When doing most upper body exercises your forearms will come into play by holding and gripping the weight or bar. By strengthening your forearms, you will be able to improve other lifts as well such as the deadlift or pull ups. Usually called the glutes, these muscles start at the pelvis then insert into the femur.
The three muscles are the gluteus minimus, gluteus medius and gluteus maximus. Your glute muscles are partly responsible for walking, running and jumping. Besides being super practical muscles, they also garner unending attention for other reasons. The best exercises for building your glutes are based in large movements such as squats. Many gyms these days are adding glute specific workout equipment amongst their lineup as the trend of bigger behinds continues.
They start at the femur thighbone and ilium hipbone and attach to the patella kneecap. These muscles support the extension of the knee and are essential for standing, walking and running. The best exercises for quadriceps are large compound movements such as squats and lunges. There are numerous variations of both squats and lunges so you should never get bored of working out these muscles.
There are also isolation exercises such as leg extensions or terminal knee extensions TKE if you want to specifically target the quads or are rehabbing an injury.
Made of the semitendinosus, semimembranosus, and biceps femoris. We will focus on the biceps of the lower body; the biceps femoris otherwise known as the hamstrings. The biceps femoris is comprised of a long and short head.
The short head of the hamstring is attached to the femur whereas the long head attached to the ischium lower hip bone. The best hamstring exercises for building muscles are different types of deadlifts where your legs stay straight and get a massive stretch like stiff legged deadlift.
Most gyms also have machines like the quad curl to isolate the effort of the hamstrings. The calves are made up of two muscles; the gastrocnemius and the soleus. The gastrocnemius is the larger muscle that you can see. It has two heads and plays a major role in running and jumping. The soleus is the smaller flat muscle behind the gastrocnemius and it helps to flex the foot so it points downward. This function called plantar flexion makes it so we can stand up and not fall forward.
These two muscles are on the back of your lower leg and they help us to move forward by lifting our heels. While some people are born with the genetics to have strong thick calves, others have to work extra hard to add mass to these muscles. If you're one of the lucky ones you can get a good calf workout in while doing other exercises such as lunges and split squats.
If you're one of the unlucky ones then you might have to put some extra effort into building up your calves. Fitness is a personal journey where you have to do the hard work to see what works best for you. The only way to determine what sets, reps and exercises are right for you is to get out there and get after it. November 12, Read More. November 11, November 10, Download our free guide to bodyweight training here.
Beginners should do full-body workouts and include movement patterns, with one exercise per pattern in each workout. You can learn more about why full-body workouts are great for beginners here. If you want to include aerobic training in your program, alternate between one day of resistance training and aerobic training.
Repeat this for the whole week. If you have been training consistently for more than one year and up to four years, you are likely an intermediate trainee. Intermediates should do movement patterns per workout, with exercises per pattern. To optimize your results, the reality is that the number of exercises you should perform in the workout will depend upon the intensity and effort you put into each and every repetition.
Training intensity can be measured many different ways; the amount of volume you hit sets x reps , the amount of weight you lift, the amount of rest you take between every set — and even a good training partner can help drive the intensity of the workout.
Whatever variable makes the workout harder or easier, can be defined as the training intensity. While higher volume training does stimulate muscle growth, the amount of weight you use is very important. Here are some general guidelines for the optimal number of exercises per workout that have worked in my programs:. Remember, maximize the contraction for every repetition, utilize good form through a full range of motion or utilize a range of motion that allows YOU to maintain good form , and push yourself hard in every workout.
In general, there are only three that you should consider. You can choose to train all of the major upper body movements on one day, followed by all of the major lower body splits on another. You should consider this split if you are an intermediate. All you do is mix and match exercises from both the upper body muscle groups and the lower body muscle groups into the same session.
You should consider this split if you are a beginner. The third option is the push-pull split. You train all of the pushing or pressing muscles on one day, and all of the pulling muscles on another. You cannot go wrong with either of these three approaches. In order to learn which one you should do, check out our complete article on the topic here.
This is the most inefficient way to train. However, if your goal is purely to get big muscles, a bodybuilding split can be beneficial. Either way, I suggest you focus on building stronger muscles first. In other words, how many workouts per muscle group , or how many times a week should you train each body part. A recent meta-analysis of 25 studies tried to answer this question.
They found that there was no significant difference in muscle mass between training each body part 1, 2, or 3 times per week, provided the total training volume was equated amongst the groups.
With that in mind, this study only focused on hypertrophy aka muscle growth , and not necessarily on strength gain- which cannot be ignored. In my opinion, it is better to train each muscle group more than once per week as trying to do a lot of volume in one session will lead to.
I recommend that you do work in the rep range for the vast majority of your training. Whatever rep range you choose, just make sure that you stick to that range for at least weeks and stay consistent per exercise. For example, if you do the squat for 3 sets of 8 repetitions, do not jump to 3 sets of 3 the following week and then 3 sets of 12 the next.
Keep the reps relatively stable per exercise. We have written an entire article on training volume and optimal rep ranges which you can find here. A set is a group of consecutive repetitions. If you are low on time, stick with 3 sets, and do supersets. Just start slow. Do exercises for a week or two and see how you feel. If you feel really fresh, and want to do more exercises per day, then start by adding one more. Just make sure that your body can handle 5 exercises per day and make sure that you actually have the time to do this many exercises as well.
So how many exercises per muscle do you need to do if you only want to build a specific body part? Instead of mixing and matching exercises per workout, you will center your secondary exercises around that specific muscle group. Ideally, you will target that specific muscle with one large primary compound exercise, followed by secondary exercises that further train that muscle. It is okay to use isolation exercise per day to target your specific muscle, provided you have done a compound primary exercise.
This helps to prevent muscular imbalances. Unless you are specifically competing in some type of sport, I do not recommend that you work out more than once per day. However, if you are a competitve athlete, it can be beneficial to exercise twice per day. Your coach can help tailor a workout program that involves twice a day training.
In addition to your resistance training workout, you should also walk as much as you can on a daily basis. Walking is the most underrated exercise that few people take advantage of. The WCT Strength Program already takes all of these principles into consideration and provides you an easy to follow week template.
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