The smart thing abou this is that you will understand better how to leverage your exercises to make much better use of them

So, as you can guess from this, it's not just about knowing the complicated and often almost unpronouncable Latin names of the muscles.

"Latin is a language, that's dead as dead can be - it killed the ancient Romans, and now it's killing me" - inscription inside my latin dictionary, circa 1967!

It's also about their primary functions, how they operate in the different sequences of activity and perhaps just as important where bodybuilding exercises are concerned, their counter uses as well. Their secondary uses that are so vital in how our bodies work.

What are counter uses? (I feel sure that there is a technical name for these, but this will serve the purpose). Well, often a muscle, or muscle group, will be used to manage and balance the use of another, enabling complete control of movement.

By understanding this fully, you will appreciate much better how you can utilize this capacity of many, if not the majority of muscles, to be tested during the bodybuilding exercises you plan to use.

Of course, the main goal in each set of exercises you do is to challenge each major muscles primary function and what will need to be done to give them the additional strength, tone and growth that will be your primary goal.

The bodybuilding exercises that you pitch for each series of repetitions in each muscle area, will have the focus of improving their performance. If the outcome were less than that you might wonder why it was worth the bother in the first place.

Absolutely right. And that remains the goal. By using your bodybuilding exercise to also focus, through understanding all the muscles in the group and their function, even as you exercise you will feel each muscle tested.

This will significantly add to your motivation, through that understanding, to deliver the bodybuilding exercise as well as possible, safe in the knowledge that you are doing yourself more good than you thought, especially when you expected just one major target muscle to be your goal.

How to find out more? Well, good bodybuilding books will enable you to recognize the major muscles groups. If you want to delve even further, checkout Wikipedia (where else!), with some well chosen keywords such as bodybuilding exercises, muscles etc.

Understand what bodybuilding exercises will give it strength and makes all the muscles in that group are worked for an even distribution of strength.

Working one arm more than the other could make the appearance seem lopsided.