Targeting specific muscles or areas of your body is effective for improving strength and endurance in those locations with increased reps. Whole body exercises help you burn more calories because of the increased muscle use, and help you improve neuromotor skills such as balance, agility, speed and quickness. Add whole-body exercises to your workouts to improve your sports performance, raise your metabolism and improve your footwork.
Many whole-body exercises start with the legs.
Punching
If you think punching requires mostly arm muscles, you’ll never have to worry about accidentally delivering knockout blow. Whether you use a punching bag or perform shadow boxing, this type of exercise should start in your lower legs, move through your hips and core, travel up your torso and end in your arms. Generate a powerful punch starting with a downward knee bend as you turn your core backward. Begin your forward punching motion by driving your hips forward as you straighten your leg upward, turning your core forward. This helps your torso propel your shoulders forward, letting your arms deliver all of the power you’ve created. Dancing around the bag or room on the balls of your feet while throwing light jabs is another way to work your legs, hips and trunk while you exercise.
Swimming
Because your body is suspended in water while you swim, your muscles are responsible for moving your entire body mass. While you can use a kickboard to assist you, you’ll work almost all of your leg, hip, core, trunk, arm, back and neck muscles swimming unassisted. Learn to use a variety of strokes to maximize your muscle use. Include the crawl, breaststroke, sidestroke, butterfly, back crawl and backstroke when you swim laps. Alternate strokes every lap to prevent muscle fatigue.
Burpees
Burpees work your entire body without requiring you to move out of a small area. Starting with your feet shoulder width, drop down in to a crouch, as if you’re getting ready to start a race. Kick your legs backward into a pushup position, quickly move back to your crouch, then stand up. Repeat this pattern for one to two minutes as part of a circuit-training routine, depending on your conditioning. To add more muscle-building and calorie burning, perform a regular or hand-clap pushup after you straighten your legs and reach the plank position, then jump up as high as you can after you return to your crouch.
Martial-Arts Moves
Combining punching with kicking, you get a whole-body workout that provides you with fluid, dynamic movements that help burn calories, improve flexibility, promote balance and agility and train quick, powerful movements. Kick low and forward, high and to the side and raise your leg and keep it raised for several seconds while you make rapid punches to maximize your muscle use.
Medicine Ball Toss
Play medicine ball toss with a partner to work your legs, hips, core, trunk, shoulders and arms. For example, on a tennis court, play a game to 11 points using a heavy medicine ball. Toss the ball to your opponent, who must let it bounce before catching it. You can take only three steps after you catch the ball before throwing it back. Try to run your opponent from side to side and forward and backward, using as much of the service box as possible. You’ll be surprised at how quickly your legs and arms fatigue as you use them to catch and throw the ball.