Have you ever seen photos of people with disproportionate muscles? Lacking a clear framework for structuring your workout might lead to over focusing on particular muscles over others.
As you dive in on all the exercise and dietary advice on how to lose weight in 12 weeks, you want to emphasize the areas you’re most affected. Knowing which exercises work best for which areas is something you should be aware of during the onset of any workout program.
What are Muscle Groups?
Just as they sound, muscle groups are muscles close to each other that perform similar movements.
The main muscle groups to focus your training for an all-round body strengthening and fat reduction experience include:
- Chest
- Calves
- Shoulders
- Back
- Arms
- Legs
Many individuals concentrate on attempting to isolate individual muscles such as biceps while training. However, each exercise requires several surrounding muscles.
Moreover, concentrating on particular muscles leads to a disproportionate appearance.
Determining how to go about exercising various muscle groups isn’t a walk in the park, though. You have to tune your training to cut out fat while gaining more strength and muscle without getting injuries or an imbalanced appearance.
Targeted Muscle Group Exercises
Here are some fantastic muscle-specific exercises to try out:
Chest
The chest muscle contains sternocostal and clavicular sections. Exercises involving pushing your arms forward like decline and flat bench press focus on the sternocostal. Those involving upward arm movements like reverse-grip and incline bench press focus on the clavicular head.
Push-ups: Increasing your hands’ width puts more pressure on your chest muscles.
Bench presses: You can do these with dumbbells or a barbell. It’s always wise to have a partner close by should you get stuck.
Band chest press: place a band having handles behind you. Push it away from your body in a basketball pass fashion.
Back
Your back has four large muscles. The best workouts to encompass involve vertical and horizontal pulling.
Single-arm dumbbell row: These aid in strengthening your shoulders, upper arms, and upper back.
Band pull-apart: Ensure the band is approximately held at shoulder-width size apart. Concentrate on squeezing the shoulder blades while pulling the resistance band.
Superman: You can increase the intensity of this exercise by holding weights over your head.
Arms
Biceps curls: The good thing about these exercises is you don’t need dumbbells to achieve their effectiveness. Swap these for soup cans or other heavy objects.
Triceps dips: Works both your triceps and chest.
Pull-ups: These are essential to condition your shoulders, core, arms, and upper back.
Abdominal
Planks: Flex your abdomen and core while supporting yourself using your toes and forearms.
Bicycle crunches: The twisting movements involved aid in conditioning muscles called obliques found on the sides of your core.
Hanging leg raise: Start with a less challenging variation with your knees at right angles. Proceed to straighten your legs as the exercise intensifies.
Legs
Squats: You can use a dumbbell or a barbell to do these.
Lunges: Try out the different lunges available for a more enjoyable and effective workout. Shifting between reverse lunges, barbell lunges, and walking dumbbell lunges ensures you don’t get bored quickly.
Calf raises: You can begin with your body weight and progressively add weight as the exercise becomes less challenging for you.
Shoulders
Seated shoulder press: This is another exercise best performed with a friend to assist you when positioning the weights to avoid shoulder injuries.
Band shoulder press: You can stand at the center of a big band having handles. Focus on pushing your hands as close to the ceiling as you can.
Straight-arm planks: These exercises are vital in shaping your shoulders, core, and back.
Wrapping Up
The trick is to ensure you pay equal attention to all areas of your body. Planning meals, eating healthy, and not banning or skipping meals are essential things you should remember if you want the most out of the targeted muscle group exercises.
