The 6 Best Exercises for 'Skinny-Fat' People

Here’s a quick hitting, down and dirty, stream of consciousness post for you that outlines the best exercises for skinny fat people to do.

These exercises are best for skinny-fat men and women because:

They target the largest muscle groups. Which mean you burn more calories and build more muscle. Burning calories reduces body fat and building muscle reshapes your physique. (Think slim waist and wide shoulders.).Building muscle mass also increases your metabolic rate, which means you burn more fat and are more resilient to bad foods.
These exercises train your body as a single unit. Your body has over 600 muscles. They all need to be trained to have a healthy physique. Training muscles in their proper proportion keeps your body balanced.
These exercises put emphasis on the ‘transformational muscles’ such as your back and shoulders, so you see results faster.

If you’ve never touched a weight before make sure you can perform 10 pushups, 20 setups and 30 body squats with perfect form first. This helps ensure you have a basic body control and strength. It helps muscle imbalances and injury.

Squats

Squats target your largest muscle groups. Not only do squats burn calories but they build much needed muscle mass. And as stated before, the more muscle mass you have the more calories you burn at rest. This is how you dissolve that skinny fat belly over time and keep the fat off for life.

Deadlifts

Deadlifts train your entire body as a unit. They strengthen every muscle in your body and develop your central nervous system. Deadlifts are a phenomenal exercise for building total body muscle that will radically transform your physique. Conventional are the best place to start here. You can incorporate sumo and deficit deadlifts into your routine over time.

Pull Ups and Chin ups

Pull ups are give you broad shoulders and a wide back. Both of which make your waist look slim. Thus negating the skinny-fat look and giving you an athletic appearance. If you can’t do a pull up yet don’t worry. here’s what you do:

Dead hangs – Trains your hands, arms, shoulders and back while improving grip strength. Grip strength is critically important to all exercises and should be training consciously.
Negative reps
Machine assisted pull ups – there’s no shame in using weight assistance. In fact it’s the smart thing to do. It allows you to focus on form and build mind muscle connection. Mind muscle connection is critically important in the development of strength and muscular tissue.

Military Press

Standing military press is an excellent exercise for building the ‘yoke’. The yoke is your entire shoulder, trapezius and upper back musculature. Preforming military press while standing is a full body exercise capable of burning mega calories and toning the muscles in the torso, legs and core since they are engaged for stability and power transfer from the floor to the bar.

Rows

Rows of all kinds are great for transforming a skinny-fat physique. Bent-over barbell rows are a good starting point because they force you to brace your body and balance the weight while performing the movement. Just holding the correct position for rows is incredibly taxing and burns a lot of calories from the amount muscle engagement of sheer mental concentration required to maintain good form while moving the weight.

Perform 2-3 sets of 10-15 reps per set for each exercise. Gradually increase the weight and number of sets performed.