San Antonio Personal Training

9/12/07

When you workout, do you complete your exercises in any particular order?  If you are not, then you should be!  When working out you should always move from exercises that work big muscle groups (or multiple muscle groups), down to exercises that work small muscle groups. 

Walk into any gym today and you will see that most people do not do this.  Most people start on the lifts that work the muscles they want to have look better.  For example, you can see many guys walk into the gym and before getting a warm-up or doing exercises that work their large muscle groups, they will head straight for the dumbbells and do bicep curls.  Women on the other hand will start off almost immediately on the hip abductor and hip adductor machines (these are the ones that look like torture chambers to guys).  Men will go straight to bicep curls because they want big arms, and women will go straight to the abductor/adductor machines because they want skinny thighs. 

If these people truely want good physiques, then what they should be doing is working the large muscle groups, such as the chest, thighs and back, before they work the smaller muscle groups such as the bicep, triceps and calves.  The reason for this is two-fold.  Number one, working the large muscle groups takes more energy than working the small muscle groups.  To get the most out of the large muscle groups you must have the energy to work them effectively.  The second reason for doing the big muscle groups before the small muscle groups correlates with the first reason.  In many cases, lifts that work the large muscle groups also use the smaller muscle groups to help the large muscle groups.  For example, squats use multiple muscle groups, including the hamstrings, quadriceps and adductor muscles just to mention a few.  When women go into the gym and jump straight on the abductor/adductor machine they are weakening their ability to do squats a full strength and thus reducing the effect of a workout.  If they were to do squats first, then progress with abductor/adductor exercises, they would do their body more good because they would have been able to do squats at full strength thus working the entire thigh (hamstrings, glutes, quadriceps, etc.), then they could break down the abductor/adductor muscles more completely ensuring a strengthening of those muscle fibers.

Here is a short list of exercises that work large muscle groups, followed by the muscle groups they are designed to work:

-Bench Press- Pectorals, Triceps, Deltoid (There are lots of ways to do a bench press, so don't do just the standard bench press)

-Squats- Quadripceps, Glutes, Hamstrings, Adductor Muscles, Abdominals, Lumbar Muscles,

-Dead Lifts- Quadriceps, Adductor Muscles, Hamstrings, Glutes, Trapezius Muscles, Abdominals, Lumbar Muscles

-Bentover Rows- Latissimus dorsi (Lats), Trapezius Muscles (Traps), Deltoids, Biceps, Lumbar Muscles, Rhomboids

Here is a very short list of exercises that work small muscle groups, followed by the muscle groups they are designed to work (These could literally go on forever):

-Dips, Kickbacks, Extensions, Pushdowns- Triceps, some pectoralis muscles

-Bicep Curls, Preacher Curls, Pulley Curls, Hammer Curls- Bicep

-Lateral Dumbbell Raises- Deltoids, Trapezius

-Shrugs- Trapezius

-Calf Raises, Toe Raises- Calves

So, what you want to do is use exercises that work large and multiple muscle groups early in your workout and then supplement them at the end with exercises that isolate individual muscle groups.

Make it a great day San Antonio!

Nicholas Wood

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