What Muscle Groups Work Together: Design Your Own Workout

What Muscles Work Together – Introduction

What muscles work together best when you want to plan your own program?

If you want to get the best possible results from your workout time, you need to follow a program.

A good program will give you direction and make sure your efforts are not wasted.

It will ensure you train all muscle groups equally but also provide a balance between working out and resting.

Recovery is as important as working out so you can avoid the common pitfall of overtraining.

Finally, your program should match your fitness goals.

The good news is that there are lots of free programs on the internet, and you can hire a trainer to write one for you.

And if you don’t have a personal trainer, you can use our free programs noted at the bottom of this article.

How to Create Your Own Workout Plan

However, there is something uniquely rewarding about writing your own workout program.

Writing your own program means you can answer all the questions that an online program cannot, for example;

how much time do you have available for training,
what exercises you like to do and those you don’t enjoy, and
what equipment do you have available at home or in a commercial gym

All of that said, writing a workout program is both an art and a science, and it takes practice to be able to design safe and enjoyable training plans.

To get you started, in this article, we discuss what muscles to group together to make your workouts productive.

Muscle Group Overview

Your remarkable musculoskeletal system enables you to move your body.

It is comprised of 206 bones and about 650 skeletal muscles.¹

We say “about” because some people have a few unusual muscles that others do not.

For example, you may have an extra calf muscle called the plantaris muscle, or it might be absent as is the case of 7 to 20 percent of people.²

In addition, various sources group muscles differently so it is challenging to define an exact number.

Yet, short of doing a dissection, there is no real way to know, so “more than 600” or “about 650” is close enough!

Regardless, despite there being over 600 muscles, most fitness experts tend to think in terms of major muscle groups.

That’s because muscles do not work in isolation and rather work in teams to move bones at the joints of the body.³

So, the main muscle groups you need to include in your workouts are:

Pectoralis major – chest
Latissimus dorsi – back
Trapezius – upper back
Deltoids – shoulders
Biceps – front of the upper arm
Triceps – back of the upper arm
Forearms – lower arm
Core – abdominals, waist, and lower back
Quadriceps – front of the thigh
Hamstrings – back of the thigh
Gluteus maximus – back of hip
Calves – lower leg

Many exercisers prefer full-body workouts, where all these muscles are trained together 2-3 times per week.

Full-body workouts are effective for all fitness levels, from complete novice to experienced/advanced.

Examples of Full Body Workouts

Because your body functions as a single, interdependent system, that’s how you should train it.

Furthermore, utilizing full-body workouts means you can train your whole body 2-3 times a week, not only once a week, as is the case with most strength training program splits.

Here are some excellent total body workout routines for you to try:

However, other exercisers prefer to “split” their muscle groups up and train different areas of the body on different days.

Split routines are especially popular with bodybuilders.

Split Routine Examples

So, what muscle groups should you train together?

Keep reading to find out which muscles work together best!

Which Muscles Should You Train Together

In theory, you can train any muscle groups together.

However, there are some poor combinations that could make your workouts less effective.

For example, it would be a mistake to train your biceps before your back, your triceps before your chest or shoulders, or your lower back before your legs.

In these pairings, one muscle group would have a negative impact on what comes next in your workout.

Workable muscle groupings are:

#1. Upper body

The simplest split routine involves training your upper body one day and your legs the next.

Simply divide your body horizontally across the waist.

Do your core exercises as part of your leg workout, which generally contains fewer exercises.

Sample chest exercise workouts:

Shoulder exercises

Arm exercises

Back exercises

Core exercises

#2. Lower body

Even if you split your upper body into separate muscle groups, most people tend to train all their leg muscles together.

This makes a lot of sense, given that the most powerful compound exercises like:

squats,
deadlifts,
lunges, and
leg presses involve all the major leg muscles.

Sample lower body exercises and workouts

#3. Chest and shoulders

Training your chest and shoulders together makes a lot of sense.

Both involve mostly pushing exercises, so transitioning from chest to shoulder training requires no extra warm-up.

On the downside, because both muscle groups are anatomically related and share several functions, you may find that your shoulders are tired after your chest exercises, which may reduce your strength for the rest of your workout.

#4. Chest and back

Chest and back are a great combo.

Where the chest is a pushing muscle group, your back is a pulling muscle group.

Training the chest and back together makes good anatomical sense, and one should not affect the strength of the other.

However, the chest and back are big muscle groups, so training them together may be tiring and time-consuming.

#5. Chest and triceps

One of the best ways to organize your workouts is to train a large muscle group followed by a smaller one.

This makes good use of your time and energy.

Pairing your chest and triceps makes sense because these muscles work together in all pushing exercises.

That said, your triceps will be tired after your chest workout, so you may not be able to train them as hard as you might otherwise like.

See The Best Chest and Triceps Workout for Strength in 45 Minutes for a sample workout.

#6. Chest and biceps

If chest and triceps doesn’t work for you, try chest and biceps.

The biceps are not directly involved in your chest exercises, so they’ll be fresh, and you’ll be able to push them harder with heavier weights or more sets and reps.

#7. Back and biceps

Training your back and biceps has all the advantages and drawbacks of training your chest and triceps together.

However, if you train your chest and triceps one day, it makes sense to program your back and biceps for the next.

#8. Back and triceps

Back and triceps works well because your triceps will be well rested, so you can train them harder, longer, and with heavier weights. This is a good option if you want to prioritize arm development.

#9. Back and trapezius

This pairing involves training all your back muscles together.

This makes sense because the traps are indirectly involved in all lat exercises anyway, so you might as well “finish them off” with some direct exercises like shrugs.

#10. Shoulders and trapezius

Some people prefer to train their trapezius with their deltoids.

Again, this makes sense because the traps also work with the shoulders.

#11. Shoulders and triceps

Similar to training your chest and triceps, working your shoulders and triceps together means doing several pushing exercises in a row, with all the benefits and drawbacks that pairing brings.

#12. Shoulders and biceps

If training two pushing muscles together is unappealing, try doing shoulders and biceps together.

This results in a push-pull workout that works well if you have done a chest and back pairing earlier in your training week.

#13. Shoulders, biceps, and triceps

Your chest and back are the largest upper body muscles.

You can train the remaining muscle groups together to make up your second upper body workout of the week.

#14. Biceps and triceps

In a lot of workouts, arms are trained at the end and are often viewed as supplementary to the larger muscle groups, e.g., training biceps after back.

However, if you want to maximize biceps and triceps development, they probably deserve a workout of their own.

#15. Calves, forearms, and core

These muscle groups work well together because they’re small, don’t require a lot of energy, and make for an ideal easy workout.

However, they’re still important and deserve your attention.

Muscle Group Pairings to Avoid

While there are lots of workable muscle group combinations to use, there are a few that should be avoided:

#1. Triceps before chest or shoulders

Training your triceps before your chest or shoulders will severally reduce your pushing strength.

So, always do your chest and shoulder presses before isolating your triceps.

#2. Biceps or back before biceps

Just as training your triceps before your chest will undermine your pushing performance, training your biceps before your back will limit your pulling performance.

Train your biceps after your back, and never before.

#3. Forearms before almost anything

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and in many exercises, that weak link is your grip.

Training your forearms before any exercise that involves holding a bar, dumbbells, or handle will undoubtedly undermine your performance, so always train your forearms last.

#4. Core/lower back before legs or upper back

Your core and lower back act as stabilizers and help keep your lumber spine in a strong, safe position.

If you train your core or lower back before something like squats, deadlifts, or bent-over rows, you could lose some support and stability, increasing your risk of injury.

So, because of this, it’s usually best to save your core and lower back training until the end of your workouts.

The Best Science-Based Workout Split To Maximize Growth – Jeremy Ethier

Bro Split 5-Days a Week Vs. Upper/Lower 4-Days Vs. Full-Body 3-Days

What Muscles Work Together – Wrapping Up

There are lots of ways to organize your workouts, which is what makes designing your own program such a daunting prospect.

However, provided you don’t use the pairings that should be avoided, almost any combination of muscle groups will work.

Use the pairings outlined above, and experiment with a few different options to find out what works best for you.

For example, you may like how pumped your triceps feel when you train your chest and triceps together.

Alternatively, you may prefer to have more strength for your secondary muscle group and train your chest with biceps instead.

Ultimately, there are many right ways to plan your workouts and only a few wrong ways.

So, write your program, see how it feels, and make adjustments as needed.

That’s arguably the best way to learn how to write safe and effective workouts.

See Body Transformation: the Ultimate Guide from The Fit Apprentice® for more strategies on how to change your physique for the better.

The Top 10 Free Programs

Related “Muscles Worked” Posts

Additional Posts

Footnotes

¹ Musculoskeletal System: Arthritis, Lower Back Pain, Bones, Muscles – The Cleveland Clinic

² The Plantaris Muscle: anatomy, injury, imaging, and treatment – National Library of Medicine

³ Muscles, Bone and Movement – 11.10 Skeletal Muscles – Flexbook