3 Total Body Workouts for Amazing Results at Home

Total body workouts can help you build muscle and burn fat faster for amazing results. Here are the top reasons to do total body workouts, and 3 of my favorite total body workouts that you can do at home – minimal equipment required!

I teach a virtual fitness class four days a week from my home gym. When I moved out of my fitness studio in the spring of 2019, I brought all of my equipment home so we’re pretty well stoked here in the mountains of Vermont. My clients of course, don’t have fully equipped at home gyms. So we get creative with minimal equipment and lots of combination-style workouts.

Top 5 Reasons to Use Total Body Workouts

There are many strength training splits that will help you get stronger, build muscle and maximize fat loss. Total body workouts are just one of them – but they have some great side benefits too.

Boost Strength and Muscle Gain

Total body workouts are exactly what they sound like – workout routines that include exercises that focus on every major muscle group. Because you typically only include 1-2 exercises for each muscle group, you tend to focus on the big impact, compound exercises – squats, deadlifts, rows, presses – that are ideal for building strength and muscle.

An additional benefit of these kinds of compound exercises and full body workouts is that because the volume of sets and reps remains low, you can focus on maximizing each lift. Plus, you’ll hit each muscle group multiple times a week, increasing overall volume while still allowing for recovery.

Increase Overall Fat Loss

Compound exercises recruit multiple joints and multiple muscles to perform. That means that to complete a single rep of one exercise you’re using more energy and more force. Take a squat for example. A single squat works the quadriceps, glutes and calves, but it also requires stabilizing muscle groups to help: hamstrings, lower back, core and even your lats. The more muscles necessary to perform the exercise, the more calories required to complete it and recover from it.

For these at home total body workouts, you’re going to be doing plenty of compound exercises, and even some power and cardio in between. So you’ll boost fat burn even more!

Maximize Results, Minimize Your Time Commitment

One of the best things about full body workouts is that you can get results with just a few days in the gym. If you train hard with this style of programming, you’ll workout every other day or even every 2 days, which means that you have time for other things but still hit each muscle group multiple times a week.

Which means that you can…

Optimize Recovery and Save Time for Other Activities

Those days off in between workouts? That’s when your body fully recovers from your workout and rebuilds stronger, larger muscle fibers. One reason many people don’t see results is because they don’t give their body’s this time to repair and rebuild. Overuse can lead to injury and burn out. So full body workouts are a great way to steer clear of that.

Plus, if strength training isn’t you one and only love (crazy, I know), total body workouts allow ample time for other sports and activities. That makes it a great workout style for anyone looking to cross-train while training for a race or for another type of high level performance in any other type of fitness or movement.

Do Them Anywhere, at Any Fitness Level

Finally, total body workouts can be done anywhere at any fitness level. Because they typically utilize foundational movements like squats, chest presses, shoulder presses and rows, anybody and everybody can (and maybe even should!), full body routines are great for beginners and seasoned pros alike. Plus, you don’t need a ton of equipment. A set of dumbbells and a mat will do!