Anytime you set up a strength training program you want to make sure that you balance your strength so your body doesn’t develop muscle imbalances. However, humans are very frontally fixated and spend so much time training muscles that they can see in the mirror such as the chest, biceps, and abs. I think that if our eyes were placed in the back of our heads, I am sure everyone would want nice glutes (ass) and spend little time on their chest and abs.
When I am training I don’t focus on specific muscles, I focus on the planes that I am performing the movements in . For example, exercises of the upper body consist of horizontal pushes, horizontal pulls, vertical pushes, and vertical pulls. In addition, exercises of the lower body are made up of quad domaniate and hip dominate movements. To balance the body, you must combine a horizontal press with a horizontal pull and a vertical press with a vertical pull. For the lower body, you would want to balance the quad dominate exercises with the hip dominate exercises.
Upper Body Horizontal Press
1. Bench Press (incline, decline, DB, etc.)
2. Push ups
3. Dips
4. Cable press
Upper Body Horizontal Pull
1. Bent-over row
2. Inverted pullup
3. Seated/stadning cable row
Upper Body Vertical Press
1. Sholder press
2. Push press
3. Handstand pushups
4. Jerks
5. DB scaption
Upper Body Vertical Pulls
1. Pullups
2. Lat pulldowns
Lower Body Quad Dominant
1. Squats
2. Split squats
3. Lateral squats
4. Lunges
5. Deadlifts
Lower Body Hip Dominant
1. Good mornings
2. RDL
3. Glute bridge
4. Back extensions
5. Reverse hyper extension
Remember to always give equal attention to the anterior and posterior portions of your body. Too many people spend more time working on the anterior than the posterior and this causes serious muslce imbalances and decrements in stregth and power.
This is a perfect example of someone that does not have a strong posterior chain…
