding effect. However, the squat goes from great to UNSTOPPABLE for changing your body for the better when you make it a combination movement by adding a row or press to each squat rep.

It’s obvious that you can reap more benefits this way since you have now involved your upper body into the king of lower body exercises. Also in that same amount of time you added in an extra exercise without making your workout longer. Remember our key here is to get the best bang for your buck in that busy schedule you have.

It’s as simple as the Dream Body Equation below:

Performing Total Body Exercises Within Each Total Body Workout:

More Muscles Involved =

More Calories Burnt + Greater Muscle-Building Stimulus =

Greater Fat Lost + Greater Muscle Gain

I must be honest in that I have a true love-hate relationship with the following movements I am about to share with you. Love because of the unparalleled fat-melting, muscle-building results they provide to help maximize my results. Hate because they are hard work, only meant for the determined. Not for the weak of heart, for sure.

Without further delay, here is the top 10 list of my favorite exercises for fat loss and lean muscle gain (in no particular order):

Exercise#1- Lunge to Curl to Overhead Press Combo

Exercise#2- Squat to Overhead Press

Exercise#3- The Alternating Dumbbell Swing

Exercise#4- Reverse Lunge plus Row to Press

Exercise#5- Push Up with Knee Ins

Exercise#6- The Alternating Dumbbell Chop

Exercise#7- High Pulls with Snatch & Press

Exercise#8- Squat with 1 Arm Dumbbell Press

Exercise#9- Rear Foot Elevated Deadlift plus Curl to Press

Exercise#10- Burpee with Double Pushup

Bonus exercise and one of my favorites - Spiderman Push Ups!

Well I hope you take my expert advice and shake up your training with these 10 deadly total body combination exercises. I guarantee you better results in less time by regularly employing these movements into your workouts. Of course it’s now up to you to take your workouts, and your body, to the next level.

In the coming days, I’ll be sharing some video examples and more great exercises for those specific trouble spot areas (e.g. legs, butt, abs, chest, arms, etc.) that might be holding you back from unleashing your hotness within! ;)

Fire it up!

Curtis Hoekstra
http://www.ArizonaFitnessBootCamp.com
623-486-6622