lifting question...

[bucketheadtf]

When I see a lot of people's work out routines. I notice that they are doing two or 3 different exercises that work the same muscle. I'm not talking about the chest, because I understand there are many different areas of the chest that can be worked.

Here is an example:

My buddy does this for his triceps..

Lying tricep extensions (3 sets of 10)
Tricep kickbacks (3 sets of 10)

And for biceps:
Barbel Curls (3 sets of 10)
Incline dumbbell curls (3 sets of 10)
Dumbbel concentration curls (3 sets of 10)

Ok...so here is my question...

What is the point of doing so many different exercises which work the same muscle? Don't you run a risk of overworking or hurting the muscle?


Any info would be greatly apreciated, thx

[CoastieAd]

People work with many different exercises because although something like the tricep is relatively small, different exercises hit it in different places. For example you said your friends does lying tricep extensions and tricep kickbacks. The kick backs are going to focus more on the upper area of the tricep while the extensions will work from the elbow all the way down to the lats. Also with the bicep exercises going from the barbell curl to dumbbell curls allows you to isolate each arm. By doing this you most certainly know both arms are putting forth the same effort with the dumbbell, while during the curl of the barbell the workings of each arm may not be proportionate. Although it may not seem like it most exerercises (even if it is for something as small as a bicep) may hit a different area in the bicep you did even if they are both called BICEP EXERCISES and so on and so forth.

[Killa_Z]

just to add to what CoastieAd already said, you say you can understand why people do different amounts of exercises on muscles like the chest because it has different areas but so do the triceps and biceps; biceps have a long and short head (inner&outer) whilst triceps have a long,medial and lateral head, so no matter how small the muscle is it can have different parts and so you must perform certain exercises according to what part of the muscle you want to hit.

[Old_Fart2]

There are perfectly valid routines that only do one exercise, such as 8 sets of 8 reps or 5 sets of 5 reps, for each body part. Usually those are compound exercises that work the entire muscle group and supporting muscle groups.

But most workout routines use several different exercises for each body part for several reasons:

• Hitting the different areas of the muscle group, as mentioned above.

• Doing a compound exercise first (such as bench press), then isolation exercises (such as flyes or pec deck)

• Preventing staleness or boredom

[painless2]

Piling on here, you also have to look at the anatomy of a muscle. Let's use the triceps as the example:
http://www.exrx.net/Muscles/TricepsBrachii.html

Because the long head of the triceps is a 2 joint muscle, crossing both the elbow and shoulder, you can change the amount of tension/stretch by changing the angles at the respective joints. The same reason that people put their arm above their head and allow the elbow to flex, when they stretch the triceps, is illustrative of the same principle. Their is a difference between doing a simply pushdown, where the arms are at the side, and a skull crusher, where the shoulder is flexed. There are optimal lines of pull and points of best mechanical advantage, accordingly these happen when the muscle is under tension. It's called the length-tension relationship, and thus when the muscle is just past 100% resting length,it is able to generate the maximum amount of force. Having little stretch on a muscle can do things as well, given that almost all humna joints have redundant muscles or heads, that do the same action, single joint mostly. If the arm is at the side, for example, the long head of the triceps is not under tension and therefore, while it will work, it is not in a strong position, thus allowing the other heads and the anconeus to work more optimally. The point is this, different angles and different exercises allow a more complete workout on all parts of a given muscle.

[Manfred_Man]

great question, bucketheadtf!

inquiries like these lead to excellent responses like those posted here! great answers, guys!

[bucketheadtf]

Wow!! I had no idea. Much thanks to all who took the time to help me out.