A great niche to target would be assistance for people who have a muscle group they don't use because of long-time postural issues or simply never having learned to use it.

For an issue like this, it doesn't work to simply do an exercise that supposedly works the muscle. Even if the muscle is the limiting link in the lift, if your body isn't using it, it won't get stronger. For example, my mid-upper-back was lax because of typical nerd posture. Even though it limited my squat, years of squatting didn't force those muscles to do anything. I just had a really weak squat that relied on other muscles compensating. Then one day I ran across a suggestion to do bat wings and hold at the top for 20-30 seconds, and I became close friends with some muscles in my back that I barely knew existed.

A web site showing you how to discover each muscle or muscle group in your body (bat wings for deep mid-back, glute bridge for glutes, etc.) would be AMAZING, and I bet people would get referred there all the time from places like r/Fitness where people go for advice.

Do you really need exercises to target niche muscles ( can understand if you are doing rehab post injury or actually bodybuilding to enter a contest)? Most folks who want to be fit, only need to focus on compound movements ( bench/incline presses, squats, deadlifts, pushups, pullups) which target all muscle groups.

In general I agree that compound movements are the best, but in my personal experience most people have postural weaknesses and habitual movement patterns that they just might not be aware of that even compound movements have a hard time addressing. When you start exercising your body may overcompensate for these weaknesses by recruiting muscles that might be less than ideal for the movement, which can lead to injury (which happened in my case).

For me personally, one of those postural imbalances turned into an injury (shoulder), and I found doing exercises that targeted a very specific muscle (infraspinatus) really helped in my recovery.

I think everyone could benefit from spending some time exploring their body by targeting muscles that may be easy to ignore in larger compound movements, if only for bringing awareness to them (which should benefit the main movements in the long run by making them more efficient).

I agree about posture, see too many people with postural issues, almost makes me want to tell them to go see a physical therapist/personal trainer. Body awareness, I realized is only possible if you have been athletic all your life, for most people that awareness is just not there. Yoga is great - it stresses strength, flexibility and balance. And the complex movements bring attention to those "weak" muscles. I do it once a week with weight training and it has improved my flexibility and kept me injury free.

Absolutely, once you start working on your own postural issues you start noticing it in everyone around you as well. I do think anyone can gain that body awareness though, it's not just for those that have been athletic all their lives. I didn't come to having a physical exercise practice until my early 30s and the amount of internal body awareness I've gained in the past few years has been amazing. It really deepened my seated meditation practice as well.

Yoga definitely is great and I practice asana 5x per week. I will say that my injury came up during an asana class, though, and it wasn't until I really targeted my weak scapular muscle groups that it got better.

I'd wager many of us need rehab despite any apparent injury, but rather due to years of abusing our bodies by sitting still for the majority of our waking hours, and sitting with poor posture. Specific targeted exercises at the start can get people into a condition where the compound movements and other exercises are even feasible (that is, sustainable or less likely to cause injury).

The comment you are replying to explicitly gives an example where compound movements weren't generating results, because of compensation by other muscles. This is the sort of thing a real trainer would provide (but a big-box 'trainer' might well never notice, even if they had you doing compound lifts).

Can you clarify bat wings? Are they sinilar to YTWLs? When I google, all I find are Moms trying to get Michele Obama arms.

The thing is - there would not be a one-size-fit-all exercise for each muscle group; you would rather need an exercise for each combination of A, B in "muscle A is weak but surrounding muscle B is strong"

I'm not sure if the B dimension affects exercise choice. If it does, it could be covered by providing a short list of exercises to try for activating each muscle group A. That way the user doesn't have to figure out which muscle(s) B are compensating, which could be challenging for a lot of people who need this information. In my case, I'm still not sure exactly how my body was compensating for the muscles in my back that weren't being utilized.

I think that there are fewer likely culprits than you might think. Most lifting coaches end up heavily relying on only a few cues per exercise, because there aren't that many common pathologies. So something like this could be useful if couched in the normal "not medical advice" sort of way. Yeah, this might not apply to you, but if you find that you e.g. squat with too much forward lean, here is a small set of exercises to augment your workout that you should try for 6 weeks and see if it helps.

Something like that would seem useful to a lot of lower-mid weightlifters who don't have a real lifting coach.

Smart people tend to overthink things, i.e. looking for exercises that isolate smaller muscles. If you have neck, back, or posture issues the chances are you will benefit greatly from just lifting weights. Before I started training I had terrible back pains and spontaneous spasms in the neck, which went away within weeks of regular training. Moreover, if I ever miss training for too long the pain returns. Focus on building up the strength to do respectable weight on the main compound lifts. Your body will thank you.

On the other hand, I spent a year ramping up my bicycling, and then went on a 7-day trip spanning 535 miles. I did some serious damage to my knees because while my main cycling muscles had the strength for the trip, some of my stabilizing muscles did not.

I couldn't get back on the bike without knee pain for months. Now I am totally out of shape. I could go to PT, as I was given a referral, but it's expensive, and I prefer self-help resources.

PT may be expensive, but a good therapist is worth it. I abused my body by basically not moving throughout my 20s, and even once I got in shape I was prone to various injuries. The PT got me through a lower back injury, a hip injury, a shoulder injury, and a leg injury. These were not caused (except for the back) by traumas (in the case of the back, trauma exacerbated an existing issue), but mostly by some combination of weak muscles, poor form, poor flexibility, or overuse (overuse for me, a person in even marginally better shape wouldn't have had issues at my activity level). I kept up a lot of the things I did/learned there and, other than the back which will be a perennial issue, have not had any recurrence.

There's a lot of benefit to finding someone that teaches you both what to do and how to do it, and is also better informed and more competent than most fitness trainers. The good ones will also walk you through a basic physiology course so you can understand the why of it all (why did I become injured, why does this prevent or reduce the risk of a future injury).

> There's a lot of benefit to finding someone that teaches you both what to do and how to do it, and is also better informed and more competent than most fitness trainers. The good ones will also walk you through a basic physiology course so you can understand the why of it all (why did I become injured, why does this prevent or reduce the risk of a future injury).

This is a big part of why I have avoided it thus far... I have a hard enough time getting a doctor that I feel like cares about my issues (rather than just getting me out the door as quick as possible) enough to listen and understand. I don't want to spend a bunch of time and money trialing different therapists. I wish there was a resource for this online.

I agree though, if I plan to continue the type of cycling I did last year, it's probably going to become a necessity.

That's a fair concern. I went on word-of-mouth reputation from coworkers (younger with sports injuries; older with age related issues, mostly knees, hips, and shoulders) to select a clinic. My first PT was decent, but not communicative, but I was there long enough to see which PTs were better than the rest and when I had to go back a couple years later was able to select who I wanted.

Cycling is not strength training. Did you do some form of resistance training prior to the trip?

I train regularly (5 days a week), back still hurts.

It is super possible to have imbalances even with regular training. Muscles that are weak will not be engaged during compound lifts unless specifically made to engage, either through isolation exercises, or through awareness. A personal trainer or physical therapist can help with either path.

IMO it goes without saying that any beginner weight lifter should start with a personal trainer such that they learn correct form, etc.

> Like a lot of people working in tech, I've had persistent neck and posture issues for years. I'd love to see you expand to cover those, focusing on the many smaller muscles in the neck like SCM/Scalenes/Occipitals/etc.

I did some things on-and-off for posture (mostly rear delts), but what I did consistently, and think helped the most, was heavy (for me) deadlifts.

I'm curious: how many pullups can you do? I ask because they take a lot of lat strength, and your lats do a lot of work holding up your back.

Another vote for deadlifting here. With a desk based day job and being a keen cyclist my posterior chain muscles were under-developed compared to my quads etc - deadlifting helped strengthen my glutes, hamstrings and lower back significantly and pretty much all of my back pain has gone.

I didn't use a coach, but did study a lot of videos on deadlift form and also videoed myself to check I was doing it properly.

Unfortunately I'm limited in what I can do overhead due to an old neck injury, so pullups are out. Most upper body stuff causes me pain so I have to be extra careful dialing in the right movements, weight, and reps.

I've heard deadlifts are one of the best exercises, I can't wait to get back to PT and get a personal trainer so I can do those correctly. I doubt I've done enough with lats.

Lateral pulls are basically sitting pullups, and tend to be a lot easier on the neck. They're associated with a big ol' piece of gym equipment, which might be.... tough to get your hands on right now, but definitely look into them.

You're right, though, that deadlifts (performed correctly and safely!) are pretty amazing for your back in general.

> tough to get your hands on right now

If you've got something up high to tie a band to, that's something.

Have you tried archery? My neck and shoulderproblems got a lot better after I started with that.

Doesn't archery normally cause uneven muscle development between right and left side of a body?

Especially for youth yes, but there are exercises for that too.

I came to comment the same as you, I saw it in the traps muscle, it's shown as one, but it is interesting to know that it has 3 parts[1], and there are other exercises more effective for the mid section like face pull. About the "where you have the pain idea" I love it, it would be also cool to learn about the antagonist muscles.

(Disclaimer I'm not an expert). I think a common bad posture in-front of the computer is the one that rotates your shoulders forward which overloads some muscles in the chest, which are antagonist of the middle traps, middle traps get weak, and your back falls forwards, face pull is great exercise to make them stronger. Another common one for those sitting long hours, is the tightness of the psoas, which can cause hip problems, and knee problems if you try to run without stretching, I think the antagonist is the buttocks, that gets weak from sitting and you would need to exercise to correct the hip problems.

Don't trust my comments, I just wanted to put two examples of mechanism that I learned, but I don't have enough knowledge to explain it properly or be 100% sure this is correct, always consult with a pro.

[1] https://www.physio-pedia.com/File:Trapezius_animation.gif

Gravity boots have fixed all of my back/neck/posture problems from sitting at a computer.

Inversion is the key to decompressing the spine/hips/neck and you only need to do it a few times a week for ~10min each time. I go to a local park and hang upside down from a sturdy pull-up bar for 2-4min three times.

You could also do it at home with a pull-up bar, or get even fancier and buy an inversion table for ~$200.

I know I'm sounding like an infomercial here, but it really works.

Others likely have covered this, but to add my experience I also had neck/posture issues and pain until I started doing compounds (squats, deadlifts) at least three times a week.

For me, physical therapy did nothing, and I suspect my issue was fundamental in that my musculoskeletal system was underdeveloped and working out was the only way to fix it.

I hear you on this problem. You might consider checking out the articles and videos from https://mskneurology.com/. It's a superb resource.

Perhaps also add exercises which do the opposite, i.e. relax a muscle. I'm dealing with bruxism, and find it very difficult to relax my jaw.

For real, first thing I did was try and click the neck but it’s unclickable