There is an endless array of strength training routines and exercise theories out there, most of it geared toward bodybuilders and advanced exercisers. If you’re a strength training beginner, it’s quite easy to become totally confused by all of the anatomical terms and gym jargon. Knowing the basics of any safe and effective strength training routine is the key to success. First, you should familiarize yourself with the names of the major muscle groups and the exercises that target them. Then we will answer some of the questions that most beginners have about setting up strength training routines.

The Major Muscle Groups
When selecting exercises for your workout routine, it’s important to choose at least one exercise for each major muscle group. This prevents muscle imbalances that can lead to injury. Let’s take a look at the major muscle groups and a few of the exercises that target them:

Shoulders
Deltoids Muscle – The cap of the shoulder. This muscle has three parts, anterior deltoid muscle (the front), medial deltoid muscle (the middle), and posterior deltoid muscle (the rear). Different exercise movements can be used to exercise the different muscle heads. The anterior deltoid muscle is exercised with push-ups, bench press, and the dumbbell press. Lateral raises target the medial deltoid muscle. Seated rows, bent rows and one arm dumbbell rows target the posterior deltoid muscle.

Back
Erector Spinae Muscle- Muscles that extend the back and aid in good posture. Workout routines that include the back extensions can be used to target them. These muscles also come into play during dumbbell squats and deadlifts.

Latisimus Dorsi Muscle – Large muscles of the mid-back. When properly trained they give the back a nice V shape, making the waist appear smaller. Exercises include dumbbell pullovers, barbell pullovers, bent rows, parallel bar dips, and the lat pulldowns.

Rhomboids Muscle – Muscles in the middle of the upper back between the shoulder blades. They can be strength trained by performing back lat pulldowns, bent rows, dumbbell shrugs, and other weight training exercises that bring the shoulder blades together.

Trapezius Muscle – Upper portion of the back, sometimes referred to as ‘traps.’ The upper trapezius is the muscle running from the back of the neck to the shoulder. Weight training exercises include upright rows, and barbell and dumbbell shrugs.

Chest
Pectoralis Major Muscle - Large fan shaped muscle that covers the front of the upper chest. Exercises for chest workouts include incline, decline, close-grip and dumbbell press; push-ups; and incline and regular dumbbell flys.

Arms
Biceps Muscle – The muscle located in the front of the upper arm. The best biceps exercise are biceps curls. You can strength train biceps with barbells, dumbbells, or weight training machines. Other pulling movements like chin-ups and upright rows can also be used in biceps workouts.

Triceps Muscle – The back of the upper arm. Workout routines geared to exercise the triceps muscles include pushing movements like push-ups, dips, triceps extensions, triceps kick-backs, and pushdowns. The triceps also will be strength trained during the inclined, flat and declined bench press.

Abdominals
These muscles include the rectus abdominus muscle, a large flat muscle running the length of the abdomen, and the external obliques muscle, which run down the sides and front of the abdomen. Exercises such as standard crunches workout the rectus abdominus muscles. Reverse curls and crunches (where the hips are lifted instead of the head and shoulders) exercises the lower portion of this muscle. Crunches involving a rotation or twist work the external obliques muscles. The abdominal muscles can be targeted with workouts without weights such as the ones previously described.

Buttocks
Gluteals Muscle - This group of muscles (often referred to as ‘glutes’) includes the gluteus maximus muscle, which is the big muscle covering your butt. Common strength training exercises are the squat and the leg press. The glutes muscles also come into play during lunges, cable kick backs, and cable hip abductions exercises.

Legs
Quadriceps Muscle - This group of four muscles (referred to as ‘quads’) makes up the front of the thigh. Exercises used to develop them include squats, lunges, leg extensions, and leg presses exercises.

Hamstrings Muscle - These muscles make up the back of the thigh. Weight training exercises include squats, lunges, leg presses, and leg curls.

Hip Abductors Muscle and Adductors Muscle - These are the muscles of the inner and outer thigh. The abductors muscles are on the outside and move the leg away from the body. The adductors muscles are on the inside and pull the leg across the centerline of the body. These muscles can be strength training with a variety of cable adductions, cable hip abductions, floor hip extensions and floor hip abductions exercises.

Calf Muscle - The calf muscles are on the back or the lower leg. They include the gastrocnemius muscle and the soleus muscle. The gastrocnemius muscles is what gives the calf its strong rounded shape. The soleus is a flat muscle running under the gastrocnemius muscle. Standing calf raises give the gastrocnemius muscle a good workout, while seated barbell calf raises are good for strength training the soleus muscle. These muscles may be small, but they can handle a relatively large amount of weight during weight training routines.

In what order do should you perform each exercise in a workout routine?
When doing a sequence of exercises, you’ll usually start with the larger muscle groups and compound exercises and work toward the smaller muscle groups and isolation exercises. This allows you to do the most demanding work when you are the least fatigued. For example, you’re less likely to lose your balance during a lunge if you do the lunges before exhausting the muscles of quads and hamstrings with exercises. You’ll use better form on your push-ups if you do them before fatiguing the triceps with presses or kickbacks.

Does in matter how fast you lift the bar during weight training?
The speed or cadence of a exercise is also an important element of each workout. A reasonable training pace is one to two seconds for the lifting (concentric) portion of the exercise and three to four seconds for the lowering (eccentric) portion of the exercise. Fast, jerky movements should be avoided during weight training. They place undue stress on the muscle and connective tissue at the beginning of the exercise, substantially increasing the likelihood of an injury. Fast lifting also cheats you out of some of the strength benefits of weight training. When lifting at a fast pace, momentum (not the muscle) is doing a good deal of the work.

What is the difference between sets and reps in a weight training program?
A set is a group of successive repetitions performed in a weight training exercise without resting. A rep or repetition is the number of times you repeat the exercise in each set. Therefore, if your instructions were to do 3 sets of 12 (3 x 12) biceps curls, you would curl the weight 12 times in a row to complete the first exercise set. Then you’d put the weight down, rest a moment and do 12 more in a row to complete the second exercise set, and so on until you’ve finished the prescribed number of sets for that exercise.

How many sets should I perform when exercising?
There have been studies showing similar strength gains from one, two, or three sets of exercises. Single set exercises are usually done to the point of failure, meaning to the point where you can’t complete another full repetition. This is commonly referred to as high-intensity training or HIT. Multiple set exercises are usually done with one to three minutes of rest between each exercise set. An advantage of single set training is that it requires less time in the gym. An advantage of multiple set training is that the longer training session can result in higher calorie expenditure.

How many reps should I perform when weight training?
The number of repetitions chosen for each exercise depends on the amount of resistance (weight) you’re using. Maximum resistance is the most weight you can lift with proper form one time. In general, most people can complete 6 repetitions with 85% of their maximum resistance, 8 repetitions with 80% of maximum resistance, 10 repetitions with 75% of maximum resistance, 12 repetitions with 70% of maximum resistance and 14 repetitions with 65% of maximum resistance. Strenght training with more than 85% of your maximum resistance increases the risk of injury, and strength training with less than 65 percent of maximum resistance decreases strength gains. So, a safe and productive weight training recommendation would be 8-12 repetitions using 70% to 80% of maximum resistance.

How long do I rest between sets when exercising?
Rest periods between sets of the same exercise should generally be limited to around one minute, maybe even slightly less, depending on the muscle group you're strength training. Large muscle groups take longer to recover than small ones. After one minute, your body has had enough time to mostly recover. At three minutes the body has recovered about as much as it can without extended rest. When working out, you want to overload your muscles by applying stress on them while they're not quite completely rested.

What is meant by proper exercise form?
Full range of motion is an important component of proper exercise form. Each exercise should be taken through the complete range of joint movement in a slow controlled manner, with emphasis placed on the completely contracted position. If a weight is so heavy that you have to jerk, bounce or swing to get it to the top of the movement, it’s too heavy. Your exercise form is compromised. Full-range of motion movements contract and strengthen the muscle you’re working out (the prime mover) and stretch the opposing (antagonist) muscle. This contributes to both muscle strength and joint flexibility.

Do I lift the same amount of weight every time I exercise?
Progressive resistance is the key to any well-designed strength training program. This means that as your muscles adapt to a given exercise, you need to gradually increase the resistance or the repetitions to promote further gains when exercising. You should start out with a weight that allows you to do at least 8 repetitions of a particular exercise. Once you can complete 12 repetitions with that weight, you increase the weight by about 5 percent. Now, you’re doing 8 repetitions with the slightly heavier weight. Once you’ve worked up to 12 repetitions with the heavier weight, you increase it by another 5 percent (or no more than 10%) and go back to doing 8 repetitions. The idea is to keep alternately increasing repetitions and resistance, so that you continue to see results.

How often should I exercise? What's a good workout schedule?
Increases in muscle size and strength don’t occur while you’re strength training, they occur during the rest period between workouts. This is when your muscles recover and rebuild, gradually becoming bigger and stronger. The recovery process takes at least 48 hours. For this reason, weight training sessions should be scheduled no more frequently than every other day. If you prefer to strength train more often, you should avoid exercising the same muscle group on consecutive days.