A Simple Full Body Workout Routine
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A Deceivingly Simple Yet Effective Full Body Workout Routine
With new fad diets coming out by the day, and fitness magazines churning out endless workout routines every issue. It can be difficult to discern what has any actual substance. The fitness industry is literally chock full of varying opinions and guru‘s that seem to contradict each other . When it comes down to it the most effective workout routines and protocols are tried and true. In this article I’m going to lay out an incredibly simple full body workout routine (total body workout) that will attack fat loss from various angles. Not to mention this is great for building muscle too. Start off with some mobility drills then move on to…
The Best Full Body Workout Routine in the World
Yup…Gotta love headlines that are full of hype…
In reality I can’t claim this to be the “most” effective full body work out routine. No one can claim that about any workout routine. But I will say it’s incredibly effective, will give you a lot of mileage (you can use it for a while without plateauing) if you work hard at it, and is surprisingly effective for how simple it is. I’ll keep this simple and to the point:
Strength Training:
-Building muscle will help you burn more calories at rest therefore
-We want to stick to compound movements because they burn the most calories when performing them and they’re more effective at building muscle than isolation movements(Ex: Bench Press, Squat, Deadlifts).
-You’re going to alternate between two full body workouts. And you’ll be going to the gym 3 non consecutive days of the week (M,W,F or T,Th,Sat).
Workout 1
2 sets of Incline Bench Press 8-12 reps
2 sets of reverse-grip Barbell Rows 8-12 reps
1 set of Deadlifts 8-12 reps
2 sets of Barbell curls 8-12 reps
1 set of Hanging Leg Raises to failure 10-15 reps
Cardio
Workout 2
2 sets of Standing Overhead Press 8-12 reps
2 sets of Pullups 8-12 reps
2 sets of Squats 8-12 reps
1 sets of Weighted Situps to failure 10-15 reps
The rule with warming up is, the heavier you go on an exercise the more warm up sets you do. So you’ll probably take a bit longer warming up for those Squats and Deadlifts.
Then you get to your work sets where I want you pushing your self very hard, but not to the point of complete muscular failure. I would say 1 or 2(at most) reps away from failure. The only exception is the abdominal exercises where I want you doing 1 set to complete failure. Take about 45 seconds-1 minute of rest between warm up sets and 1-2 minutes between work sets. Squats and Deadlifts are the only exceptions as you’ll probably need to take a few more minutes of rest between sets. Now on to cardio…
Cardio:
-You want to do some sort of interval work for no longer than 20 minutes because…
-It keeps your metabolism revved for a longer period of time post workout.
-Intervals are simply proven to be the most effective form of cardio and it…
-Won’t spike up your cortical levels like longer cardio sessions.
I’m going to have you pick a cardio machine or activity of choice and after warming up move at a pace that would get you completely winded in 2 minutes tops. When you get to that point slow down the pace for 1-2 minutes and catch your breath then repeat 3-5 more times. If your not completely wiped out by the end it’s because you’re not pushing yourself hard enough during the sprint. I talk about this type of cardio (HIIT) and how to progress to it here.
I see way too many people who spend more time researching workout routines, or looking for the perfect workout routine in online forums or magazines than actually working out. Don’t be a keyboard jockey.
So there you go. A simple full body workout routine than when combined with an effective diet will help you lose fat and gain muscle.
That’s simple….
I could probably get each workout done in under an hour with warm-ups included.
I can definitely manage that. My main issue is not having time to workout the way I want to (2 hour workouts with 1 hour of cardio, 1 hour of high rep lifting). And if I don’t have the time then I just don’t do it. I need to be more realistic about how I approach this stuff and do something I can actually do consistently.
Alright Sammy! I’ll give this routine a run!
Gracias!
Hey Sammy, just finished reading all your articles, very interesting honestly. Imma try this workout and see how it goes. Also, that zen book seems interesting. Ordering one asap.
Luis – dude that works out at planet fitness, just incase you forgot lol.
@ Luis
Yo Luis,
Good to have you here bro. I’m glad you found value in my site.
If you try the workout and really push yourself to failure or damn near it then you’ll make great progress. I’d recommend keeping a log book and tracking the exercises/sets/reps on a workout to workout basis to keep track of progress and find out which exercises work best for you. If you don’t get at least one more rep on an exercise every other workout then something is wrong. You should make that much if not more progress every time you do an exercise again, at least at first.
I’d also either do these exercises in a power rack or get yourself a reliable spotter as you’ll be training very hard.
Stick to it as prescribed, and be consistent.
Come back and let us know how it goes.
Thanks, Sammy! I will take note on that and will do, come back.
Can you explain the warm ups a little more for me like are they the same amount of reps but just less weight? Also will i be doing both workouts on a workout day or only one and alternate them on the different days?
@James
Actually James I wouldn’t even do the same amount of reps as I would on the actual set.
For example lets say that if I was doing squats and 10 reps at 185lbs was my absolute max. All out to failure.
What I would do before starting is just take the empty bar(45 lbs.) and just knock out about 10 reps to loosen up, then take 30-45 secs of break.
Then bump it up to 100lbs and knock out 5 reps and take a minute of break.
Then bump it up to 140 and knock out 3 reps and take a minute and a half of break.
Then bump it up tp 175 and knock out 1 rep and take 2 minutes of break or until I felt fresh and ready to attack the first work set.
The goal with the warm up is to slowly introduce more and more weight with each warm up set and prepare the body for the more difficult work ahead. That’s why I mentioned that the heavier you lift the more warm up sets you should do. If I had given 500 lbs as the 10 rep max in the above example the warm up might consist of 8-10 warm up sets instead.
Another thing to note is you shouldn’t be tired after doing the warm up. You should feel even more prepared to hit the weights hard. If you feel tired it’s because you either did too many warm up sets or most likely too many reps at too high of a weight in the warm up sets. It takes practice to get it just right.
If you don’t know what your 10 rep max is then it’ll take you a whole lot of gradually increasing warm ups sets to find out what it is on the first work out but as time progresses it just becomes intuitive and becomes much easier to manage.
As for the workout split. You’re doing two workouts and working out 3 days a week. So assuming you choose to workout on mon,weds,and fri; workout 1 would be done on Monday, workout 2 on Wednesday, workout 1 on Fri, workout 2 the next Monday, workout 1 the next Wednesday and so on.
Make more sense?
Looks elegantly simple. I would just make two comments:
(1) Since one is doing reverse grip rows on Workout 1, Bicep curls (which is not a true compound exercise0 may be superfluous. it seems that if one wants to add extra arm work, an extra TRICEP exercise might make more sense (since it is the larger upper arm muscle)–perhaps a set up parallel bar dips?
(2) May want to do the heavy leg exercise (ie squat or deadlift) first in the sequence when energy levels are the highest.
My full body workout. Squats,Lunges,Push Ups,Crunches,Reverse Crunches,Dips,Supermans,Wall Push Ups,Toe Raises and Neck Extension . All exercises are done in a non stop fashion with high reps and no weights. I rest 90 seconds between each circuit.
Are you really only doing the cardio with one of the workouts or is that a typo. I just ask because the second workout seems much lighter on workload than the first one does. Thanks.
@Gary
Hey Gary,
No, The cardio is to be done after every workout.
@ Jay
(1) That can be done. For me personally I find that my triceps get a fair amount of work from heavy pushing exercises and develop nicely with that but my biceps tend to lag even though I’m working on progressions to a one arm pull up. But that can be done if you’re so inclined.
(2) That’s also a matter of preference. Personally there’s no way in hell I’m doing any more lifting after a couple of sets of deadlifts or squats. I’m just pooped. So I like to leave them at the end for that reason. I also don’t think people would be that tired by the time they get to the deadlifts or squats because the workout is so short in the first place. But I know plenty of people who like to start of with the squats or deadlifts for the same reason you described.
It’s all a matter of preference.
Thanks for this routine, I am using it after many months on the machines. I always do the cardio first as it gets the body warmed up and the blood pumping. I’ve never had an injury.
I’m 41 and have been doing bodyweight routines (pushups and chinups) and jogging 30 min 5 days a week…..looking to get back to lifting and doing something other than jogging. This looks simple, but at the same time would hit all muscle groups. My new cardio I’ve been doing is running 5-6 basketball suicide drills within a 30 minute time frame and shooting baskets in between the line drills(hustling after the ball and layups etc.)
I’m going to add this weight routine with the basketball workout. The problem with me and weights is once I start, I add a set here and an extra lift there until I get this whole routine that takes forever until I burn out. This looks like what I’ve been looking for.
@John
Glad I could be of service;-)
I plan to start this routine asap! I’m still a little lost on the warm ups. After reading your response to James, it seems that warm up break down is not including the actual set. Is that correct?
What does failure mean?
Sammy,
thank you for the article….just one question has me a little confused…when am i doing the cardio? i was under the impression that on a M/W/F split M-workout 1 W-workout-2 and F-Cardio.
can you advise please?
@ Jav
I’d do the cardio right after your strength training Jav.
@AC
Training to failure pretty much means training until your muscle is completely unable to move the weight due to physical exhaustion. It’s almost impossible to train to failure if you’re new to working out and I recommend that you work towards it over time, rather than attempting to put that much effort into it from day one.
@AC
Yes you’re right the warm up break down doesn’t include the actual work set.