What Muscle Groups To Train Together?
Q: Can I train my arms and legs on the same day or should I hit them separately? On the topic of doing things together or not, I apparently haven’t learned anything in that area since the time I was totally wiped out after ignoring the advice of friends and family to keep my finances apart from the person I’d only been dating for a week and ultimately opened a joint checking account with *sigh*
A: You’re basically asking what muscle groups to train together.
Given this question, one would be safe to assume that you’re asking either because you have limited training days available and would like to work out your muscles in as few days as possible or are looking to optimize your training so you hit each muscle group more often throughout the week, which would increase your training frequency and volume. Whatever the case, both situations call for pairing certain muscle groups on certain workout days.
One of the most common ways of grouping is by muscles that oppose each other, examples of which are chest and lats, biceps and triceps, and quads and hams. This is known as antagonistic training and can also involve the pairing of opposing movement patterns, such as the combination of squatting and hinging or the coupling of exercises where you push the weight away from your body with those where you pull the weight towards you. Because the shoulders don’t have a true antagonist muscle, your best bet is to pair them by movement pattern if electing for the antagonistic approach. As such, you could split your workout into push-ups, bench press, and other pushing movements for the chest and pulling movements for the medial and rear delts, such as dumbbell lateral raises and reverse flyes, for example.
Similar to antagonistic training is complimentary training. However, instead of pairing opposing muscle groups, complimentary training pairs a large muscle group with a smaller muscle group that isn’t antagonistic. Examples include chest and biceps, back and triceps, and shoulders and abs, for example. Another possible combination is synergistic training, in which a large muscle group and a smaller one are paired because they work together. A common example is training chest with triceps and lats with biceps. The thinking is that since pushing and pulling movements for the chest and lats indirectly involve the triceps and biceps, then why not continue working them when they already have a pump. The same can also be done training the chest, shoulders, and triceps together based on recruited muscles during a lift and specific movement patterns. For example, the bench press is a pushing movement that involves the triceps and front delts, which allows for the coupling of pushing exercises for the triceps and shoulders, such as barbell skullcrushers and seated dumbbell presses.
The above are the most technical ways to train your muscles together. All of that said, however, you can do anything you want and pair the muscles in whatever fashion you please because there are no rules, laws, or regulations governing how someone HAS to work out. But while it’s true that there’s no right or wrong way to group your muscles, it should be noted that doing anything you want may not exactly be the most effective thing to do, especially if you have worthwhile goals of improving your strength or changing your physique. As an example, let’s take a look at the current pairing of your arms and legs.
The muscle groups making up the legs require a bit more effort to grow than the upper body. So a good leg training session should leave you a bit too mentally and/or physically drained to then turn your attention to doing arms, let alone any other body part. So if you’re able to train your arms after hitting your legs, then there’s a possibility that you’re not hitting your lower body with enough intensity. As such, it’d be in your interest to train your arms before legs, if you don’t already. However, while that sequencing is better, the grouping still presents a potential problem because hitting your arms first can rob you of the energy and focus needed to really get after it when you train your legs. To get around this, you may intentionally or subconsciously back off from using as much weight or intensity as you should for your arms, which can amount to you not getting as much value from working them as you should. It’s because of things like this why the lower body is usually trained in its entirety by itself on its own day separate from other body parts or the legs are split into separate days according to their individual muscle groups, from which they can be worked out in isolation by themselves or paired with a small muscle group like the biceps, triceps, or abs without one taking away from the other.
Anyway, that’s how normal people do it. But as I told you, there are no rules and you can do whatever the fuck you damn well please if being a weirdo is your thing in addition to being a sucker for love!
Now, does anyone else have a fitness or nutrition question of their own that they want to ask?
Glossary: abs, arms, bench press, biceps, chest, exercise, fitness, frequency, goal, intensity, lats, muscle, muscle group, nutrition, physique, squat, workout, work out
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