If you want to burn more calories and shed fat, you won’t find anything better than simple, tried-and-true compound exercises. What are compound exercises, you ask? Good question. “Compound movements are multijoint exercises that target larger muscle groups, which forces more effort, burns more calories, and builds more muscle,” Kendall Wood, MS, CSCS, an NASM-certified personal trainer and coauthor of Core Fitness Solution, told POPSUGAR. Naturally, the more calories you burn and muscle you build, the faster you’ll lose weight.
With that in mind, we asked Kendall for the compound exercises he finds most effective for fat loss. Keep reading for his picks, then try performing them as a circuit up to three times back to back, with minimal rest between sets of 15 each. (Remember that some moves will require you to do 15 reps on each side.) Ready? Let’s get started.