The human body contains three types of muscles: cardiac, smooth, and skeletal. There’s really only one cardiac muscle — the heart. Smooth muscles are the muscles of our organs. Both are vitally important muscle groups, but when it comes to anatomy for runners, we’re going to ignore them. We’re interested only in skeletal muscles. They move bone and thereby help us perform work and achieve movement.

There are some 640 skeletal muscles in the human body, but that’s a misleading number. Many of these are tiny muscles in our face that help us form expressions and move our eyes and tongue. Take these away, and we are left with about 400 muscles.

We can chop that number in half because each muscle is part of a pair. One is the agonist, or moving, muscle, and the other is the antagonist, or opposing, muscle. To perform any movement, the agonist muscle has to contract and thereby move the bone to which it’s attached. The antagonist muscle must relax to permit the contraction. Otherwise, the two muscles create a stalemate.

Here’s an example of how these pairs function. Consider a biceps dumbbell curl. To perform that exercise, you hold a dumbbell palm up and flex your elbow, raising the dumbbell toward your shoulder. This movement requires you to contract the biceps muscle. But in order to bend the elbow, the triceps muscle on the back of your arm has to relax and stretch.

Understanding pairing is important. This key concept will help organize : Whenever one muscle is working, its opposing muscle is resting. Put that in your back pocket for now; we’ll return to it later.

So, we’re now left with about 200 pairs of muscles. But even that list can be chopped down significantly because we organize many of these muscles into groups that together power the movements we will be performing. For example, there are four large muscles that together are referred to as the quadriceps group, found on the front of the upper leg. This muscle group powers extension of the knee. These muscles are opposed by three large muscles referred to as the hamstrings, located on the back of the leg, which powers flexion of the knee.

These groupings can be found all over the body, from the shoulders to the calves. Now we’re getting to a manageable list of muscles.

The diagrams below,��showing key muscle groups, have been organized further by collecting these groups of muscles into mega-groups that work together to perform big movements.

This takes us down to just four categories:

1. Push muscles: The muscle groups of the chest, shoulders, and triceps, which help the body extend the arms and push the body away from something or push something away from the body.
2. Pull muscles: The muscle groups of the upper back and biceps, which together pull the body up or forward, or pull something down or toward the body.
3. Rotation muscles: The muscle groups of the torso, which power twisting movements. These include some of the core muscles used for balance.
4. Leg muscles: We’ll collect all of the leg muscles together because many big leg movements involve all of the major muscle groups found here, including the legs’ pushing and pulling muscles.

Although any given exercise may not use all of the muscles in the group in which its target muscle is located, it will certainly use at least some of them. For example, a dumbbell chest press uses all of the push muscles (chest, shoulders, and triceps), while a dumbbell shoulder press uses two of them (the shoulders and triceps).

Now let’s return to the pairing concept discussed earlier. If an exercise uses one of the big muscle groups — the push muscles, for example — then the opposing muscles — the pull muscles — would not be working as hard. So when the primary muscle group being worked reaches temporary failure (the state at which it is too fatigued to do another repetition at that resistance level without resting first), the opposing muscle group is still fresh enough to get started on another exercise.

Is this a foolproof, comprehensive way to categorize exercises? No, for two reasons. First, although the concept of agonist and antagonist muscle groups teaches that one group is working while the opposing group is resting, the antagonist is never entirely quiet while the agonist is busy. That’s because its job is to oppose the movement slowly and help control it so nothing gets damaged in the process.

To understand this, imagine a group of workers lowering a piano from a high floor using a rope and pulley. Even though they would rely on gravity to pull the piano down to street level, they would still be working quite hard to make sure it came down gently, and not with a piano-splitting crash. The same is true for your antagonist muscles.

The second reason the pairing concept is not watertight is that some exercises use muscle groups from two, three, or even all four of these categories. So rather than thinking of the pairing framework as a law, think of it as a general guideline. It might not always provide an accurate description of a given exercise, but having this structure in mind will help us understand something important about each movement that we do.

Adapted from by Jeff Horowitz with permission of VeloPress.

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When you perform any strength-training movement, your muscles may be engaged not only actively, when a joint is flexed or extended, but also passively, as when a pose is being held. The push-up, for example, engages the muscles of the core without extending or contracting them; they work just by holding the body rigid as the upper body completes the exercise. Forcing the body to balance, then, forces a variety of muscle groups to get engaged and work to accomplish the underlying movement.

As you will soon see, there are many ways to do this: We can remove a support by standing on one leg while doing an exercise. This creates lateral instability and forces the muscles of the hips, legs, and core to engage to keep us from toppling over. We can sit or lie back on a stability ball while exercising, which forces the core to engage in order to keep us from tipping over. Instead of doing exercises with dumbbells bilaterally (a dumbbell in each hand), we can do them unilaterally (a dumbbell in one hand only). This puts lateral pressure on the body as our center of gravity shifts toward the hand with the dumbbell. Think of that scene from The Flintstones when a rack of dino-ribs is delivered to their car at a drive-in. Remember what happened? The weight of the ribs flipped the car over. To avoid that same result, the body must engage the core to remain in place.

The net result of all these efforts is to engage more muscles during each exercise and to ask the body to figure out how to control itself in space while moving in complex ways. By challenging the body to figure out the best ways to do this, and to gain strength in order to do it, we will be preparing the body to more effectively and efficiently engage these same muscle groups in the sports we most care about.

Here, we take some well-known, traditional strength moves and challenge you with additional muscular engagement.

Single-Arm Dumbbell Chest Press

Hold one dumbbell overhead, with your elbow slightly bent. Lower the weight, flaring your elbow outward. Bring the weight down until you feel a stretch across your chest. This version of the chest press destabilizes your body and forces your core to work harder.

Hip Raises

Lie faceup on the floor with one leg bent and one extended straight out, hovering about 2 inches off the floor. Position a medicine ball under the bent leg’s foot. Raise your hips until you have created a straight line from your knees to your upper body. This variation will engage the hamstrings of your planted leg as they prevent the ball from rolling away.

Push-Up

Challenge yourself in this go-to move by placing your feet on a stability ball. Making the platform for your feet movable introduces instability, which engages your core even more.

Side Hip Raises

Lie on your side on an exercise mat. Raise your hips in the air to a side plank position, holding your body in a rigid line while resting on your elbow. Hold your free arm straight up. Lower your hips down to an inch or two off the mat, then raise them back up again. By putting a percentage of your body weight farther from your center, you decrease your leverage over your body and raise the challenge for your core in its effort to hold your body stable in space.

Make sure that your elbow is directly below your shoulder. If the shoulder is even slightly out of line, it will endure excessive stress and the move will be much harder to perform.

Arm Circles/Reverse Arm Circles

Hold a dumbbell or medicine ball with both hands, and stand on either side of a BOSU with your feet shoulder-width apart. Extend your elbows to straighten your arms, then draw a large clockwise circle with the weight. Experiment with how close you can move your feet together; the narrower they are, the harder the move.

Weighted Swings

Stand on either side of a BOSU with your feet 2″–3″ apart and your knees slightly bent, holding a dumbbell or medicine ball with both hands near your outer hip.

Swing the weight up diagonally toward the opposite side. Keep your arms as straight as possible through the swing, especially during the middle phase of the movement, when your arms are in front of you. Keep your eyes on the weight as you swing, and aim to swing your body as a single unit.

Adapted from by Jeff Horowitz, with permission of VeloPress.

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Imagine that you have been feeling a twinge in your right hamstring muscles. It started with a bit of soreness when you first began running, but recently that muscle group has been taking longer and longer to ease up, and now you are feeling some pain in that area nearly all the time. You react by stretching your hamstrings and to the affected area. Not a bad strategy, but the injury is not really getting any better. This may be because you are addressing the wrong problem.

The act of running requires the activation of a number of large and small muscles in ordered sequence. The part of the running motion that involves push-off and knee flexion is called the “toe-off, or pawing, phase.” Imagine a lion scraping at the ground with its paw; that’s you as you push against the ground to shove your body forward.

The major muscle groups involved in this motion are the hamstrings (comprising three on each side), which govern knee contraction, and the gluteus maximus muscles of your backside, which control hip extension. These are some of the most powerful muscles in your body, and for you to run properly, they must be fully engaged. The contraction of your hamstrings occurs quickly afterward as you follow though with your movement.

So let’s get back to your tweaky hamstring. Could it be that your gluteus maximus muscle is not powerful enough to do what you are asking of it while running? If that is the case, then the burden of work falls on your hamstrings. But your hamstrings are not strong enough to do all the work, and they eventually are overwhelmed by the effort and begin to break down quicker than they can recover. This could have been the cause of the pain and inflammation you are feeling on your right side.

Weakness in the gluteus maximus can be addressed with strength training; just running will not directly strengthen those muscles. Why? Because the gluteus maximus muscles are already failing to fire properly. Running more will not engage them any more effectively; that will only continue to stress the hamstring muscles, possibly leading to an even more serious injury, such as a rupture.

In sum, the complex motion of running requires balanced strength throughout the body—not just in the obvious running muscles such as the hamstrings and the glutes, which power forward motion, but also in a host of stabilizing muscles throughout the body.

Put another way, to improve as a runner, you need to run. But if all you do is run, you may not be running for long.

This workout introduces you to exercises that strengthen your gluteus medius, which directly increases your lateral stability while running. Strengthening this muscle ultimately results in less strain on your iliotibial bands, hips, and knees.

Adductor Leg Raises | 20-30 reps

Lie on your left side. Bend your right knee and point it at the ceiling while placing your right foot on the floor in front of your left knee. This gets your right leg out of the way so that your left leg can do the target exercise.

Keep your left knee extended and raise your left leg up as high as possible, and then lower it again. (Keep the foot of your moving leg rotated, with your heel pointed upward.) This constitutes 1 rep. Complete the target number of reps, then repeat on the other side.

Windshield Wipers | 10-20 reps

Lie faceup on your exercise mat, with your legs straight up in the air and your knees extended and locked. Place your arms outward, palms down. Keep your legs together and swing them down to your right side as far as you can comfortably let them fall. Aim to keep your shoulders flat on the mat. Swing your legs in one smooth motion over to your left side, then return to the right side. This constitutes 1 rep.

Hip Raises | 20-50 reps

Lie faceup on your exercise mat, with your knees bent, your legs together, and your feet flat on the floor. Raise your hips in the air until you have achieved a straight line from your knees to your upper body. Be sure to keep the raised leg in the same position throughout; only your hips should be rising up.

Leg Raises | 10-30 reps

Lie faceup on your exercise mat, with your hands wedged under your backside and your legs extended. Raise your legs off the floor until they are perpendicular to the ground, then slowly lower them again. If needed, reduce resistance by bending your knees, which will increase your leverage in moving your legs. This makes the exercise a bit easier to perform.

Supermans | 20-100 reps

Lie facedown on an exercise mat with your arms outstretched. Arch your body upward, raising your shoulders and your legs simultaneously, then lower back down. This constitutes 1 rep. Be sure to perform the reps quickly, as pulses rather than as slow movements.

Push-Ups | 10-100 reps

Lie facedown on an exercise mat, with your palms down on the mat slightly wider than your armpits. Raise your body up by extending your elbows. After reaching full extension, bend your elbows and lower down to an inch or two above the mat. This constitutes 1 full rep.

Extra Challenge

To offer additional challenge, divide your target number of reps by two, and perform half of them with one leg held an inch or two off the floor. Then immediately continue on to the remaining reps with the other leg upraised. This form engages your core more effectively as it struggles to maintain balance and also provides a good workout for your glutes, which will be working to hold the upraised leg off the floor.

Adapted from by Jeff Horowitz, with permission of VeloPress.

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The following exercises are excerpted from .

Deadlifts and Front Raises

Muscle Targets: Lower back, hamstrings, traps, delts, biceps, triceps

Equipment: Dumbbell or medicine ball, BOSU (advanced)

Form

1.��Stand with your feet a bit wider than shoulder width. Tilt your pelvis backward and arch your back, with your knees slightly bent. Keep your pelvis tilted throughout the exercise, even as you straighten up and bend over again.

2.�� Bend forward at the hips, being careful not to round your back. Grip a dumbbell or medicine ball with both hands.

3.��Straighten and raise the weight up over your head toward the ceiling in one smooth movement. When the weight is at the highest point of the movement, your back should still be slightly arched and your pelvis tilted backward.

Rep: Hold for a moment, then let the weight swing back down. This constitutes 1 rep.

# Reps: 10–20

Tip: To get accustomed to the deadlift position, practice gripping your sides with your thumbs at the back of your obliques and bend over.

Coach’s Note
This exercise combines two exercises into one complex movement. Our program does not incorporate the Deadlift as a stand-alone exercise because the major muscles used to perform the Deadlift—the glutes and the lower back muscles—can generate so much power that you need a heavy weight to challenge them; that kind of weight is usually found only in a gym. Instead, we get results by making the exercise more complex.

Advanced Form
Perform this movement from atop a BOSU, either side up.

Fire Hydrants

Muscle Target: Glutes (medius)

Equipment: None

Form

1.��Get on your hands and knees on your exercise mat.

2. Keep your right knee bent and raise your right leg out toward the side as high as you can.

Tip: In order to fully engage the gluteus medius, make sure that you do not rotate your body as you lift your leg. Keep your body square, and focus on moving nothing but your leg.

Rep: Complete your target number of reps, then switch to your other side.

# Reps: 20–30

Advanced Form
When working the right leg during this exercise, hold your left arm off the ground and extended in front of you. By removing one of the supports for your body, you introduce instability to the exercise. Switch arms and repeat on the other side.

Hip Raises

Muscle Targets: Glutes, lower back, abs (transverse)

Equipment: Medicine ball (advanced)

Form

1.��Lie faceup on your exercise mat, with your knees bent, your legs together, and your feet flat on the floor.

2. Raise your hips in the air until you have achieved a straight line from your knees to your upper body.

Rep: Lower down to the starting position. This constitutes 1 rep.

Tip: Be sure to keep the raised leg in the same position throughout; only your hips should be rising up.

# Reps: 20–50

Coach’s Note: This exercise works the muscles on the back of your body, especially the glutes, while also providing a good stretch for the hip flexor muscles on the front of your body.

Advanced Forms
Stretch one leg straight out, and hold it just a couple of inches off the floor. Now push off your other foot and raise your hips up in the air. Perform the target number of reps, then repeat on the other side

This is similar to the one-legged form above, except with one leg planted on a medicine ball instead of on the floor, which engages the hamstrings of your planted leg as they prevent the ball from rolling away.

Pullovers

Muscle Targets: Delts, triceps, seratus anterior

Equipment: Dumbbell or medicine ball, stability ball (advanced)

Form

1.��Lie on your exercise mat faceup, with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor.

2.��Hold a weight directly above you with both hands.

3.�� Keeping your elbows locked in a slightly bent position, draw the weight backward until it almost touches the floor, then pull it back until your arms are pointed straight up to the ceiling once again.

Tip: Keep your elbows locked in a slightly bent position throughout the movement. If you bend and extend your elbow as you perform the movement, you focus the exercise on the triceps rather than on the other major muscle groups that we are aiming to improve.

Rep: This constitutes 1 rep.

# Reps: 20–30

Advanced Forms
Lie faceup on a stability ball while performing this exercise.

Complete all reps while holding a dumbbell with only one hand, then switch to the other hand.

Push-Ups

Muscle Targets: Pecs, delts (anterior), triceps, abs, glutes

Equipment: Stability ball (advanced)

Form

1.��Lie facedown on an exercise mat, with your hands palms down on the mat slightly wider than your armpits.

2.��Raise your body up by extending your elbows.

Rep After reaching full extension, bend your elbows and lower down to an inch or two above the mat. This constitutes 1 full rep.

# Reps: 10–100

Tip
Keep your chin up during the exercise, turn the heels of your palms slightly outward with your fingers pointed slightly inward, and do not lock your elbows at full extension because this takes the pressure off your muscles and puts it on your joints. Keep your back straight throughout. Do not arch your back or let your hips sag down. Keep your body rigid, which not only protects your lower back, but also effectively works the muscles of your core.

Advanced Forms
Divide your target number of reps by two, and perform half of them with one leg held an inch or two off the floor. Then immediately continue on to the remaining reps with the other leg upraised. This form engages your core more effectively as it struggles to maintain balance and also provides a good workout for your glutes, which will be working to hold the upraised leg off the floor.

Keep your feet on a stability ball while performing this exercise. Making the platform for your feet movable introduces instability, which engages your core even more.

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