Full Body Exercises Combos

One of the ways in which I make my workouts shorter and more intense is by doing full body exercise combos. These are exercises which involve the upper and lower body both. This way I work a lot of muscles, which is always good for calorie burning and for cutting your overall workout time.

I’ll share with you 4 exercises in this post, just enough to give you some idea of what can be done. I want to thank Dr. Kareem Samhouri the author of Ab Strength Guide for showing me how effective these kinds of exercises can be for fat loss and improving fitness.

Static Wide Squat With Dumbbell Thrusts

In this first exercise, you combine a static stimulation on your lower body and work the arms and shoulders as well. To do this exercise you need to assume a wide stance with bent knees, sort of a semi-squat. Grab a dumbbell in both hands and hold it in front of your body just as you see on the left side of the picture.

As you stand in this position, you are working on the inner and other thigh muscles. The movement comes from the upper body. What you do is rotate your torso a bit to one side and thrust the dumbbell upwards and away from you with both arms. Return to the starting position and repeat the exercise to the other side.

This is a powerful full body exercise so try it out in your next workout.

Forward Lunge and Bicep Curl

The forward lunge and bicep curl is one of the my favorite exercises. I love all sorts of lunge exercises and this is one of the best.

What you’re doing in this exercise is combining the lower body exercise, the lunge, with the upper body one, the bicep curl. The lunge is a more calorie expensive exercise. It works more muscles and it’s quite hard to do even without dumbbells.

When you add the bicep curls to the exercise, you get an upper body added stimulation which burns even more calories. It also saves a lot of time as you’re  also working on the biceps, one of the favorite muscles which men enjoy working on.

This is a forward lunge so you begin the exercise by standing upright with a dumbbell in each hand. You take a step forward with one leg and lower yourself down to the floor. Make sure to not let the front knee pass your toes.

As you’re taking this step forward, do a bicep curl with both hands. Then, go back to the starting postion and repeat while alternating legs.

Note: you can also do this with a reverse lunge and perform hammer curls instead of regular ones.

Squat and Dumbbell Swings

This is a massive exercise that works the legs, core, arms, and shoulder muscles. To do this exercise you need to begin with a wide stance. Hold a dumbbell in one hand.

Do a squat while letting the dumbbell hang between your legs. Support yourself with the other hand. Push yourself up with your legs while swinging the dumbbell with a straight arm overhead. Pause at the top and squat again.

What’s important about this exercise is to control the movement. If your grip on the dumbbell isn’t secure it may fly off and do a lot of damage. At the top of the swing, make sure to not let your arm pass the line of your head. It may strain your shoulder.

Lunge and diagonal dumbbell swing

In this exercise, you work your trunk, legs, and shoulders. This is another lunge variation so I do it in nearly every workout of mine. Great tone tone buttocks, thighs, and shoulders.

The starting position of a lunge with a dumbbell swing is to stand straight with a dumbbell in both hands. You hold the dumbbell next to the opposite thigh of the leg with which you will perform the lunge. For instance, if you take a step forward with your left leg, then the dumbbell should be held next to your right thigh.

As you take a step forward with your left leg and go into a lunge, swing the dumbbell in a diagonal line from your hip and to the left. At the top of the movement it should be higher than your head is.

Return to the starting position and repeat. Don’t forget to switch between legs so you get a symmetrical workout.

Time To Get Working

Why not take some time today and do these 4 exercises. I guarantee that you will find them effective and hard. These are great routines to include in your workout. They should also give you some additional ideas for even more full body exercise combos that you can do to lose fat and gain muscle. Time to get moving.