Not what, but why?

Maybe about a month ago or so, I briefly posted about clients or members asking about "which muscle does this work?"  As I thought more about it, I realized that many people just like the more "sciencey" answer, but it serves no real good for them.  A better question to ask, yourself and a trainer, is "why is this exercise or series of exercises appropriate for me?"

Just knowing what muscle becomes activated serves no real purpose.  As a trainer, I look more at balance between planes of movement.  This may be contrary to what other trainers look at, but I always look at movement first, which is much more skilled.  The muscles come next, as if you cannot move correctly then targeting certain muscles may not serve a purpose.  Of course, if an obese individual comes to me for training, it does change somewhat to how I approach it.

Since I proposed the "why" question, think about what your goals are.  If your goals are to lose weight and you end up doing a lot of things that only impact small muscles such as your biceps (front of your upper arm) or your calves (back of lower leg), then you're likely not going to get anywhere anytime soon.  These muscles are small and don't have a high energy requirement and thus losing weight is probably going to take an eternity.  However, if you do barbell front squats, you generally use most of the muscles in your entire body to do the exercise and obviously with more muscle you have more energy use.

If your goal is to jump higher, than knowing what muscles are required isn't all that practical, but how to get them to simultaneously activate is.  This also comes with practice, confidence, and being able to contract your muscles when needed to accomplish your goal.

There's a lot to training more than just muscles, consider asking why before anything else, and learn what later.