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:. If you have less than a year of experience with weight training, I recommend using full-body workouts, one exercise per muscle group, three times per week, on this schedule:. Each week, perform two upper-body workouts and two lower-body workouts, with two exercises per large muscle group and one exercise per smaller muscle groups. If you choose the full-body routine, you'll be exercising each muscle group three times per week.
An exception is biceps femoris which has two heads:. All three muscles including both heads of the biceps femoris cross over your knee joint and insert in your lower leg. Since the hamstring muscles cross over both the hip and knee joint, they can act upon both joints with:.
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.
On the other end, are those who hit each muscle with every single exercise in the book. And these individuals are often inspired by their favourite Instagram influencer.
Which approach is best to maximize growth? By the way: if you're looking for a training program that'll always guide you on how to train in the most optimal way for maximum hypertrophy, I've got just the thing for you. Every BWS program to be an all-in-one, science-based program, so you build muscle and lose fat i.
If that sounds good to you:. Click the button below to take my analysis quiz to discover the best program for you:. Well, here's the truth. Both approaches actually have valid reasoning behind them. For those who take a minimalistic approach, research does actually support this camp. For instance, one recent paper had one group of subjects perform just one exercise for each muscle group 3 times per week.
Whereas the other group worked each muscle group with a different exercise every workout. Total workout volume and intensity were matched in both groups. And muscle growth was assessed at 3 sites each on the front and side of the thigh and the biceps and triceps.
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. Analyzing your fitness goals is the first step in figuring out how many exercises you should do per muscle group.
Research shows that even fewer than 5 sets per exercise per week can grow muscle. So get moving and fine-tune your approach as you go! Nicole Davis is a writer based in Madison, Wisconsin, a personal trainer, and a group fitness instructor whose goal is to help women live stronger, healthier, happier lives. Find her on Instagram for fitness tidbits, momlife, and more. Sheltering in place may not be the ideal scenario for working out, but you can easily maintain your functional strength by staying consistent.
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