Top Five!

We all have favorite exercises.  Here are five of mine and the reasons they are my favorite:

1.     Squats.  I love squats best.  They are the one exercise that I want everyone to do.  They have variations that work for pretty much every human because we all have to stand and sit.  Squats are a compound exercise, meaning that they use lots of joints and thus work multiple muscle groups at once.  They are practical and easy to learn.  Watching someone’s squat form tells me more than any other single exercise about what a person needs to work on.

2.     Pushups.  Again, pushups have about a gazillion variations so that almost everyone can do them.  They are also a compound exercise, working upper body and core at once.  While pushups can be done with equipment, none is actually required.

3.     Deadlifts.  Another compound exercise!  (Sensing a theme here…)  What I like about deadlifts is that they use the entire back of the body.  We’re really good at working all the muscles in front, but we neglect the hamstrings, glutes, and back muscles.

4.     Rows.  Yet another compound exercise!  In our society of chair-warriors, we need to do things that help us maintain our posture.  Rows work the back muscles that get weakened when we slouch through the day.

5.     Pretty princesses.  It was hard to pick a favorite abdominal exercise because I like all of them, but pretty princesses work all of the abdominals, so I pick them because they are efficient.  And yes, they, too, are a compound exercise.

What are your top five?