Get TOTAL Body Functional Strength With JUST 3 Moves?? My Minimalist Workout

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Continuing my series of top exercises, I decided to try a thought experiment and take this concept even further: what if you could only use THREE exercises to train the entire body?

I've seen other minimal workouts that aim to train the whole body in just three exercises. I guess the powerlifting big three could even be counted. But what if we're interested in comprehensive, total, functional performance?

Strength in every plane of motion. Mobility. Coordination. Strength endurance...

All that stuff.

Of course, sacrifices will have to be made. But as a thought experiment, I thought this could be fun. And seeing as most routines will still fall short of total performance... if you want something simple, this is a pretty good place to start.

The three I would use would not necessarily be my three favourite exercises - nor even exercises I would prescribe to others under normal circumstances. But, with the understanding that you can only use three moves, I've tried to pick three that I think offer the most well-rounded, total performance.

My strategy was to refer to my ATNSP hierarchy and work with a "top down" approach. Looking at skills and dynamic movements, rather than specific traits and attributes.

By choosing more dynamic movements - what I call chaos training in my book Adaptive Training - we get an umbrella effect for all those smaller traits and attributes. Sure, they're not being trained in a very intense manner... but I think it's not bad all things considered!

So, if you're looking for something really simple to get full body performance... this is the best I've got! I'd love to know what you'd pick.

I'd love to know what you guys would choose!

P.S. I forgot to mention a few extra things these three movements train. You get a tiny bit of hamstrings from the reverse-plank position seen in the bodyweight row. You also get anti-lateral flexion from the single-arm overhead press of the cross-body clean and press.

Oh, and note that these three exercises come from three different modalities of training: movement training, kettlebell training, and calisthenics!

So, there you go...