List of Antagonistic Muscles/Movements

[Jungledoc]

Well, knowledge isn't power if it isn't practical. For building effective supersets I'd go back to what Dub said, and think movements, not muscles. In fact, for almost all program design movement is a more practical way to think. So vertical push/vertical pull. Horizontal push/horizontal pull. For isolation moves, think flexion/extension.

Pairing agonist/antagonist is only one strategy for building effective super sets.

You can hit the same movement with each of the exercises in the ss, maybe with slightly different exercises. The best example I can think of is the body builder doing 3 different elbow flexion lifts as a SS. Or 5 or 7, knowing bodybuilders as we do.

Or you can do unrelated exercises, like doing upper-body isolation lifts between sets of squats or DL. That's mostly a time-saving strategy to keep w/o from getting too long. One muscle group is resting while another is working. And really, that's all that the agonist/antagonist strategy is doing. There isn't any physiologic advantage of doing this (that I know of anyway).

Doing something like pairing lateral raises with iron crosses makes no sense to me at all--is that really something you are considering doing? Can you do an iron cross?

[Brak]

Yes I am considering doing it. If you look at my post I am taking about doing cable iron crosses. All things being equal, I'm sure I'll be able to do them with the cables set at 20lbs each.

And yes, I am looking more at movements, but running into trouble finding one for 45deg leg presses.
A previous poster gave the one for shrugs, but the link didn't give it a name, nor details of what muscles are being used.

[robertscott]

Yes I am considering doing it. If you look at my post I am taking about doing cable iron crosses. All things being equal, I'm sure I'll be able to do them with the cables set at 20lbs each.

And yes, I am looking more at movements, but running into trouble finding one for 45deg leg presses.
A previous poster gave the one for shrugs, but the link didn't give it a name, nor details of what muscles are being used.

you're overthinking this to the extreme.

Post your full workout and we can critique.

[Brak]

I don't believe I'm over thinking it - but mind you I do have OCD, so to me this is just normal. lol

I am currently reworking my workout, hence my questions.
I have for the longest time did a 3-day split:
Mon: Chest and Arms
Tue: Legs, Lower Back, Abs
Thur: Shoulders and Upper Back

Then a couple months ago I changed to a 4-day split:
Mon: Chest and Arms
Tue: Legs
Wed: Shoulders and Upper Back
Thur: Lower Back, Abs, Hips

I am now trying to reinvent it with something different. I saw on here a split where it had chest and back on one day, shoulders and arms on another and legs on another. It had the traps on back day, but said it could be done on shoulder day.
Also every thing was paired up chest, back,chest, back, chest, back, traps. And it bothered me that it was the odd man out.
So that kind of sent on me this current quest.

[robertscott]

chest and back together is going to be a much harder workout than shoulders and arms. I wouldn't split it up like that.

I meant for you to post the exercises you were doing so we could tell you whether you've set it up correctly. If you are happy with how it's going then there's no need

[Brak]

I agree with not splitting it up like that.
As I said, I am still in the "lab" creating my workout - so it would be premature to post it at this time.

Where should I post it at? Here in this thread, or should I start it in a new thread?

[Brak]

Ok, I posted as a new thread an 2-day split upper body workout:

http://exrx.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9433

Thanks for asking me to do so, I'm looking forward to getting your opinions.

[Jungledoc]

And yes, I am looking more at movements, but running into trouble finding one for 45deg leg presses.
A previous poster gave the one for shrugs, but the link didn't give it a name, nor details of what muscles are being used.

I don't think you've got the idea of what is meant by thinking movement. You are still discussing the function of isolated muscles. There isn't a separate movement for 45 degree leg presses.

Unless you are a bodybuilder trying to "bring out" or "bring up" a particular muscle to make it more visible, that sort of thinking won't help you much.

[Brak]

What is meant then?
In my mind the movement involved in a bicep curl is the reverse of a tricep pulldown, and the movement of a front lateral raise is the reverse of a pullover.

[Jungledoc]

Not meant to be harsh, but the answer is "so what?" Why does it matter if they are exactly reverse or not?

[Brak]

For the sake of symmetry, which is important to me.

[robertscott]

For the sake of symmetry, which is important to me.

a little too important it seems.

You are missing the forest for the trees with all these questions.

[Jungledoc]

I'm starting to think that your comment about OCD is more serious than I'd understood originally. Keeping one isolation exercise "symmetrical" with another is of no value. To keep your left side close to your right side makes sense, but "opposite" movements aren't supposed to necessarily equal in strength. That why I keep trying to convince you of the importance of movements, not of specific muscle groups.

We're getting to the point that we have reached the point of maximum benefit in some of these threads. If they don't go in a more valuable direction, we'll need to start winding them down.