The Best Damn Compound Lifting Program to Get Shredded

You read that right. Most people think fasted cardio is the fast track to weight loss. But those who know a thing or two about training will agree there are several benefits from major barbell movements like squats, deadlifts, and bench press. These big lifts are awesome for adding strength and muscle, but with the right approach, you can use them to get shredded and lean as well.

You see, compound movements have a benefit on conditioning most isolation lifts can’t deliver. Here are just a couple:

Spinal Loading for Fat Loss: Heavy bars placed on the body will do two things. First, they light up the nervous system to recruit more of its high threshold motor units, which are responsible for fast-twitch muscle fibers, or at least make the ones that are firing work even harder. Second, you’ll be releasing more hormones that are essential to burning fat and building muscle, during and after the workout.
Core Strength Benefits: Big, multi-joint movements are often performed standing, which creates a much greater dependency on the abs and lower back. Not being confined to a seat means a hell of a lot more stability work for the core. Other than injuries being avoided due to lack of spine stability or support, it means you’ll also burn more calories for every rep and every set, which is just what the doctor ordered for leaning out and getting shredded.

The Best Compound Strength Exercises to Get Shredded

As far as compound movements go, these exercises provide the most bang for your buck.

Deadlift, rack pulls, and their grip variations
Cleans, snatches, and Olympic lift variations
Pullups, chinups, and inverted rows
Squats and their variations
Lunges, split squats, and their variations
Standing overhead press
Bentover rows
Bench press and pushups

Including as many of the above into your workout routines as the primary exercises can hasten fat loss and preserve lean mass (key to getting shredded), all without doing endless bouts of steady-state cardio post-workout, or on separate days.

The Best Damn Compound Lifting Program to Get Shredded

There are a lot of demands this program places on the central nervous system (due to the large movements). If at any point during the phase you feel sluggish or overtrained, it usually means your body is telling you to scale things back. Listen, and take a deloading week.

Directions

In order to hit the whole body more than once per week, this program comprises two horizontal push/pull days and two vertical push/pull days to give proper rest to specific muscle groups. You’ll notice the short rest times below too. That’s because there are no supersets in this program (perform as straight sets—completing all sets for one exercise before moving on). It goes against the grain for most conditioning programs, but this allows you to stay focused and undistracted from the big movements that require it, while at the same time keeping your heart rate elevated for the majority of the workout. Suffice to say, don’t use your actual rep max efforts here. Drop the working weight by 10-15 percent for each exercise so you don’t tap out early or risk injury due to the short rest periods.