{"id":633,"date":"2013-03-04T09:30:07","date_gmt":"2013-03-04T17:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gahealthguide.wordpress.com\/?p=633"},"modified":"2013-03-04T09:30:07","modified_gmt":"2013-03-04T17:30:07","slug":"know-what-youre-doing-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/04\/know-what-youre-doing-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Know what you’re doing (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m going to start a series of posts about the importance of knowing what you’re doing.\u00a0 I can’t stress enough how important it is to know what exercise you’re doing, how to do it, why you’re doing it, and what muscles you’re working.<\/p>\n

That final point is what we’re going to focus on today;\u00a0 Knowing what muscles are being worked during an exercise.\u00a0 In most cases, this seems pretty straightforward, but there are exercises where they obvious answer is. . .\u00a0 Well, it’s not the right answer.\u00a0 Here’s an exercise that is often misunderstood:<\/p>\n

\"Pop<\/a>

Pop Quiz: What muscle does this target?<\/p><\/div>\n

I once overheard a guy telling his friend that this would make his calves “look jacked.”\u00a0 Here’s the problem:\u00a0 In a few different places on your body, you have a set of muscles that complete a movement–\u00a0 Some of those muscles are aesthetic and functional, while some are only functional.\u00a0 Let’s look at your lower leg for a second.\u00a0 There are three major muscles (and only four total) in your lower leg:\u00a0 The Tibialis Anterior<\/a> (Over your shin), Soleus<\/a> (Within your calves), and Gastrocnemius<\/a> (Your calves).\u00a0 When people are looking for aesthetics with their calves, there’s only one muscle that plays into this:\u00a0 The Gastrocnemius.\u00a0 So, why won’t your calves get “jacked” by doing the seated calf raise?\u00a0 Because that exercise targets your Soleus only.<\/p>\n

This isn’t the only situation where there’s a lot of misconceptions about what’s being worked.\u00a0 I watched a guy doing Hammer Curls<\/a>, and somebody asked him what he was working.\u00a0 His response:\u00a0 “My outer biceps, bro.” Actually, the hammer curl is a grip exercise, targeting your brachioradialis<\/a>, which is an important muscle and also happens to have the coolest sounding name.<\/p>\n

One last example:<\/p>\n

\"I've<\/a>

I’ve seen entire routines centered around Preacher Curls, and yet, no one knows what they target.<\/p><\/div>\n

If you think this will make your biceps “jacked,” you would be wrong.\u00a0 If you think this targets your biceps, you would be wrong.\u00a0 The preacher curl<\/a> is like the seated calf raise–\u00a0 It targets an important muscle that is all about function and not about aesthetics.\u00a0 It targets your Brachialis<\/a>, the muscle underneath your biceps.<\/p>\n

I’m not telling you to stop doing seated calf raises, hammer curls, or preacher curls–\u00a0 Every muscle in your body needs to be worked. . .\u00a0 But, before you start doing exercises, learn about them, and figure out if they actually fit in with your goals.\u00a0 While working at a sporting goods store, I had someone buy an expensive bench because it had a “Preacher Curl Pad.”\u00a0 All he wanted to train was biceps.\u00a0 I told him that he would save a lot of money, and would actually be training what he wanted to train if he went with an EZ bar and plates.\u00a0 Instead, he was sold on the idea of the preacher curl and spent too much money for a workout that is not nearly as effective for what he wanted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m going to start a series of posts about the importance of knowing what you’re doing.\u00a0 I can’t stress enough how important it is to know what exercise you’re doing, how to do it, why you’re doing it, and what muscles you’re working. That final point is what we’re going to focus on today;\u00a0 Knowing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-body-building","category-fitness","category-fitness-myths"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3DfsS-ad","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}