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Do you know that you have more than 650 muscles in your body (25)? But that number can go up to 840 if you count the muscles within complex muscles.
Considering the huge number of muscles in your body, how many exercises per muscle group should you do?
To answer that question, let’s start by analyzing the muscle groups.
Fortunately, you don’t have hundreds of muscle groups in your body.
In fact, the National Cancer Institute of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services identifies only four major muscle groups, including (19):
This simplifies things significantly.
But for practical purposes in planning workouts, you can break it down further to 10 major muscle groups identified by The College Of Applied Health Sciences of the University Of Illinois and New Mexico State University (20, 22):
Read More: Ways To Exercise At Home: Going Full Throttle On Your Body Transformation Plans
So, how many exercises per muscle group should you do?
Well, the scientific data shows that more exercises are better than less. Studies show that the volume of your workouts will impact your muscle mass (7). This means focusing on the number of exercises, repetitions, and sets.
To be more specific, you should train the major muscle groups at least twice a week.
Put more focus on the large muscle groups with two exercises per large muscle group as opposed to one exercise per smaller muscle group, during your workouts.
The American College of Sports Medicine goes further to recommend 8-10 multi-joint exercises per week, focusing on the major muscles. That’s at least two exercises per muscle group for the four major muscle groups identified by the National Cancer Institute of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or one exercise per muscle group for the 10 major muscle groups identified by The College Of Applied Health Sciences of the University Of Illinois and New Mexico State University, in a week.
Now you know the required number of exercises.
What about the reps and sets?
For that, the American College of Sports Medicine also recommends 2-3 sets of 8-12 reps for each exercise in your workout (2). Since those are the minimum requirements, you can do more exercises, reps, and sets, based on your ability. However, you should have at least one or two rest days in a week, to avoid muscle overuse injuries (6).
In weight training, the number of sets and reps you do will depend on your fitness objective.
The NSCA’s Performance Training Journal provides these general guidelines, based on different fitness objectives (21):
Based on those guidelines, here is a sample workout program for different exercises based on varying fitness goals:
For weight loss, the issue isn’t as complex as bodybuilding.
In weight loss, you can manage to activate most muscles together through wholesome aerobic exercises that work nearly all muscles. Such activities include swimming and aerobics. Therefore, you don’t have to worry too much about the number of exercises per muscle group.
Instead, what matters is the duration of the activity.
In that regard, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity per week for 18-64 year-old adults (17). This can be as simple as brisk walking.
But you can also build muscle endurance through weight training. In this case, target loads lighter than 67% 1RM with more than 12 reps, and very short rests between sets.
Understandably, beginners can’t do as many exercises as experienced bodybuilders.
For a beginner, it would be reasonable to do a full-body workout (one exercise for each muscle group) during each workout session.
That answers the question, “How many exercises per muscle group for beginners?”
But what about the question, “How many exercises per muscle group for advanced bodybuilders?”
Well, an upper-body/lower-body split would serve you well as an experienced bodybuilder. This allows you to perform more exercises for each muscle group during each workout session. In one session, you’ll focus on the upper body and then the lower body in the next session.
Obviously, the number of exercises you can do will also vary based on your age and gender.
So, how many exercises per muscle group for an 18-64 year old woman or man?
And, how many exercises per muscle group for a 65+ year old man or woman?
Well, you may not find a clear recommendation on the exact number of exercises to do based on your age and gender, since people have varying physical capacities even within each age or gender group. That’s why the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans does not give a specific number of exercises (8).
So, how do you know that you’ve exercised enough?
The general rule is to perform muscle-strengthening exercises to the point when you cannot do any more repetitions. As long as you schedule those workouts for at least 2 days per week, you’ll be fine.
Remember, even a mere 5 minutes of physical activity will give you real health benefits.
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The question, “How many exercises per muscle group per day?” cannot be fully answered without addressing exercise variations.
In order to fully build your muscles, you’ll need to incorporate multiple variations of exercises for each muscle group. Each variation can activate the muscle group in different ways (24). Besides, a muscle group can have more than one mode of action (abduction, flexion, extension etc.), which necessitates different exercise variations (15).
This means you may need more than one exercise for each muscle group per day.
The following is an evaluation of multiple exercise variations for each muscle group. It can help you answer the question, “If I work 1 muscle group per day, how many exercises per muscle group?” It will show you the number of exercise variations necessary to fully activate each muscle group.
Exercise variations for the pectorals are based on the upper, middle, and lower chest (the location of the pectorals).
Upper Chest:
The muscles in your upper chest point towards your clavicle, from your armpits.
One exercise that targets this area is the incline bench press (11):
Middle Chest:
Lifting at a 90-degree angle from your body will target the middle chest.
A flat bench press does this effectively (3):
Lower Chest:
Targeting this part can be tricky, but you can do it using an incline push up (12):
Various other exercises to try out for your pectorals include: parallel bar dips, decline dumbbell bench press, decline dumbbell flyes, cable flyes / cable crossover, dumbbell pullover, low-incline barbell bench press, and seated machine chest press.
Read More: How To Get Rid Of Chest Fat-The Most Effective Fat Burning Exercises
The exercise variations here target the upper/outer lats and the lower lats.
Upper/Outer Lats:
The upper/outer lats form the typical V-taper of your torso.
A useful exercise to target this section is the pull-up (wide grip) (26):
Lower Lats:
Exercises that use a reverse and close grip will target the lower lats effectively.
One exercise is the reverse-grip pull-down (18):
Various other exercises to try out for your lats include: barbell row, deadlifts, dumbbell row, chin-ups, pull-ups, lat pulldowns, dumbbell pullover, landmine row, meadows row, inverted bodyweight row, renegade row, and deadstop row.
The trapezius is a broad muscle on the back part of your neck and trunk. Exercise variations target either the upper and middle traps or the back and lower traps.
Upper And Middle Traps:
A useful exercise here is the Gittleson Shrug (16):
Back And Lower Traps:
Target this section using a barbell deadlift (4):
The quadriceps is made up of four muscles, which necessitates four exercise variations.
Vastus Medialis:
Also called the teardrop muscle, this muscle is located on the front of your thigh.
An effective exercise to exert this muscle is the dumbbell lunge (5):
Vastus Lateralis:
This is the most prominent section of our quads, extending down your thigh’s lateral side.
Your workout stance can influence the impact on this muscle (10). One workout that achieves that is the close-stance front squat:
Rectus Femoris:
Exercises that work both your knee and hip will effectively target this section located in the middle of your thigh (14).
One exercise is the straight leg raise (9):
Vastus Intermedius:
This section is located on the front part of your upper leg, between the vastus lateralis and vastus medialis.
An effective exercise here is the squat:
The gluteal is made up of three muscles forming the buttocks. Therefore, you need at least three exercise variations to target each muscle.
Gluteus Maximus:
This is one of the largest muscles in your body and the biggest of the gluteals.
To target this muscle, use the single-leg Romanian deadlift with dumbbell:
Gluteus Medius:
This muscle provides abduction, internal/ external rotation of your hip, and stabilization of hip/ pelvis.
Activate the muscle using monster walks (1):
Gluteus Minimus:
This muscle is a hip abductor and it’s important for hip stabilization.
To work it out, use a dumbbell crossover lunge:
The hamstring muscle, located behind your thigh, is made up of three muscles: semitendinosus, semimembranosus, and biceps femoris. Therefore, you need at least three exercise variations to target each muscle.
Semitendinosus:
This is the longest hamstring muscle that provides knee flexion, fistula rotation, and thigh extension.
To target this muscles, try out the glute ham raise (13):
Semimembranosus:
Unlike the biceps femoris which comprises the lateral hamstrings, the semimembranosus combines with the semitendinosus to comprise the medial hamstrings.
To target this muscle, use leg curls:
Biceps Femoris:
This muscle serves the function of knee flexion/ external rotation/ internal rotation and hip extension.
A good exercise to activate the muscle is the good morning:
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This shoulder muscle requires three exercise variations to target the three groups of fibers that it has.
Anterior Deltoid:
The primary function of this muscle is shoulder abduction, as well as shoulder internal rotation, flexion, and transverse flexion.
A useful exercise here is the Arnold press:
Lateral Deltoid:
This muscle is activated in almost all shoulder exercises.
One exercise is the barbell shoulder press:
Posterior Deltoid:
This muscle provides shoulder transverse abduction, extension, transverse extension, and external rotation.
To target the muscle, use a one-arm bent-over row:
As the name suggests, the triceps brachii contains three muscles. Therefore, you need at least three exercise variations to target each muscle.
Medial Head Triceps:
This is the least visible of the three triceps muscles and it’s greatly activated when you perform elbow extensions at 90 – 180 degrees of shoulder elevations (23).
One exercise that achieves this is the overhead dumbbell triceps extension:
Lateral Head Triceps:
This is the most visible section from the side of your arm.
To target this muscle, use the body-weight dip:
Long Head Triceps:
Located behind your arm, this muscle gives most of the overall mass of your triceps.
To workout this muscle, use the dumbbell kickback:
The “short head” and “long head” of the bicep form a single muscle. Therefore, you need at least two exercise variations to target each muscle.
Short Head Bicep:
Located on your inner arm, the short head adds width to your flex, unlike the long head which creates the muscle peak.
An effective workout for this muscle is the EZ-bar preacher curl:
Long Head Bicep:
This section runs along the outside of your upper arm.
To target the long head bicep, use a standing dumbbell biceps curl:
There are four main abdominal muscles which cover your internal organs. Therefore, you need at least four exercise variations to target each muscle.
Transversus Abdominis:
This is the deepest muscle layer which stabilizes your trunk and maintains internal abdominal pressure.
To target this muscle, use the plank:
Rectus Abdominis:
This muscle is located between your ribs and pubic bone. It creates the characteristic bulges commonly called ‘the six pack.’ The main function is to move your body between the pelvis and ribcage.
A good workout for this muscle is the cable crunch:
External Oblique Muscles:
Found on each side of your rectus abdominis, the external oblique muscles allow your trunk to twist. When the right external obliques contract, your body turns to the left, and when the left external obliques contract, your body turns to the right.
A good exercise for this muscle is the bicycle crunch:
Internal Oblique Muscles:
The internal oblique muscle is located just inside your hip bones.
This muscle operates in an opposite direction to your external oblique muscles. To twist your trunk to the left, the left internal oblique and the right external oblique contract together. To twist your trunk to the right, the right internal oblique and the left external oblique contract together.
A good exercise for this muscle is the side plank:
The calf muscle is made up of two muscles: the soleus muscle and the gastrocnemius muscle. Therefore, you need at least two exercise variations to target each muscle.
Soleus Calf Muscle:
This is the smaller, flat muscle lying underneath the gastrocnemius calf muscle. It lifts your heel when your knee is bent, and also controls ankle and knee movement.
A good exercise to target this muscle is the seated calf raise:
Gastrocnemius Calf Muscle:
This is the larger calf muscle which forms the visible bulge beneath your skin. You use this muscle when stepping forward, running, stepping up, and lifting onto the balls of your feet. The muscle functions through plantar flexion of your ankle and bending your knee.
To exert this muscle use the standing calf raise:
Based on this extensive guide, you can determine how many exercises per muscle group you need.
You can now properly plan a safe and effective workout that suits your gender, age, fitness goals, and physical capacity. Most importantly, you’ll have a well-rounded workout that fully exerts all the muscle groups in your body.
This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not address individual circumstances. It is not a substitute for professional advice or help and should not be relied on to make decisions of any kind. Any action you take upon the information presented in this article is strictly at your own risk and responsibility!