If you are looking for the best workout exercises to focus on for getting lean and fit, you will love this post.
I am going to share with you the top exercises you need to be doing to build a lean and fit body that is well balanced, pain-free, and capable of handling anything life throws at you.
Whether training with a private trainer or at Planet Fitness, these exercises are the foundation of a great workout program and can be learned by anyone and done at any gym.
Read that last paragraph twice.
There are a bunch of great exercises, but many of them can take a long time to learn and are dependent on a lot of technique, skill, and access to specialized equipment.
My list consists of the basics that I have found are easily taught and can be learned by everyone, relatively quick. This list covers the entire body and all movement patterns. Simply put, these exercises and their variations would be all you ever needed to do.
*The exercises are not ranked in any best to worst order, instead they are ordered by pressing, pulling, and lower body.
Best Workout Exercises for Getting Lean and Fit
1. Dumbbell Press
I am going to cheat a little bit and count all the dumbbell press variations. Flat Bench, incline bench, overhead, and one arm at a time. You simply can’t beat pressing dumbbells. Dumbbells can help improve muscle and strength imbalances since you are guaranteed to lift an equal amount of weight with each arm. With a barbell, you can shift the weight a bit without noticing you are favoring one side. Dumbbells also allow for manipulation of your grip which can make them easier on your shoulders. Pressing with your hands closer to a 45-degree angle is ideal.
2. Pushup
The pushup is probably the first exercise most of us try doing. It is also one of the best we can do. One problem with the pushup is it is harder to execute properly than most people realize and gets butchered easily. If you are new to training and weak, then you can elevate your hands to make them easier and learn to do them properly.
Because of this, I like teaching people the dumbbell press first, which is easier to learn and allows for quick progression in the beginning. This way you strengthen your pressing muscles while you work on mastering your pushup technique.
3. Dumbbell Rows
I cheated again with dumbbell rows. We have many different options available, my two favorite being 1-arm and chest supported. When done correctly, the 1-arm dumbbell row is one of the best exercises you can do. It works all your pulling muscles but also doubles as a great ab exercise, forcing your core to stabilize and resist rotation.
The chest supported dumbbell row is another version that hammers your back muscles but eliminates any way of cheating since you are lying facedown on a bench. This variation also reduces stress on the lower back.
4. Chin Up
The chin up is the ultimate ‘barometer’ of one’s strength-to-weight ratio. Everyone is capable of doing a chin up, but there is much more to it than just being strong enough. You also need to have a lean body and good enough overhead mobility.
While these factors make a chin up difficult and a long journey towards accomplishing one, it is a worthwhile pursuit.
When you can do a chin up, you will know all your hard work is paying off. The quest will also give you an indication of where your focus needs to be. If you are strong enough, but still can’t do one, then you need to lose some weight by focusing on nutrition in more detail. If you have trouble raising your arms overhead, you need to work on mobility.
Guys should aim for at least being able to do 5, but 10 or more is a real long-term goal.
Ladies should shoot for being able to do 1, then make 5 or more a long-term aim.
If you have a long way to go, start with band assisted, and strap supported variations, hanging and holding, and focus on losing body fat.
5. Goblet Squat
Many refer to the squat as the king of exercises. You can easily make a great argument for this statement. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that many of us struggle with executing a proper squat. Luckily, there are many different ways to squat. Every body is built different, and many of us learn to perform squats better with different variations opposed to forcing the standard barbell back squat at first.
My favorite for most people is the goblet squat. You hold a dumbbell or kettlebell in front of you at chest height. The goblet position reinforces proper spinal alignment and core activation. You will notice as you get stronger with goblet squats, the difficulty of holding bigger weights can become a limiting factor. An excellent way to make it more challenging at this point by is pausing longer in the bottom position.
Give it a try next time you are doing squats!
6. Romanian Deadlift
We have to bend over and pick things up. I prefer the Romanian deadlift when it comes to doing so. Many people struggle with the actual ‘hinge’ movement pattern, and the romanian deadlift helps us learn to hinge properly. With conventional deadlifts, it tends to turn into just getting the weight off the floor, however, possible. If we take the time to learn a proper hinge and strengthen that movement pattern, we are rewarded with a better conventional deadlift down the road.
The Romanian Deadlift is also versatile, and we can do it with a barbell, dumbbells, kettlebells and even one leg at a time.
7. Reverse Lunge
It is important to include a lunge (single-leg) movement in your workout programs. Single leg movements are necessary to develop balanced strength. They help improve strength and stability in your feet, ankles, knees, and hips in a way that two-leg lower body exercises can not, making them a critical component.
The reverse lunge is a great variation to start with and include on a regular basis because it provides the least stress to your knees. It also targets the glutes and hamstrings slightly more than the forward lunge variation, two muscle groups that many of us need to focus on to balance all the sitting we do and if athletic performance is important.
8. Farmers Walk
Stop with all the crunches. Walking with weight is the best and most “functional” core exercise you can be doing.
Farmers walks are done by picking up a heavy pair of dumbbells or kettlebells and walking with them. Make sure you have the posture of a Catholic school student while doing these.
I typically recommend doing them for anywhere from 30 seconds to 90 seconds.
9. Walking
When it comes to conditioning, walking is the foundation. EVERYONE can do it and needs to do more. Walking helps us:
- maintain a healthy weight
- improve our mood
- increase cardiovascular efficiency
- reduce insulin resistance
- improve blood pressure
- and it means we aren’t sitting 🙂
The problem is now-a-days many of us have no reason to walk anywhere. Walking use to be the only way to get around, but now most people walk less than half a mile a day!
To fix this, it is best to start making walking part of your formal exercise plan. Meaning, plan times to go for walks. You won’t regret it. Once you establish walking as a habit and get leaner, this will open you up to benefiting from more advanced conditioning options. Utilizing a smart run/walk program will start to up your conditioning game even more.
10. Box Jump
As we age our fast twitch muscle fibers begin to leave us, so we need to train explosively to keep them working as close to our glory days as possible. Now, there are plenty of “explosive” exercise options, but many of them are quite difficult to learn, and many of us simply don’t have the time to learn them.
Enter box jumps.
Ideally, you would use a padded box, and it doesn’t need to be super high. You just want to hinge back and jump as high as possible, then have a soft surface to land on like a cat. Three to five sets a week of these will do the trick.
What To Do
All the different workouts everyone is doing these days can cause much confusion and doubt, paralyzing us from doing anything at all.
Whether it be Crossfit, Olympic Lifting, Bodybuilding, Powerlifting, P90x, or whatever color theory, strip away the flashy stuff, and all workouts are just movements. You aren’t “tricking” your body or getting a sprinkle of magic fitness dust on you by doing some specific hyped up workout.
The actual magic with any workout program is being able to do it and recover from it consistently.
If you can train 7 days a week like a navy seal for 10 years who is going to win the Crossfit Games and a Spartan Race Championship and feel great, that is awesome!
But if you try to train like that and start getting a ton of injuries, have no energy, and frankly, don’t see any changes in your body or health…
You aren’t properly recovering. You will probably give up soon and doing the greatest workout of all time for 3 months is never as good as just doing a simple, productive workout for 20+ years.
Pick some key exercises you feel great doing and get strong on them. Exercise your heart with some conditioning and pour the rest of your energy into being consistent and on your nutrition habits. This simple approach will have the biggest impact on the way your body looks and your health.
These 10 exercises are easy to learn, can be progressed and pushed as you get more advanced and cover all the bodies movement patterns to ensure balance. A smart workout can be broken down into these movements:
- push (horizontal & vertical)
- pull (horizontal & vertical)
- squat
- hinge
- single leg
- core
- explosive
- conditioning
Want To Learn More?
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