How many exercises should i do per muscle group

You might further divide the leg curl into doing both seated and lying leg curls, as these will work your hamstrings at different muscle lengths. This might help to elicit muscle growth in an even larger portion of your hamstrings.

Pay attention to cross-over training from other exercises such as the deadlift which works your hamstrings. This hamstring workout is available for free in the StrengthLog workout app. Your calf muscles are called triceps surae , and consists of two muscles:.

Even though the soleus is located below the gastrocnemius, the two muscles are of equal size, and thus both contribute to your calf muscle mass. The primary function of the calf muscles is to extend your foot.

Also, both soleus and gastrocnemius are active when you are walking. Calf raises done when standing works both of your calf muscles, while seated calf raises mostly works your soleus muscle in isolation. Therefore, I recommend that the majority of your calf training sets are done in some form of standing calf raise, but seated calf raise can be used to complement this.

Besides regular calf raises, you could also add in some eccentric heel drops to further challenge your calves, which are used to a lot of work from all the walking you do. I recommend you do at least 10 sets per week of calf training — perhaps even more because your calves are already accustomed to a high training volume from walking.

Of these sets, I recommend that the majority is done in some kind of standing calf raise exercise. This calf workout is available for free in the StrengthLog workout app. Depending on the muscle, you will likely need to do more than one exercise for optimal muscle growth. By targeting all muscle fibers and muscle heads, you will be building muscle as fast as possible. For some hard numbers on this and plenty of examples of fast muscle growth, check out our next article:.

Do Squats Work Your Hamstrings? Smith Machine vs. Free Barbell? That depends on the muscle. Some muscles, like your biceps , can probably be trained optimally with only a single exercise. Others, like your pecs or quads , require several exercises in order for you to stimulate all muscle fibers. The pectoralis major is an example of a muscle with muscle fibers running in a wide array of directions. A flat bench press will work most of the chest muscle fibers, but complete chest development probably requires that you do some additional work at other angles.

Your triceps, in contrast to your chest muscles, have more uniform muscle fiber directions but are instead split up into three different heads one is hidden beneath the muscle in this picture which all have slightly different functions and directions of work. The three sets of muscle fibers in the deltoid muscle.

Front deltoids in red, lateral deltoids in green, and rear deltoids in blue. External obliques. Internal obliques. Rectus abdominis A and transversus abdominis C. Transversus abdominis. Biceps brachii with its two heads originating from your shoulder blade.

The brachialis covers the lower half of your humerus and is located closest to the bone, underneath the biceps brachii. The three heads of the triceps.

The long and the lateral heads are the largest, while the medial head is the smallest and lies hidden beneath them. The triceps is the largest muscle of your arm, and one of the largest in your upper body. Gasctrocnemius is the outer, two-headed calf muscle. Soleus is the inner, one-headed calf muscle. After 9 weeks, both groups experienced a similar amount of overall growth in each of their muscles. However, when you dive into the results a little more Not only was there a slight trend towards better growth in the varied exercise group, but they also experienced growth at all 12 sites that were measured whereas the same exercise group failed to experience significant growth in 2 of the measured sites.

This same effect has been found in past research as well. For instance, this paper employed a similar study design - but only analyzed the growth of the quads. After 12 weeks, the researchers found similar overall quadriceps growth in both groups.

But the subjects varying exercises experienced significant growth in all four heads of the quads, while the same exercise group failed to experience significant growth in two of the four heads rectus femoris and vastus medialis.

This is a well-supported phenomenon that different exercises cause growth in different regions of a muscle. And vice versa. We see this effect occur because, for most of our individual muscles, some fibers of that muscle will activate very well in certain exercises and ranges of motion. Yet not as much in other exercises. For example, certain biceps exercises will favour growth in the inner portion or short head of your biceps. Whereas other biceps exercises will favour growth in the outer portion or long head of your biceps.

But this phenomenon does exist. And, more importantly, supports the idea of using multiple exercises to maximally stimulate and grow a muscle in a proportionate manner. The second reason is due to the various biomechanical actions that each of our muscles has. For example, the chest functions to primarily bring our arms together. During a bench press, we do this with heavy weight. But fail to work the chest through its full range of motion.

Compare this to a fly. Here, we can bring the arms together and further back. Doing this helps activate specific motor units and parts of the chest that the bench press likely would not. Similarly, again looking at the chest, we can divide the chest into its upper, middle, and lower fibers. The correct training volume for you will depend on several factors, including your fitness level and goals.

Training volume is best to approach as a weekly target, as it accounts for how many workouts per week you plan to train a specific muscle group. This likely means a lower weight load. Another important consideration: whether you want to knock out your weekly training volume in one workout or spread it out across several. The frequency of your muscle group training — or the number of sessions per week — can make a difference in your results. Utilizing three to four sessions per week to hit your training volume will likely provide better results than doing it all at once because of one key factor: recovery.

For instance, a very basic split routine would be upper body-lower body. The point of a workout split is to give specific muscle groups time to rest before challenging them again while still hitting the full body every week. Recovery is an important part of seeing results — especially as your training volume increases — so these breaks are key. This approach is especially good for beginners or those who are strapped for time, as the training volume will be more manageable.

Allowing your body at least 1 day to recover between each full-body workout is key, so three sessions per week is a good baseline to start with. While this method will surely increase muscle size and strength, it will have you training at least 5 days a week, which is a big commitment.

Choose five exercises per workout and utilize rep ranges of less than To start, choose two exercises per muscle group, aiming for 3 sets and 10 to 12 reps as a beginner. Four days per week also works well for a push-pull split, allowing for two push and two pull workouts.

To start, choose one to two exercises per muscle group, aiming for 3 sets and 10 to 12 reps as a beginner. In lower rep ranges, aim for at least 2 minutes between sets. For higher volume workouts, studies suggest that larger muscle groups such as the quadriceps and the back require between 90 and weekly repetitions, depending on the amount of weight used. The smaller muscle groups such as the biceps and triceps need between 50 and 70 repetitions.

If you want to reach your weekly repetition goal and increase muscle size, I recommend training each muscle group times per week. Sure, you can dedicate one day per week to hammering out 10 or more sets, but there are a few reasons I would recommend against this:.