Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - The Best Way to Train All 6 Major Muscle Groups

Episode Date: October 23, 2020

Deciding which muscle groups to train together can be confusing. Most people say chest and triceps should be trained together, since they’re both involved in bench and overhead pressing. Others say you should train biceps with chest because your arms will still be fresh after benching, so you might as well train them together. Arnold was known for training his chest and back together, and if that was good enough for The Oak, then it should probably work for you, no? Other people still say that you shouldn’t program your workouts around individual muscle groups at all, but should simply focus on doing a lot of heavy squatting, deadlifting, and bench pressing or full-body training. So, how are you supposed to put all of this into an effective training plan that you enjoy? Well, I have good news for you: There is no “best” way to combine muscle groups together in your training. So long as you understand a few basic principles, there are many ways to combine them into workouts that not only work, but that you enjoy and can stick to. Body-part “bro” splits, push pull legs, and upper/lower routines can all work equally well, and which one you use really depends on how many times per week you want to train, how many years you’ve been training, and what muscle groups you want to work on most. And we’re going to break it all down in this podcast. By the end, you’re going to know which muscle groups to train together and why, the best exercises for each, and how to create a workout routine that’s guaranteed to deliver results. Let’s begin. 7:24 - What is a major muscle group? 8:06 - Chest training 10:39 - Back training 18:20 - Arms training 30:16 - Shoulders training 35:40 - Legs training 50:47 - Core training --- Mentioned on The Show: Shop Legion Supplements Here: https://legionathletics.com/shop/ --- Want free workout and meal plans? Download my science-based diet and training templates for men and women: https://legionathletics.com/text-sign-up/

Hey, hey, I'm Mike Matthews and welcome to another episode of Muscle for Life. Thank you for joining me today to talk about how to best train each of the major muscle groups that we want to most develop. Now, this is something I get asked about fairly often, and I have written and spoken a fair amount about it, but it occurred to me that I haven't yet done an episode like this where I summarize my current positions and my current thoughts on how to best develop each of the major muscle groups. And so that's what this episode is going to be about. It is going to just focus on the fundamentals, of course. So if you are an experienced weightlifter, you may not learn too much. However, you may pick up a few new exercises to do. But if you are confused, I guess, regardless of your experience level, if you are a bit confused about workout splits and how to best combine

muscle groups, like should you be training chest and triceps together or maybe chest and biceps or Arnold, you know, he was known for training his chest and triceps together or maybe chest and biceps or Arnold, you know, he was known for training his chest and his back together. That really worked well for him. And if it was good enough for the Oak, then hey, maybe it's good enough for you too. And of course, there are people out there who say that you shouldn't program your training around individual muscle groups at all, but really all you should do is focus on heavy squatting, deadlifting, bench pressing, and overhead pressing, and full body workouts, right? Those philosophies usually go together. So people who are saying that you really should just focus on your compound lifts and everything else doesn't really matter often will program full body training where you train not necessarily

your entire body, but several major muscle groups, usually at least one major muscle group from both your upper body and your lower body in the same workout. And so if you have not sorted all of that out yet to your satisfaction, then this episode is going to be helpful for you. Also, if you like what I am doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my sports nutrition company, Legion, which thanks to the support of many people like you is the leading brand of all natural sports supplements in the world. And we're on top because every ingredient and dose in every product is backed by peer-reviewed scientific research. Every formulation is 100% transparent. There are no proprietary blends, for example. And everything

is naturally sweetened and flavored. So that means no artificial sweeteners, no artificial food dyes, which may not be as dangerous as some people would have you believe, but there is good evidence to suggest that having many servings of artificial sweeteners in particular every day for long periods of time may not be the best for your health. So while you don't need pills, powders, and potions to get into great shape, and frankly, most of them are virtually useless, there are natural ingredients that can help you lose fat, build muscle, and get healthy faster, and you will find the best of them in Legion's products. To check out everything we have to offer, including protein powders and protein bars,

pre-workout, post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more, head over to www.buylegion.com, B-U-Y legion.com. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code MFL at checkout, and you will save 20% on your entire first order. So again, if you appreciate my work, and if you want to see more of it, and if you also want all natural evidence-based supplements that work, please do consider supporting Legion so I can keep doing what I love, like producing more podcasts like this. All right. So let's start with a simple maxim, a simple principle that you can take to the bank. And that is there is no best way to combine muscle groups in your training.

So long as you understand a few basic principles that I'm going to share with you on this podcast, there are many ways to create effective workout routines and many ways that you will not enjoy, and those would not be for you, and ways that you will enjoy, and those would be for you. That's an element of training that many people don't talk about, and it should be emphasized because compliance is key to long-term results, adherence to your diet, and adherence to your workouts, to your routine, showing up every day, putting in the work, and then also working hard in your workouts, and working hard working hard in your workouts and working hard in every set. And it's hard to continue to do that week after week when you don't enjoy your

training, when you don't look forward to your workouts at all, and even worse if you kind of dread them. So I don't care how scientifically optimal a workout routine might be. If you don't like it, it is not for you. And fortunately, because there are many ways to build effective training routines, you don't have to do something you don't enjoy. It is not self-indulgent. It is not a luxury to have a workout program that you like. I would say it's a necessity. So for example, if you like body part or bro splits, if you just enjoy training that way, you can make it work. If you like push-pull legs or push-legs-pull, you can make that work. If you like upper-lower, of course that works and full body training works as well.

There are many ways to get to the same ends, which for most of us is maximum muscle and strength. And I would say that applies to both men and women. Many women, when they start out, they don't think with that goal in mind in the beginning of, I just want to gain as much muscle as possible. But then many of those same women, after they have, let's say a year or two of weightlifting experience under their belt and realize how hard it is to gain a fair amount of muscle. And particularly for women, it's very hard for men too, but women can gain about half of the muscle that men can gain over the course of their entire weightlifting career. So most men can gain probably around 35, maybe 40, maybe 45 pounds of muscle naturally. That's it. No matter what they

do, no matter how long they train for, that is their ceiling. Most women, it's about half of that. And women can gain muscle about as effectively as men in terms of percentage of body weight. And so it is a myth that women just can barely gain muscle. No, actually, when we look at the rate of muscle gain relative to body weight, women can gain muscle about as effectively as men, but women start with a lot less muscle and of course a much lower body weight on average. That's why I'm saying it is important to consider the rate of muscle gain relative to body weight. So in a sense, us guys just have a head start on women. We start with more muscle and we start with a bigger

skeleton and we start with more body weight and that allows us to gain more muscle in an absolute sense. But relatively speaking, women can gain muscle about as effectively as men. Okay. So with the preamble out of the way, let's get to the meat and potatoes of the episode, which is how to best train each of your major muscle groups. Let's start with defining what a major muscle group is. And that is muscles that are situated closely together that perform similar movements. So that's really what a muscle group is. And when I say major muscle groups, I'm talking about the six big muscle groups that we pay the most attention to in terms of developing our

strength and our physique. So you have the chest, back, arms, shoulders, legs, and calves. If you can achieve optimal development in each of those six major muscle groups, you will have the body you want. Of course, there are smaller muscles, many smaller muscles that go into performing well and looking good. But again, if you just focus on developing the big ones, the smaller ones will take care of themselves. So let's start with talking about training the chest. Well, the main muscle of the chest is the pectoralis major, and its main function is to bring the upper arm across the body. Many people think its main function is to press things, but that's actually not the case. Its main function is to bring the upper arm across the body, so toward the midline of the body. And

the pec major has two heads. It has the sternocostal head and the clavicular head. And that just refers to how the muscles attach to our skeleton. So sternocostal head attaching to the breastbone, clavicular head attaching to the collarbone. And exercises that involve pushing the arms in front of the chest emphasize the larger head of the pecs, the sternocostal head, whereas exercises that involve moving the arms up and away from the chest emphasize the smaller clavicular head. And that's why, for example, the flat barbell bench press emphasizes the bigger breastbone head, the sternocostal head, whereas the incline barbell bench press emphasizes the smaller clavicular head.

And same goes for the reverse grip bench press. That is also a good exercise for targeting the quote unquote upper chest. Now, speaking of exercises, my favorite exercises for developing a big, strong chest are the flat barbell bench press, the incline barbell bench press, the flat dumbbell bench press, incline dumbbell bench press, close grip bench press, reverse grip bench press, and dip. And just to be clear then, what I'm saying is if you focus on getting strong on those exercises, and if you do nothing but that, if you do nothing but those exercises and getting strong on those exercises, you will build an impressive chest, period. And that applies to both men and women. Obviously, men are usually a lot more interested in building up their pecs

than women, but many women do notice that as they develop their chest, as they get stronger on their bench press, for example, their boobs look a little bit perkier because the muscle lies underneath the fat. So it kind of props up the breasts a little bit. So again, those exercises, just to repeat them, are the flat barbell bench press, the incline barbell bench press, the flat dumbbell bench press, incline dumbbell bench press, close grip bench press, reverse grip bench press, and dip. Those are the absolute best exercises for developing your chest muscles. Okay, so now let's talk about the back. And the four muscles that make up the bulk of the back are the trapezius or traps, the rhomboids, the latissimus dorsi or the lats, and the erector spinae muscles that run along the spine and that are heavily involved in

something like the deadlift, for example. Now, as far as the best exercises for building your back, for building a strong, wide, thick, defined back are the barbell deadlift, the sumo deadlift, the trap bar deadlift. And I would not rank any of those over the other as far as the traditional barbell versus the sumo deadlift goes. Work with whichever feels most comfortable to you. Neither is going to be more effective ultimately as far as gaining muscle and strength goes. And the trap bar deadlift is a viable alternative to the barbell or the sumo deadlift if you can't do either, pain-free for example, or if you just want to give your lower back a little bit of a break

after, let's say, a training block of a lot of hard traditional or sumo deadlifting. Because of how you set up with the trap bar deadlift, it's kind of like a more squattier deadlift where your lower back isn't involved as much as the traditional and the sumo deadlift and where your quads are involved a little bit more. It's still a deadlift and it's still an effective exercise. I personally though wouldn't only trap bar deadlift unless I had to, unless I could not traditional deadlift. I don't like sumo. It's not comfortable for me. So I just go with the conventional. Okay. Going down the list, we have the lat pull down, very effective exercise, seated cable row, very effective horizontal exercise, the pull-up, the chin-up, the dumbbell row, and the seal row. So those exercises, again, are all you need to build an outstanding back.

You just need to focus on getting strong on those and getting in a lot of volume over a fair amount of time. Think in terms of years, especially if you're a guy trying to gain as much muscle and strength as you possibly can. That takes five years, six years, maybe even seven years, depending on how things go for you. A lot of it probably is going to come down to compliance, but also genetics will come into play. How well do you respond to weightlifting? Does it take more work to gain muscle for you than the average guy or vice versa? And also just to share a quick anecdote that I've seen play out with many other people over the years now, that is that my back development really reached another level when I got strong

on the deadlift. So for the first six or seven years of my training, I didn't do a single set of deadlifting. I didn't come across it in the bodybuilding magazines and stuff online that I was following. And so I just never did it. I did a lot of all different other types of pulling. I did a lot of lat pull downs, a lot of pull-ups, a lot of chin-ups, a lot of dumbbell rows, a lot of seated rowing, et cetera, et cetera. I'm not sure if I did much barbell rowing. I didn't do much barbell anything back in those days. And sure, my back had developed to

some degree, but to put it in perspective, after about six or seven years, I had gained, it's hard to say exactly because I wasn't tracking my numbers as meticulously as I do now, but I do have pictures and I do remember things. I think it's fair to say I gained about 25 pounds of muscle. I don't think more than that, maybe 27 to maybe, maybe, maybe 30, but I think 25 is a fair guess. And yes, that is a lot of muscle. And that's of course not in my back. That's my whole body. That's a lot of muscle, but yeah, six or seven years for that? No. Six or seven years should yield 40 plus pounds of muscle. Again, you should be basically tapped out as far as muscularity goes if you are a natural

weightlifter in six or seven years. So if you look at it in those terms where I had achieved maybe 60% of my potential muscularity, then you can think with my back being of course a major muscle group, a very big muscle group, and it did account for a bulk of the 25-ish pounds, but it didn't look impressive. It didn't look like it looks now. And I don't know if I would say my back looks impressive now, but it certainly looks properly developed and fully developed considering the rest of my physique. And that really started to happen noticeably after I started as well. And I started lifting heavier weights and I learned about progressive overload and how to use double progression is what I mostly used to gain the rest of the muscle I gained. And so there are some confounding factors for sure. But I do remember making a mental note that it seemed like my back really started to respond and grow again from the deadlifting in particular.

And I have seen that happen now with many people I've worked with, many guys in particular, who like me had done many years of all kinds of pulling and only gotten so far, then started heavy deadlifting plus the other pulling. And all of a sudden, their back started growing again. And after a year, two years, three years of consistent deadlifting, in some cases had basically transformed their back. And I would say that was the case with me as well. Now, of course, after a few years of deadlifting, I got pretty lean for the first time. And so that skews things as well. There is a major illusion that occurs when you drop body fat. You look bigger and you just look more attractive. And sometimes people are kind of shocked.

Like they will see you. Let's say you're a guy and you're at, I don't know, 15% body fat. And then you disappear for a bit or you don't see people for a bit and you come back at eight or 9%, you are going to get wide-eyed stares like, are you on steroids? Oh my God, what are you doing? I didn't know you're so fit. It's funny. And the female equivalent of that would be being around 25% body fat where you look good, you look athletic, and then you come back at 18% body fat and people are like, whoa, you are ripped. Anyway, my point with saying all of that is if you want to develop an outstanding back as efficiently as possible, I think it's fair to say that you should get strong on the deadlift, that that is going to help you get there faster than if you were not deadlifting

and just doing a bunch of other mostly isolation exercises because you don't have too many compound exercises for the back beyond barbell rows and some similar variants, like maybe a seal row you could say is a compound exercise. Maybe you could say a dumbbell row is a compound exercise, kind of not though. And the reason why that dumbbell row is a compound exercise. Kind of not though. And the reason why that is important is compound exercises allow you to load the most weight, which allows you to gain the most strength. And that allows you to gain the most muscle. And that is especially true as an experienced weightlifter. If you want to continue getting bigger, you have to figure out how to continue getting stronger. And the deadlift, for example, is a fantastic exercise for loading a lot of weight and subjecting a lot of muscles to

a large amount of load. And that then in turn is great for improving whole body strength. The deadlift really is a whole body exercise, much like the squat. All right, now let's talk about the arms. And here we have four primary muscles in this major muscle group. We have the biceps brachii, we have the brachialis, we have the triceps, and the forearms. Now these muscles do different things, of course. The biceps flex the arm, but they also supinate the elbow. And supinate means to turn to the bottom of a body part. So for example, if you turn your palms upward, if you flip your hands over, that is supination. And then we have the brachialis, which lies beneath the biceps brachii, and it helps in flexing at the elbow. And it isn't as prominent as the biceps brachii, and it helps in flexing at the elbow. And it isn't as prominent as the biceps brachii,

but it does play an important role in the overall appearance of your arms. For example, the primary connection that people make between the brachialis muscle and how your arms look is the biceps peak, because if you have a well-developed brachialis, it can push up the biceps brachii a little bit, and it can give the appearance of a larger biceps peak. Unfortunately though, there's nothing you can do to reshape the peak of your biceps. You can make your biceps bigger, you can flex them and see how they look, and that's about it. Because the peak itself itself and particularly how steep it is, how bunched up the muscle looks, comes down to the structure of the muscle itself. And we can only make muscles bigger and smaller.

Unfortunately, we can't make them longer. We can't make them shorter. They grow or they shrink. And how they attach to our skeleton, in this case, our arm bones, is going to determine how they look as they get bigger and smaller. Okay, moving on to the triceps, which are the trio of muscles on the back of the arm. And their job is really the opposite of the biceps. So their job is to push your forearm away from your upper arm to extend your arm. And there are three heads. There are three parts or three sections to the triceps. There's the long, the lateral, and the medial head. And if you want the biggest possible arms you can get, you're going to want to make sure that you do a lot of exercises that emphasize the long head because that's the biggest, that's the one that is most noticeable. That doesn't

mean you are going to neglect the others and you couldn't entirely because exercises that effectively train the long head do effectively train the other heads, but you're going to want to emphasize the long head over the others. And for example, exercises that have your arms overhead, like an overhead triceps extension or a skull crusher, emphasize the medial and the lateral heads. Whereas exercises that have your arms at your side with an overhand grip, like the close grip bench press, the dip and the push down, emphasize the long head. And just to give you a visual in case you don't feel like searching, the long head is the head of the muscle that is closest to your torso. So it is on your right arm on the left hand side of your right arm, right closest to your torso. And the

lateral head is the second largest and it is on the other side. So it is the pair, the smaller brother of the long head, and it's on the outside of your arm, furthest from your torso. And then the medial head straddles both sides of your arm bone, but is overlapped by the long and lateral heads. And the medial head is the smallest of the three muscles. Last, we have the forearms, and those are comprised of several smaller muscles. And although they are usually not the

focus of anyone's arm training, if the forearms are underdeveloped, it does quickly become obvious, especially if you've done a lot to develop your biceps and your triceps, but not much for your forearms. Now, I don't think you need to train your forearms directly. Most people do not. Some people like to, some people need to for the purpose of improving their grip for deadlifting. Although I would say you could just use straps at that point. If you get your grip strong enough to,

if you're a guy, for example, and you can deadlift 315 for reps, double overhand without a hook grip. So you're not relying on breaking your thumb to hold the bar, but you're actually relying on your grip thumb to hold the bar, but you're actually relying on your grip strength, you have probably done enough pulling to develop your forms enough to have them look proportionate to your biceps and your triceps. However, if you want to be able to

double overhand more than that, certainly if you're getting into the 400s, and for women, I would say just cut those numbers in half, but if you're a guy and you want to be able to double overhand and not hook grip 400 plus, you're going to have to do some grip work. And if your grip is holding you back on other exercises, like a dumbbell row or a barbell row, where you should be able to handle, for example, 200 plus if you're a guy on a barbell row without straps, cut that in half. If you're a woman, if you're pulling dumbbells, I would say you should be able to handle somewhere at least around hundreds without straps. But if you're getting up to, and I'm speaking for myself here, where straps start to become very useful for me is probably 350 plus on the deadlift because the deadlift is funny in that

if your grip starts to fail, that's it. It's over. You are not going to be able to get the weight up. Even if you have the whole body strength to get it up, if your grip fails, your set fails. So there is a point where you either have to develop a much stronger grip or you have to do a mixed grip where you have one arm palm down, one arm palm up. And I don't recommend that unless you are willing to alternate fairly often. So what can happen is if you use a mixed grip. So when I was mixed gripping some time ago, I would always have my right arm palm up. I would not alternate because at that time, I didn't know the importance of it. And eventually what happened is I irritated my biceps tendon on my right side because there's obviously asymmetrical force there. And it's great. The mixed grip is great

for gripping a lot of weight without straps, but it's not so great for your biceps tendon if you don't alternate. Now, if you can alternate, then I would say you're probably fine if you were to alternate, let's say every month or so. But what happened to me is alternating, it felt really awkward. I had gotten so used to my right hand palm up that when I alternated and I was trying to get used to the other, it would have meant probably at least a month of deadlifting, not very much weight and kind of relearning the deadlift. It almost felt like in some ways, and I could have done that, but instead I was like, you know what? Why? Why am I bothering with this? I'll just use straps. I have a strong grip. I have well-defined, well-developed forearms. Who cares? And I don't want to hook grip because it blows your thumbs up. I did it one time with 225 pounds and I was like,

nope, this is going to suck. And you can laugh and call me a pussy, but go and do it if you haven't tried it. If you're a guy, go load 225 and hook grip it and see what you think. And if you're a woman, go load 125 or maybe 135 and hook grip it and see if you want to commit to your normal heavyweights if your normal heavyweights are heavier than that. Particularly, if you're a guy who is currently pulling 400 plus or if you're a woman pulling 200 plus, do what I just said and then imagine how it's going to feel. I think what eventually happens is your thumbs just go numb. I think you mess them up enough to where you no longer really even feel them anymore, I'm guessing. Anyway, so I choose to use straps and I haven't looked back and my grip has remained

strong as evidenced by my performance on other exercises where I don't use straps. So I will not use straps on barbell rows. I will not use straps on dumbbell rows unless I'm getting up to probably 130 plus. That's where I really start to notice it. I will also not use straps on dumbbell rows unless I'm getting up to probably 130 plus. That's where I really start to notice it. I will also not use straps on any sort of seated row or lat pull down, or of course a chin up or a pull up, even if it's weighted or a seal row, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. So now let's talk about the best exercises for your arms and particularly the biceps and the triceps. You have the barbell curl, dumbbell curl, easy bar curl. Those are biceps. And I would say also the hammer variation of the dumbbell curl.

It's still just a dumbbell curl, of course, but instead of rotating your palms to face upward, or just starting in a palms up position and maintaining it, you have the weight straight up and down. You have your grip essentially in a neutral position. Think about like a neutral grip seated row and you have your palms facing each other, right? So with the hammer curl, you have the dumbbell in an upright position and it just remains like that for the entire exercise. And the reason why I like that in particular is research has shown that it helps emphasize the brachialis muscle that I was talking about. And then there are two other exercises that I like for developing the biceps, and they are the chin-up and the pull-up. The chin-up being better for bicep development than the pull-up because

the pull-up involves the back muscles, the big back muscles more than the chin-up does, whereas the chin-up relies a lot on your biceps strength. Now, as far as using these exercises to get big biceps, it is pretty simple. If you get strong on your curling, on your barbell curl in particular, and your basic dumbbell curl, and sure, easy bar curl as well, that's fine. I would say that's probably interchangeable with the barbell curl if the straight bar doesn't feel good to you. And if you supplement that with some hammer curling, and if you work to get strong in your pulling, in your back training, you are going to get big biceps, or at least as big of biceps as you can possibly get. And so now let's talk about the triceps. My favorite triceps exercises are the skull crusher, the triceps press down,

either with a rope or a metal handle. I like to alternate every month or two months. So for a bit, I'll use the rope. And then for a bit, I'll use the straight bar. And then for a bit, I'll use the easy bar and then go back to the rope. The dip is a great exercise for building triceps mass, as is the triceps overhead press. You can do that with a cable or a dumbbell. I prefer the dumbbell, but either way, it works well. As well as the close grip bench press, that is a big one for building big triceps. If you can get strong on the close grip bench press, you will see development in your triceps. And as far as using those exercises to get the most out of them, I mentioned earlier, you have these three different heads of the triceps and you are going to get the most size

out of the long head. And so most people like to make sure they do plenty of exercises that emphasize the long head. It wouldn't be unreasonable to do 50% of your volume for your triceps with exercises that emphasize the long head. And then the other 50% of the volume on exercises that emphasize the other two heads. And just to repeat how you can know if an exercise emphasizes the long versus lateral versus the medial. So if an exercise has your arms at your side with an overhand grip, like the close grip bench press or the dip or the push down, that is going to emphasize the long head. But if it has your arms overhead, like the overhead triceps extension or the skull crusher, it's going to emphasize the medial or the lateral head. If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my sports

nutrition company, Legion, which thanks to the support of many people like you is the leading brand of all natural sports supplements in the world. All right, moving on to the next major muscle group, the shoulders, which are comprised of three primary muscles, which are the deltoids. You do have smaller muscles, the rotator cuff muscles, but usually you don't have to do specific exercises for them unless you're trying to address a problem. Because if you train your deltoids correctly, and if you also train your chest muscles and your back muscles correctly, your rotator cuff muscles will get plenty of training. And so we have these deltoids. We have the rear delts on the back and those help the lats and the traps bring your arms behind you.

And then we have the front delts and those help the pecs bring your arms out in front of you. Then we have the lateral delts, which help the traps, the pecs and other muscles around your neck and your upper back raise your arm to the side. And those basic movements give you some clues as to the exercises that best train the deltoids. So my favorite deltoid exercises are dumbbell side raises, dumbbell rear raises, barbell rows, dumbbell rows, the military or the overhead press. I know those are not necessarily a synonymous, but an overhead barbell press, essentially. The flat dumbbell or barbell bench press and the inclined dumbbell or barbell bench press, as well as some form of overhead dumbbell pressing.

I prefer seated. Some people prefer standing, but I think seated is better for specifically targeting the shoulders. And the same thing would go for a barbell press. If you're doing a standing barbell press, it's a great exercise and it certainly trains your shoulders, but it does require more coordination. It requires more whole body strength and balance than a seated press, which really just requires strong shoulders. And a common mistake that a lot of people make when training their shoulders is they do a lot of front delt work. So they do a lot of

bench pressing for their chest and they do a lot of shoulder pressing and they don't do nearly as much side or rear delt work. And the reason that's a mistake is the look that most people are after, I'd say men and women with shoulders requires well-developed lateral and rear delts. And the only way to get highly developed side delts, so you can think lateral on the side delts and rear delts is to directly train those muscles. You can get very strong on your overhead press. You can get very strong on your pulls. You can get very strong on your bench press and still have underwhelming shoulders. Your shoulders can actually look kind of small compared to your biceps and your chest if you also do a fair amount of biceps work.

And so if your shoulders are underwhelming and if they look like they're lagging, and if you really want to try to round them out and get that full capped kind of 3D look, you need to be doing at least three hard sets of side raises per week. And chances are you might need to do a bit more to be happy with the results, more like six hard sets of side raises per week. I personally have never done more than nine hard sets per week. I don't think that would be necessary, but I have done that because there was a time when looking at my physique, it just was apparent to me that my side delts, my lateral delts needed some more work. And so I did a bit of a specialization

routine, you could say, where you do a lot of volume for an individual muscle group, and you usually have to bring volume down elsewhere to compensate for the additional work that you're putting into the muscle group. And there's also a time factor. However, in the case of the lateral delts, they're a very small muscle group and they repair and recover quickly from training and they don't cause much in the way of peripheral fatigue. So you don't really usually have to change much. You can just add some side raise volume essentially to whatever you're doing. Whereas if you wanted to do a lower body specialization routine, let's say it's just legs period or even quads, for example, you wanted to focus on your quads for a training block.

To do that, you are going to have to bring volume down elsewhere. There's going to be the time factor, but then there's also the difficulty factor. For example, if you are now squatting several times per week and doing additional quad work, of course, you're going to be doing some hamstring work as well. But if you are trying to really push, let's say you're an advanced weightlifter or at least an intermediate weightlifter, and you're looking to do 20 hard sets for your quads per week, and you're going to do that for a couple your quads per week. And you're going to do that for a couple of months. I would not recommend trying to do that for a long period, but you're going to do that for a couple of months. And if you start thinking about programming

wise, how you're going to get to 20 hard sets for your quads, and you can't just do leg extensions, you're going to have to do squats and of course, squat variations, and you're going to have to do lunges and you will do leg extensions. But when you start looking at those workouts, you immediately see like, oh, so I have three hard lower body workouts every week and then I have to do everything else on top of that. Well, that doesn't work, right? Anyway, back to shoulders. Some people say that if you are doing a lot of bench pressing, you don't have to bother with your overhead pressing or your dumbbell shoulder pressing or your military pressing. And I would mostly disagree. I would say for most people, it makes sense to do both and they will progress faster in terms of whole body strength and muscularity if they do both

the bench press and not just the barbell. It could be a dumbbell variation, but if they are bench pressing and overhead pressing. And that brings us to the legs, the biggest major muscle group in our body. And we have several muscles that make up our legs. We have the quadriceps, we have the hamstrings, and we have the glutes. So the quads are four quad large muscles in the front of the legs. You have the vastus lateralis, you have the vastus medialis, the vastus intermedius, and the rectus femoris. And these muscles work together to extend the knees and to flex the hips. And flexion is the reduction of an angle at a joint or between two body parts. So when you sit down in a chair, and especially if you hunch over, you are flexing the hips.

And if you were to stand up, you are extending the hips. Now, my favorite exercises for emphasizing the quads, for getting big and strong quads are the barbell back squat, the barbell front squat, the dumbbell lunge, leg press, and Bulgarian split squat. Of course, there are many other exercises you can do. And that is true for every major muscle group we have discussed thus far, but I'm just sharing with you the ones that I would say are the 20% that will give you 80%, that the ones that are going to give you the most bang for your buck, that for every set that you do,

you are gonna get the best results so long as you are also programming your training properly. And if you are surprised to hear that the back squat and maybe the front squat, but particularly the back squat is on the list of quads exercises, that's because the squat is primarily a quadriceps exercise. It is not primarily a hamstring exercise. Of course, the hamstrings are involved, but not nearly as much as the quads. And so if all you did was squat, for example, you are going to get great quads, but your hamstrings are probably going to become a weak point. They're going to become a muscle imbalance, something that you might see in the

mirror and something that also could impair your performance or even increase your risk of injury. So it's important to squat, but also to do some exercises for the hamstrings. Now let's talk about the hamstrings. Now this is a group of three muscles on the back of the leg. You have the biceps femoris, you have the semitendinosus and the semimembranosus, and together these muscles work to flex the knee. So if you have your leg straight out in front of you, and then you bring your heel toward the ground, that's your hamstrings working to flex that knee to make that angle smaller. And to maximally and optimally develop your hamstrings, you want to focus on several exercises, the barbell deadlift, then you have the sumo deadlift in there as well, the Romanian deadlift, the hamstring curl machine,

I really prefer the lying curl machine. I find it a lot more comfortable, but the seated hamstring curl is just fine. So if you prefer that, you could do that, or you could alternate between them again every month or two switch from the lying to the seated because it may stimulate your hamstrings in a slightly different way. Or if nothing else, it just adds some variation to your training, which can be nice. And now that I think of it regarding lying versus seated, what I've experienced is lying hamstring curl machines have always felt pretty good to me, whereas the seated machines have been hit or miss. Sometimes they have felt fine, and sometimes they've just felt awkward, no matter how many different adjustments that I made. So I do default to the lying machine because again, I've yet to

find a lying hamstring curl machine that feels off. Anyway, so we have a few more exercises here. We have the barbell good morning, fantastic hamstring exercise, also back exercise. Then we have the glute ham raise machine. Now, similar to what I told you about deadlifting and back development, if you get strong on a big squat movement like a barbell back squat or a barbell front squat, you are going to get big legs. Now, it doesn't mean that that is all that you should do or all you need to do to get the overall leg development you want, but a large percentage of your potential muscularity in your legs. And by the way, when I say bigger legs for women listening who don't want bigger legs per se, just think developed, right? Anyway, the majority of the leg muscle that you can gain

is going to be attainable with just a barbell back squat or a barbell front squat. Again, get strong on either of those movements and you will have well-developed legs. That said, it does make sense to do other exercises for two reasons. One is the amount of volume it's going to take to reach your potential, your genetic potential for lower body strength and muscularity is probably going to be anywhere from 15 to maybe 20 hard sets per week. 15 though is probably enough for most people. Some people might be able to get there with just 12 hard sets for their legs per week. And if all you did for all of those 15 sets were the barbell back squat or the barbell front squat, or maybe you alternated, it's going to be

very hard, if not impossible to get in enough volume for the other major muscle groups because of time and because of how beat up you're going to feel from all of the squatting. Try to do that, for example, and three or four hard sets of dead lifting per week. Just try that and then try to do the bench pressing and the overhead pressing and everything else. It is not viable for most people. And as I mentioned earlier, as the squat is primarily a quadriceps exercise, you can do all the squatting you want and you will get big legs, particularly big quads. And the quads are a much bigger muscle group than the hamstrings.

So your legs are going to look very worked out, very defined, but you will probably have underwhelming imbalanced hamstrings. And so it makes the most sense to me to focus on getting strong on a squat movement, barbell back squat, barbell front squat, do plenty of that, make sure that you're doing that every week, at least once per week, and then to use other exercises to increase volume in the quads and in the hamstrings without all of the added peripheral fatigue that comes with the big squat movements. For example, a leg press is great for adding volume to your quadriceps in particular, and it is not nearly as taxing as a barbell back squat, right? Because the barbell back squat is a

whole body exercise, really. It involves just about every major muscle group, whereas the leg press allows you to really just focus in on your legs. And then for your hamstrings, I like to target them. I like to give them some direct volume every week just to ensure they don't fall behind in development. And anywhere from probably three to six hard sets per week specifically for the hamstrings should be enough. And my go-to is the lying hamstring curl. I don't make it more complicated than it needs to be. Okay, now we have the gluteus muscles, the glutes, your butt. And there are three primary muscles here that form your butt. We have the gluteus maximus, the gluteus minimus, and the gluteus medius. And together, these muscles play a key role in stabilizing your body during all

kinds of movement. And they also help generate force in exercises like the squat and the deadlift. And that's why you probably don't have to do additional training for your glutes if you are training your lower body correctly. But many people, and in my experience, this is more often the case with women than men, are training their lower body correctly. They are getting in enough volume. They're doing plenty of squatting as well as other exercises, and they are not happy with their glute development. And of course, then they can directly target their glutes with some extra volume, similar to what I was talking about in the case of shoulders, right? Where you're doing your overhead pressing, but then you're supplementing with some side raises

and some rear raises. So you can do the same thing. I think it is generally a mistake though, to do more glute volume than let's say quadriceps volume or hamstring volume, unless that is a glute specialization routine, unless it is being done deliberately and it is being done by someone who probably already has a high level of development in their quads and their hamstrings and they really just want to help bring their glutes up. So for a training block, they might do a lot of glute specific exercises and not so much squatting or other exercises they would normally do. They might bring that down to a bare minimum amount of volume to just maintain their quads, maintain their hamstrings, maintain their strength so they can really hammer their glutes. However, I've seen on social media in particular,

many women usually doing a lot of glute work who really have not built their base yet. They haven't built their foundation of muscle and strength in their lower body with proper squatting and the other exercises I just told you about. And so that's something to keep in mind if you are unsure as to whether you should be directly training your glutes. Now, as for directly training your glutes, the best single exercise you can do would be a barbell hip thrust or a hip thrust movement. If you are not strong enough to use the barbell, you could start with like a glute bridge, for example, and there are different variations of glute bridges you can do to make them a bit harder, but you can work up to a barbell hip thrust or a machine version of the hip thrust. And similar to the calves, which we will talk about, and the hamstrings and the lateral delts and the rear delts, you don't need seven different

glute exercises really, because we're just targeting this one muscle group and we want an exercise that we can use effective loads with and that we can increase the loads over time so we can progressively overload our glutes. and the hip thrust is a great exercise for that. That said, other great glute exercises are the barbell deadlift, the sumo deadlift, the Romanian deadlift, the glute ham raise machine, the dumbbell lunge, and the barbell squat, which again is why I will repeat myself and say that most people I've worked with over the years who are doing plenty of those exercises don't feel the need to do additional glute work. Maybe they do a little bit here and

there, or they do it for one training block. They add in some hip thrusts just to see how their body responds, but it is rare. I mean, I've yet to come across someone, I'll put it this way, I have yet to come across someone who is strong on the deadlift, whichever variation they're doing, is strong on the Romanian deadlift, is strong on the barbell squat, who doesn't have great glutes. Now, if you want extra large glutes, maybe, maybe, maybe you'll need to get strong on those exercises and get strong on the hip thrust, but that is the exception, not the rule. And so that's good news, particularly for women, again, who are generally more interested in glute development than men. If you just train your lower body correctly and get strong on the

big exercises, the best exercises I've shared with you for your quads and your hamstrings, chances are when you start to notice that your legs are really coming together, your butt will also really start to be taking shape and looking the way you want it to look. Okay, that leaves us with the calves. I saved those for last, of course, because they're bastards. The calves are made of two muscles. You have the gastrocnemius and you have the soleus. And together, these muscles work to manipulate the foot and the ankle joint. And they're also involved in knee flexion. And there aren't too many worthwhile calf exercises you can do in terms of different

variations and so forth. But my favorites are the standing calf raise machine, the standing barbell calf raise, the seated calf raise machine, the donkey calf raise machine, and the single leg body weight calf raise. And I mostly do the, I should add the leg press calf raise too, just because I like it is easy to set up and I feel like you can really isolate your calves. And so I mostly do standing calf raises, seated calf raises, and leg press calf raises. And yes, I do six to nine or even 12 sets, hard sets per week for my calves, despite what you might think looking at my calves. And I can rightfully blame my genetics for my small calves because genes do play a big role in this case. My dad, for example, has literally no calf muscles. He has a knee that kind of just turns into an ankle.

And I'm exaggerating a little bit, but that's more accurate than inaccurate. And other people, for example, and we all know these people, will have huge calves despite never having trained them once. Now, often these people were once overweight and so their calves did get a lot of volume and load for a long time. But still, I mean, I knew a guy, his name was Adam, and he read my book Bigger, Leaner, Stronger some time ago and got into the program and went from overweight to in great shape. And his calves were so big and defined. Almost every time he stepped in the gym, almost every session, he would have at least one guy come up to him and either just acknowledge his calves or ask him, how did you do that? How did you get those calves? And of course he had the best answer, How did you do that? How did you get those calves? And of course, he had the best answer,

the trolliest answer, which is that he doesn't really know. He's always just had them. He has not done a single calf raise ever. And that, of course, was not what the guys wanted to hear, but it was the truth. Asians also tend to have bigger than average calves, it seems. I don't know why. Genetics again. Now, as for whether you should or shouldn't directly train your calves, it seems. I don't know why. Genetics again. Now, as for whether you should or shouldn't directly train your calves, it really just is up to you. If you are happy with your calf development, don't bother with it because of course they're getting trained with your squatting, like all of your lower body work really, and your deadlifting as well. And that is plenty to maintain your calf muscle and to maintain calf strength. But if your calves are small like mine, or if you would just like more calf size, really, I don't know anybody who cares really about their one RM on their leg press calf raise. It's really just size, right? If you want more calf mass, then do some calf training,

do six, nine, 12 hard sets per week for your calves. And an easy way to get that done is to essentially superset your calf training with something else. And the way I like to do that is do an exercise of literally anything, doesn't matter. Rest about a minute, then go do a set of calves, and then rest about a minute. Go back to the first exercise, rinse and repeat. That way, you should see no decrease in performance on the primary exercise that you're working on and it doesn't add much time to your workouts. Okay, so one other muscle group I should mention is the core, the core muscles, particularly the rectus abdominis, the ab muscles, because many people want great abs. And the good news here is so long as you

are training your other major muscle groups, and particularly your chest and your back and your legs, so long as you're doing your big heavy compound exercises, your core muscles should just take care of themselves. You should see a marked improvement in your core definition, and particularly in the development of your rectus abdominis, if you just do a lot of the exercises I've been telling you about. And of course, you have to get your body fat down to the right percentage or the right level to fully see your abs. So for guys, they really start to become prominent around 10% body fat and for gals around

20% body fat. And as you get leaner, they just become more and more sharp and defined. And as far as core exercises go, I used to be a bigger proponent of these exercises than I am now. There's nothing wrong with doing them. They may be able to speed up your core development slightly, particularly the development of your rectus abdominis. So it's okay if you want to do them, something like a cable crunch. I used to do a lot of cable crunches and leg raises. I used to do a lot of leg raises and planks are fine and air bicycles are fine. But at this point, my position is most people don't need to do them if they're willing to just be patient and work on getting strong on the big compound exercises. By the time they are happy with their squat and their bench

press and overhead press and deadlift and happy with the overall development of the major muscle groups that those exercises primarily train, they're almost certainly going to be happy with their core muscles so long as they are lean enough. That said, I would say this has been the case more with guys than women. There are people out there who seem to have relatively underdeveloped rectus abdominis muscles in particular, so abs. And so there are probably people out there who could benefit from some direct ab work in addition to everything else. But most people will get to great abs one way or another. Maybe they'll get there a little bit faster if they include some core training in

their programming. All right. So that's all of the major muscle groups and a lot of advice on how to train them most effectively. And this podcast is longer than I was anticipating. I don't want to go on for too long, but I should comment on workout splits. And as I mentioned earlier in the podcast, in the beginning, there are many different ways to make these exercises work. There are many different splits you can use. One is not clearly better than another for all people and for all circumstances. So you should really inform yourself about the main, most popular workout splits that have stood the test of time. And you might want to try each one and just see which you like the most and which you seem to do the best with in terms of workout performance. So again, you have like the body part split, you have the upper lower split,

you have the push pull legs or push legs pull split, push legs pull is just a variant of push pull legs and you have full body. And if I were to go into each of them here, this would probably turn into a three-hour, like a Joe Rogan podcast, monologue version. So instead, what I will do is I will send you over to legionathletics.com, my website, and you can search for each of those. Actually, just search for workout splits and you will find a long article that goes over all of these different splits and explains their pros and cons. And it will help you understand which is probably going to suit you best.

And again, you may just want to try all of them because if you are an intermediate weightlifter, for example, you have a lot of flexibility. You have even more flexibility than an advanced weightlifter or a beginner. And in the article over at legionathletics.com, you will learn why. And well, that's everything that I wanted to share with you on this podcast. I hope you liked it. I hope it helps you get more out of your training and definitely keep an eye on the Muscle for Life feed because next week I have a podcast coming on habits, how to build good ones,

how to break bad ones. I have one coming for women regarding how to eat and train during your menstrual cycle. I have an interview with Pat Flynn on religion, as well as another Says You podcast where I address things that people disagree with me on. I always like those. And I'm actually going to be doing one of. I always like those. And I'm actually going to be doing one of those every other week now. And then I'm going to be alternating with Q&As every other week because Q&As and Says You episodes generally do the best in terms of plays and feedback. So as the market has spoken, I must supply what it demands. More Q&A and more Says You episodes. on iTunes or wherever you're listening to me from in whichever app you're listening to me in, because that not only convinces people that they should check out the show, it also increases

search visibility. And thus it helps more people find their way to me and learn how to get fitter, leaner, stronger, healthier, and happier as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any new stuff. And if you didn't like something about the show, please do shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com, just muscle F-O-R life.com and share your thoughts on how I can do this better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, even if it is criticism, I'm open to it. And of course, you can email me if you have positive feedback as well, or if you have questions really relating to anything that you think I could help you with, definitely send me an email. That is the best way to get ahold of me, mikeatmusclefullife.com. And that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode,

and I hope to hear from you soon.