Try this full-body workout for more muscle mass and less fat

A full-body workout is your best bet for maximising muscle while minimising fat gain. Here is an example session, along with the reasons it works

Alex Roberts

Try this full-body workout for more muscle mass and less fat

In terms of building muscle and burning fat, no other exercise plan comes close to the full-body workout

A gym newbie will find the two goals (muscle gain and fat loss) easier to come by than a more experienced lifter.

If you’ve got a couple of years lifting under your belt, you’ll generally have to split the two pursuits into separate cycles. However, the full-body workout is still your best bet for maximising muscle growth while minimising fat gain.

These are the main reasons why you need to include full-body workouts:

Time efficient

For those with busy schedules, full-body workouts are a great way of getting the most out of limited time in the gym. Over the course of a week, you’ll only be in the gym on three days.

With each workout only lasting an hour, you’ll have plenty of time to dedicate to work, family and your social life without scrimping on the exercise essentials.

Full frequency

The full-body workout prioritises quality over quantity. You may not think three hours training time a week is sufficient for sculpting new muscle, but that’s simply not true.

For a natural lifter, you need to be hitting each muscle group two to three times per week. This fully stimulates muscle protein synthesis, which is lost after around 72 hours. A full-body session has your back.

Classic compounds

In order to complete a full-body workout in an hour, you should mainly opt for compound exercises – lifts which work multiple muscle groups at once.

Examples include:

Bench Press
Squat
Deadlift

With a full-body workout, you won’t be wasting time on less effective exercises which don’t stimulate the same number of muscle fibres.

Key rules to remember

1-2 exercises per muscle group
Prioritise compound exercises
Hit 2-3 seats of 8-12 reps
Keep your workouts to an hour’s length

Resistance training will affect your natural anabolic (muscle building) hormones. Although a short workout is great for releasing testosterone and growth hormone, excessive training time releases more of the stress hormone cortisol. You should look to limit this in your recovery from the gym.

Lots of big compound exercises will help boost your natural testosterone levels. However, long workouts also boost levels of the catabolic hormone cortisol.