Chapter 12
Your Muscles:
Love ’Em or Lose ’Em
In This Chapter
Discovering the formal names — and the slang — of your muscles
Looking at nifty muscle illustrations
Finding out our favorite exercises for each muscle
T
here are 650 muscles in your body. We are happy to report that you don’t
need to memorize all of them. Consider, for example, the inferior retinac-
ulum of the long extensor of your big toe. We don’t want you to remember
that one. In fact, we don’t even know that one — we had to look it up in our
anatomy book. If you have any desire to find out more about that muscle,
shut this book and apply to medical school.Meanwhile, in this chapter, we tell you about the 20 or so muscles that any
conscientious exerciser should know. What’s the point? For one thing, you
won’t need an interpreter when a trainer, video instructor, or fellow gym
member says, “Let’s do lats and pecs today.” Before you know it, you may be
saying stuff like that, too. And you’ll sound really impressive — like wine afi-
cionados who say, “This chardonnay has a superior bouquet.”But more importantly, if you can name your major muscles and understand
how each one operates, you can get better results from your workout pro-
gram. You’ll understand, for example, how certain exercises can help you pre-
vent lower-back pain. You’ll understand why you should do several different
shoulder exercises, rather than just one. And you’ll be sure to perform your
exercises properly. For example, if you know where your biceps are, you’ll
realize exactly where you should feel the tension — and you can adjust your
form if you don’t feel tension in the right spot. With many weight-training
exercises, it’s easy to emphasize the wrong muscle if you don’t understand
the purpose of the move. If you simply hop on a machine and pull some lever
without knowing which muscle to focus on, you may be cheating yourself out
of a good workout. Finally, knowing about all your major muscle groups helps
you get a more complete and balanced workout. You’ll know not to leave any
muscle group out. (See Figures 12-1 and 12-2 for a full view of your muscles.)