
Many people find it helpful to pair muscle groups that are close together. If you’re training for a sport, you may benefit from emphasizing certain muscle groups frequently used in your sport. If you’re training for general fitness, you can follow a program that balances all the different muscle groups. You may want to experiment with a few different pairings until you find one that works best for you. There’s no right way to group your muscles together.

In general, the more joints that bend in an exercise, the more muscle groups you’re using. When designing your program, you may find some exercises fit into more than one category. Other stabilizer muscles need to brace your shoulder and core so you can efficiently lift the weight.

However, several other muscles also help your body flex at the elbow including brachialis, which is beneath your biceps, and brachioradialis, which is a large muscle in your forearm. For example, the biceps curl is one of the most common exercises to strengthen the biceps in the front of your upper arm.

Skeletal muscles are the muscles that you target in the gym that help your body move. Smooth muscles control involuntary functions like constricting your blood vessels. Cardiac muscles are the muscles that control your heart. There are three types of muscles in your body: cardiac, smooth, and skeletal.
