Isn’t it interesting how most gyms are set up and how most people spend their time doing weight lifting? We know that 70% of the body’s muscle mass lies below the waist. We can’t be sure, but it must be at least 80% (85%?) that lies below the solar plexus. Therefore its strange how much effort and emphasis is placed on working the upper body. Look around a weight room and it looks like around 80% of the people at anyone time are performing upper body exercises. Clearly this has to do with ego needs, and certainly, it is a greater focus for overemphasis on the part of men than women. In fact, the dominance of bodybuilding in strength training is a testament generally to the appeal of ego over health considerations. Bodybuilding by its very nature is a short term strategy that is not very functional for lifelong exercisers.

Routine Bias

Many workout routines that we see have 4 days focused on the upper body and 1 day focused on the lower body. Abdominal work is oftentimes spread throughout the days with few routines spending the entire day on the midsection. Does this make a lot of sense when one considers where most your muscle is located? Its easy to fall into the trap of thinking that because their are fewer exercises for the legs that you can get it all done in one day. There are in fact many exercises for the lower body, but not many people do the full complement of them. We are not including any machine exercises in this category.(in fact we only do machine exercises when we are injured). Many lower body exercises which are oftentimes ignored are side and plie lunges and cable attached leg movements in all four directions (front, back, and right and left side). This combined with the traditional squat, dead-lift, clean, front and back lunges and calf raises, can easily comprise two days in an exercise routine. The midsection, when done completely, can take another whole day. That leaves three days for the upper body (back, shoulders, chest + arms) and that balances the upper body and lower body a little better in terms of workout emphasis. The logic is pretty straightforward, emphasis with weight the areas of your body that can put the most muscle into action. This burns the most calories and builds the strongest overall body. This is not what most or even the vast majority of people do, however, there is no reason to follow them.