How Many Exercises Do You Need To Maximize Muscle Growth?

How Many Exercises Do You Need To Maximize Muscle Growth?



When it comes to how many exercises you should do per muscle group, generally there are 2 extremes. There are those who say all you need are the basics in a workout program; squats, bench, and deadlifts to build an impressive physique. Then, there are those who hit each muscle with every single exercise in the book during their exercise planning process. What approach is best to maximize growth? How many exercises should you do per muscle group, really? Research suggests that incorporating a variety of exercises can lead to better overall hypertrophy. Let’s learn why – and, in the process, discover just how many exercises to do per muscle group.

The first reason is due to what’s known as regional hypertrophy. For example, certain biceps exercises will favour growth in the short head whereas other biceps exercises will favour growth in the long head. Although it’s currently not crystal clear as to what specific exercises will favour specific regions of a muscle, this phenomenon does support the idea of using multiple exercises in a workout program.

The second reason you should include a variety of exercises during your exercise planning process is that each of your muscles have different biomechanical actions. A good example is the hamstrings, which have two main functions; to flex the knee and extend the hip. So if you were to leave all your hamstrings to deadlifts, you’d be missing out on one of the major functions of that muscle. Adding in a knee flexion movement ensures that all parts of the muscle can be grown to the greatest extent. Another benefit of varying your exercises is that it helps minimize wear and tear. If you do all of your volume for a muscle group with just one or two exercises, you’re stressing the same joints and same stabilizer muscles to the same stress all the time, which can eventually cause irritation and overuse injuries.

When deciding on how many exercises to do per muscle group, some people will take what I’ve mentioned and over-apply it into their training routines by hammering each muscle group with 6 or 7 exercises every workout. Don’t. If you do that, once your muscles get used to what you’re currently doing, you’ll have no leftover exercises to introduce it to in order to potentially stimulate more growth.

So, just how many exercises should you do per muscle group? An effective option is to pick about 2-4 exercises for each of your muscle groups that work very well for you and cover a good variety of movement patterns. Then, simply distribute these throughout the week as needed and feel free to repeat some of those exercises on multiple days if needed. But limit the number of exercises you use per muscle in each workout to 3 or 4 at most.

Here’s an example of how you could distribute 4 exercises per week for chest into 2 workouts per week:

4 Exercises:
– Flat bench press
– Cable flyes
– Incline dumbbell press
– Banded push-ups

Push Day 1:
– Flat bench press
– Cable flyes

Push Day 2:
– Incline dumbbell press
– Banded push-ups

Then simply throw in however many sets you need for each exercise in order to meet your weekly volume targets.

Push Day 1:
– Flat bench press: 3 sets
– Cable flyes: 3 sets

Push Day 2:
– Incline dumbbell press: 3 sets
– Banded push-ups: 3 sets

Total Weekly Chest Sets: 12 Sets

Here’s a step-by-step plan for how you could apply everything we covered on how many exercises you should do per muscle group:

Step 1: For each muscle group, pick about 2-4 exercises to perform per week. Use a good variety of exercises that not only work very well for you, but also cover different angles and muscle functions.

Step 2: After you pick your exercises, distribute them throughout the week. Avoid performing more than 3-4 exercises per muscle in one workout. Instead, split them up into multiple workouts.

Step 3: Allocate a number of sets for each exercise in order to hit your weekly volume targets for that muscle.

If you’re serious about designing your own program, then I’d highly suggest that you take the time to go through this step by step process, because it’s the little details like this that make all the difference if you want to maximize your efforts and results. And for those who are looking for a step-by-step program that takes care of all the guesswork for you and optimizes your weekly training and nutrition program based on science, so that you can truly transform your body as efficiently as possible, then take the analysis quiz to discover which science-based program would be best for you and where your body is currently at below:
https://builtwithscience.com/bws-free-fitness-quiz/gender?utm_source=Youtube&utm_medium=Video&utm_content=Description%20box&utm_campaign=Exercise%20to%20maximize%20growth%20Mar%2028%2F2021

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when it comes to exercise selection generally there's two extremes on the one end are those who say all you need are the basics squats bench and dead lifts to build an impressive physique on the other end are those who hit each muscle with every single exercise in the book often inspired by their favorite instagram influencer [Music] what approach is best to maximize growth well both approaches actually do have valid reasoning behind them for those who take a minimalistic approach research does actually support this cap for instance one recent 2021 paper had one group of subjects performed just one exercise for each muscle group three 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 three sites each on the front and side of the thigh and the biceps and triceps after nine weeks both groups experience a similar amount of overall growth in each of their muscles now taking these results at face value you'd assume that doing just one exercise per muscle would be sufficient 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 other group that used the same exercises workout to work out failed to experience significant growth in two of the measured sites the same effect has been found in past research as well such as in this 2014 paper that employed a similar study design but only analyzed growth of the quads after 12 weeks the researchers found similar overall quadriceps growth in both groups but the subjects that vary their exercises experienced significant growth in all four heads of the quads whereas the same exercise group failed to experience significant growth in two of the four heads and there's a couple reasons why exactly this happens the first reason is due to what's known as regional hypertrophy which is a well-supported phenomenon that different exercises cause growth in different regions of a muscle for example squats will grow certain parts of your quads well that leg presses just don't grow as well and vice versa and 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 others for example certain biceps exercises will favor growth in the inner portion or short head of your biceps whereas other biceps exercises will favor growth in the outer portion or long head of your biceps now although it's currently not crystal clear as to what specific exercises will favor specific regions of a muscle this phenomenon does exist and does support 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 have for example the chest functions to primarily bring our arms together during a bench press we do this with heavy weight but we fail to work the chest through its full range of motion whereas with the fly we can bring the arms together and further back and will help 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 which can each be emphasized with different movements so if we were only to train the chest with something like the bench press which tends to favor growth in the mid and lower regions of the chest that is shown in a 2020 paper that tested just that your upper chest would likely end up lagging behind another good example are the hamstrings which have two main functions to flex the knee and extend the hip so if you were to leave all of your hamstrings training to deadlifts which primarily work the hamstrings by extending the hips then you'd be missing out on one of the major functions of that muscle whereas adding in a knee flexion movement like leg curls or glute ham raise would ensure that the main functions of the hamstrings are utilized and that all parts of the muscle can be stimulated and grown to the greatest extent aside from just overall growth though another benefit of varying your exercises is that it helps minimize wear and tear and your risk of overuse injuries if you do all of your volume for a muscle group with just one or two exercises without ever rotating them then you're stressing the same joints and same stabilizer muscles to the same stress all the time which can eventually cause irritation and overuse injuries for example if you did bench press three times a week indefinitely then for many people their elbows or shoulders will eventually start experiencing some discomfort whereas if you added in a more elbow and shoulder friendly dumbbell press to one of the days in between you'd still be able to provide growth to your chest but with less risk of overuse injuries and discomfort in your joints now with all that being said some people will take what i've just mentioned and over apply it into their training routines by hammering each muscle group with six or even seven exercises every workout while i will admit this can be satisfying to do it often does more harm than good yes our muscles do need some variety and novel stimulus over time to keep our muscles growing but if you're using every single exercise in the book for a specific muscle group right from the start then you're already exposing that muscle to all of the best tricks up your sleeve for when your growth plateaus meaning that once your muscles get used to what you're currently doing you'll have no left over exercises to introduce it to in order to potentially stimulate more growth so instead a much more effective option is to pick about two to four exercises for each of your muscle groups that work very well for you and cover a good variety of movement patterns then simply distribute these throughout the week as needed and feel free to repeat some of these exercises on multiple days if needed but at the same time you want to limit the number of exercises that you use per muscle in each workout to three or four at most otherwise the additional exercises and work that you do for that muscle in that workout will likely go towards junk volume rather than actually provide an effective stimulus for growth so for example with four exercises per week for chest here's how you could intelligently distribute them into two workouts per week with something like a push-pull leg split then after that setup you simply throw in however many sets that you need for each exercise in order to meet your weekly volume targets which for most people will be somewhere between 10 to 20 sets per muscle per week and even if you're not hitting every angle head or movement pattern for a given muscle in your weekly routine don't worry about it too much because once that initial routine you're using becomes stale and you need some variety is when you can swap in certain exercises and accommodate for whatever movement patterns you might have been missing out on in your previous routine so as a summary here is a step-by-step plan for how you can apply everything we just covered if you're serious about designing your own program then i'd highly suggest that you take the time to go through this step-by-step process because it's a little details like this that make all the difference if you want to maximize your efforts and results and for those who are looking for a step-by-step program that takes care of all of the guesswork for you and optimizes your weekly training and nutrition program based on science so that you can truly transform your body as efficiently as possible and simply head on over to buildasas.com and take our analysis quiz to discover which of our systematic approaches is best for you and your specific body anyways that is it for today guys thank you so much for watching i hope you enjoyed this one please don't forget to show your support by giving the video a like leaving a comment down below as to what you'd like to see me cover next subscribe to the channel and please don't forget to turn on notifications as well as this really does help me out thank you so much everyone and see you next time you

#Exercises #Maximize #Muscle #Growth

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