Doing two-move exercises provides best results, expert says

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (KABC) -- Lalo Fuentes is a personal trainer who works with top athletes to your average Jane and Joe, but he's found a format that appears to be a winning combination for almost everyone.

Here's the formula: Three exercises in just two moves.

"These are called multi-joint exercises. It speeds up your metabolism, it works a lot of muscles at the same time, and it burns a lot of calories," said Fuentes.

Fuentes sees many at the gym working one small muscle instead of several, which is wasted time and, actually, energy.

"What you want to do in those three minutes is include the most amount of muscles. Focus on the big picture instead of the small muscles," reminded Fuentes.

Example? Performing a squat with an overhead press, or a lunge with an overhead raise.

Both involve leg, core, back and arm muscles. The moves are simple but the workout can be tough.

"Yes, it's very hard ones but it works very, very good," said model Tatian Donskova.

In addition, Fuentes adds a "freeze" technique to the moves to create emphasis on one part of the exercise so that a particular muscle gets more load - usually the lower body.

"I developed this a few years ago when I was training a lot of models, and the deal was you have to get my models in shape without increasing a lot of muscle mass," said Fuentes.

While it's difficult for most women to gain muscle mass, this type of training certainly helps to strengthen muscles and burn more calories.

In many cases, you can use your body weight, but even if you grab some inexpensive fitness toys, it's really going to make a difference in the way you work out.

Elastic bands, gliding discs and stability balls can make those same three exercises much more fun.