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MuscleWiki: Find exercises that work specific muscles

musclewiki.com

41–50 of 67 posts

Re: MuscleWiki: Find exercises that work specific muscles

#41
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for gmb.io - it's the only program(s) that i ever paid for - they are that clever. (i am athletic, walk my dog daily, have access to crossfit gyms etc). gmb.io "fills the gaps" of daily movement deficits and is for everyone.

How do you track your reps and weight per exercise? My trainer wants me to use paper. There are too many apps for this, and most of them are adware or junk. A glorified spreadsheet is what I’m looking for (mobile).

An app called Fitnotes, which I've used for years, is a glorified spreadsheet in my opinion.

Also contrary to another poster who insists on not tracking your lifts, I find it essential both for making progress and maintaining interest, its somewhat comparable to levelling an RPG character. At the very least its useful for remembering what you've done recently so you know what to do next.

Re: MuscleWiki: Find exercises that work specific muscles

#42
post #34

Working specific muscles is a terrible idea for the typical person looking to improve general fitness. The major compound movements are almost always what you want: barbell squats, overhead press, bench press, deadlifts, barbell rows, chin/pull ups, and dips[1]. Those will fix your posture problems among other things. From there you can work your way up to showing off on rings, glute ham raises, standing back bends,…

This site is about finding specific exercises for specific muscles though, and I think it works really well for that, I’ve used it off and on for years. There are plenty of reasons an individual may be looking for exercises to hit a specific muscle. I agree compound lifts are great for people interested in pursuing general fitness but there are plenty of people who can benefit from this. I’ve used it because I needed…

Agreed. And from looking at it this seems to be a very good site. For example the bench press page[1] includes some very important tips on a wildly popular movement that will help people avoid rotator cuff injuries.

And of course I agree that you shouldn't give a specific person unsolicited advice unless they are clearly endangering themselves. But this is a general discussion site, and generally speaking I'm going to stand by the claim that most people should focus on compound movements and not isolated ones. And this looks to be a good site for information on those, so that's great.

In fact, this site appears to be less focused on specific isolated movements than exrx.net. For example I didn't find anything nearly as specific as, to give just one example, the dumbell rear lateral raise[2]. Incidentally, that's a remarkable movement on account of even monstrously strong men have to use relatively light weights to perform it properly.

[1] https://musclewiki.com/barbell/male/chest/barbell-bench-pres...

[2] https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/DeltoidPosterior/DBRearLate...

Re: MuscleWiki: Find exercises that work specific muscles

#43
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you track your reps and weight per exercise? My trainer wants me to use paper. There are too many apps for this, and most of them are adware or junk. A glorified spreadsheet is what I’m looking for (mobile).

if you start tracking reps and weight, i guarantee you will loose interest fast. while tracking might certainly be useful for muscle building, gmb.io has a different approach and focuses on movements that are safe and help you in real life (mobilise wrist / shoulders, prevent back pain improve posture etc). A lot can be done without fancy equipment.

I’ll try gmb.io. It looks great.

But when I go to the gym once per week, and do 10 different exercises with weights or machines, I want to know what weight I used last time so I can start there (or just above it) again. Maybe you have the memory of an elephant.

Or Maybe you don’t care if you spend 2 minutes at every machine first figuring out what weight feels like just enough, not too much or too little, before doing 3 sets? Enjoy that. But I don’t want to do that. Every. Single. Time i go to the gym. And there’s no way to see my progress?

Re: MuscleWiki: Find exercises that work specific muscles

#44
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you track your reps and weight per exercise? My trainer wants me to use paper. There are too many apps for this, and most of them are adware or junk. A glorified spreadsheet is what I’m looking for (mobile).

An app called Fitnotes, which I've used for years, is a glorified spreadsheet in my opinion. Also contrary to another poster who insists on not tracking your lifts, I find it essential both for making progress and maintaining interest, its somewhat comparable to levelling an RPG character. At the very least its useful for remembering what you've done recently so you know what to do next.

"insist" is a bit harsh; we're all trying to help here ;-) https://xkcd.com/386/

Re: MuscleWiki: Find exercises that work specific muscles

#45
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This site is about finding specific exercises for specific muscles though, and I think it works really well for that, I’ve used it off and on for years. There are plenty of reasons an individual may be looking for exercises to hit a specific muscle. I agree compound lifts are great for people interested in pursuing general fitness but there are plenty of people who can benefit from this. I’ve used it because I needed…

Agreed. And from looking at it this seems to be a very good site. For example the bench press page[1] includes some very important tips on a wildly popular movement that will help people avoid rotator cuff injuries. And of course I agree that you shouldn't give a specific person unsolicited advice unless they are clearly endangering themselves. But this is a general discussion site, and generally speaking I'm going t…

I remember using exrx a decade ago to build a workout routine with dumbbells that hit all muscles. Such an excellent resource.

Re: MuscleWiki: Find exercises that work specific muscles

#46
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you track your reps and weight per exercise? My trainer wants me to use paper. There are too many apps for this, and most of them are adware or junk. A glorified spreadsheet is what I’m looking for (mobile).

An app called Fitnotes, which I've used for years, is a glorified spreadsheet in my opinion. Also contrary to another poster who insists on not tracking your lifts, I find it essential both for making progress and maintaining interest, its somewhat comparable to levelling an RPG character. At the very least its useful for remembering what you've done recently so you know what to do next.

+1 for fitnotes, probably the best app out there for my needs. Very flexible, gets out of the way, and has some basic analytics like plotting graphs and calculating one rep max values (which I never use). The graphs I find very useful to see if how I'm trending over many months.

Re: MuscleWiki: Find exercises that work specific muscles

#48
post #22
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just started gmb.io they have several programs similar to this

+1 for gmb.io - it's the only program(s) that i ever paid for - they are that clever. (i am athletic, walk my dog daily, have access to crossfit gyms etc). gmb.io "fills the gaps" of daily movement deficits and is for everyone.

I appreciate the suggestion of gmb.io from you and the parent. I had something more traditional in mind when I asked for suggestions (pushups, situps, squats, etc.) - but the intro on their website is intriguing enough that I think I will at least give the free session a try.

Re: MuscleWiki: Find exercises that work specific muscles

#49
post #46
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An app called Fitnotes, which I've used for years, is a glorified spreadsheet in my opinion. Also contrary to another poster who insists on not tracking your lifts, I find it essential both for making progress and maintaining interest, its somewhat comparable to levelling an RPG character. At the very least its useful for remembering what you've done recently so you know what to do next.

+1 for fitnotes, probably the best app out there for my needs. Very flexible, gets out of the way, and has some basic analytics like plotting graphs and calculating one rep max values (which I never use). The graphs I find very useful to see if how I'm trending over many months.

Confusingly the iOS App Store has FitNotes and FitNotes 2. Different authors. I’m guessing the latter hijacked the name?

Re: MuscleWiki: Find exercises that work specific muscles

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>why would I want to work specific muscles As a beginner, you would not. You want to work the whole system, and to do that, you only need a handful of compound movements: squat, deadlift, and overhead press. Once you slow down in progress on these bigger compounds, that's when you would want to start doing more targeted or more specific assistance exercises, in addition to the compounds. Starting Strength is a good e…

How about bench press?

Bench is great. Probably best not to do it the same day as overhead.

My program is structured around the compound movements forming the Cartesian product of {horizontal, vertical, leg} × {push, pull}; bench press is a horizontal push in this arena. Overhead press would be a vertical push, and squat would be a leg push.

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