Muscle Groups

Basically, I think you understand the very elementary mechanics of building muscles. Now lets talk about the various muscle groups in the body. We must understand this to have very balanced body development. What we are talking about here is various muscles throughout the body and what it takes to strengthen each group.

Chest Muscles

I’m going to start with the chest muscles for one simple reason:  “Guys love to develop chest muscles.” For some strange reason men will work their pecs (pectoralis major and pectoralis minor, but lets simply call them pecs) twice as much as any other muscle group.  Women tend to be more balanced but men seem to think their pecs need major attention. This is a major mistake. You risk injury if the muscles on the front part of your body are stronger than those of your back. Balance is desired here for many reasons, the least of which is safety. With that in mind we will talk about the pecs first and then the back muscles.

Lets talk about the pectoralis major which is the chest muscle on each side of the breast bone. (The pectoralis minor is a smaller muscle group underneath the pectoralis major.) This muscle group (pecs) moves the upper arm across the body or forward as in a push-up. We will talk about various exercises for this and other body parts after we discuss all the muscle groups.

Upper Back

The upper back (Latissimus Dorsi) is the major muscle group that extends from your lower back to the upper arm. It pulls the upper arm toward the body from overhead (pull-ups) or from the front (rowing).

Trapezius

This is the muscle that runs from about mid-spine to your shoulder. (Traps) Very important, but underdeveloped by most work-out freaks. They run the risk of intense shoulder pain if they are neglected.

Shoulders

Without getting into too much detail, shoulder muscles move your upper arm at the shoulder joint. We are going to explain different shoulder exercises later but one word of caution on this group. When performing shoulder isolation exercises we want to use lighter weight and more reps. The reason is simple, except for the lower back no other muscle group will injure easier or take longer to heal.

Arms

The biceps (biceps brachii) are the front part of the upper arm.  The purpose of this muscle is to bend the arm at the upper elbow. Just think about it, this muscle is important to just about everything the upper body does.

Triceps (Triceps Brachii) are the muscles on the back of the arm that straighten the arm at the elbow. As the name implies, triceps are a muscle with three sections (or heads). Any triceps exercise usually hits