Total Body Workout In One Move

By Pamela Mazzuca Prebeg BSc. Kin

Let’s be honest, if you are training for a big race, whether it’s your first 10K or your 10^th marathon, you don’t have a lot of free time to be hitting the gym. But you do recognize the importance of resistance training so how do you do it all? Two words -combination movements. Combination movements are multitasking exercises that basically combine two different exercises into one super move to maximize results by torching calories and building total body strength in half of the time.

If you only have time for one exercise, give the Squat, Curl and Press a try. This one exercise is a total body workout that really targets your legs, glutes, shoulders and arms. If you don’t have a set of dumbbells you can always try using soup cans or full 1L water bottles.

Squat, Curl and Press

How to do it: Stand with your feet slightly wider than hip width apart. Holding a dumbbell in each hand and let your arms hand by your sides. Squat down by bending your knees and pushing your bum back, as if you were going to sit down in a chair, until your thighs are parallel to the ground. If this causes any pain in your knees try squatting down only half way, always work within your pain free range of motion. Squeezing your glutes, stand back up while simultaneously curling the dumbbells up to your shoulders by bending your elbows and then, while keeping your abs tight, press the dumbbells up over your head. Hold for a second and then lower the dumbbells back to the start position by reversing the movement of your arms. Repeat.  Do 2-3 sets of 15-20 reps.