Exercises like bench presses, squats, deadlifts, and similar movements are great because these exercises are effective for targeting many muscle groups simultaneously.

However, the human body also has many smaller muscles that are important for supporting bigger muscles and developing a symmetrical physique. But the problem is that many people don’t know how to target these smaller muscles, so they stay underdeveloped.

This can result in decreasing your strength, increasing the chance of injuries, and making you look less like a bodybuilder.

Start Training These 4 Neglected Muscles

1. Serratus Anterior

The serratus anterior is at a top of the outer sides of the highest ribs. This muscle is responsible for assisting your scapula in rotating and stabilizing it against the rib cage.

To make this muscle easier to see, you need to be quite shredded. But if your body fat percentage is already low, then you can stretch it by doing pulldowns and pullovers. However, these exercises will only stretch this muscle, not grow it.

If you want to make it seriously visible, perform exercises like scapular push-ups and rope pulls with a high pulley. By doing these exercises, it’ll be enough to hit the serratus anterior twice a week to make this muscle strong and easily visible on your body.

2. Brachialis

This muscle can be found underneath the biceps and can be seen on the outside of each upper arm — between the biceps and triceps. The primary reason why you should start targeting this muscle is that it pushes the triceps and biceps further away from one another and makes your arms look bigger. You can target this muscle by performing regular biceps exercises, but it won’t be enough to see serious results.

So, you should start doing at least a few sets of overhand grip or neutral grip exercises. For instance, you can do barbell reverse curls or hammer curls while holding your palms with a thumbs-up grip

3. Tibialis Anterior

You can see the tibialis anterior on the lateral side of the front of your lower legs as it runs from below the knee to above the foot. Its function is to stabilize and balance the ankle. If you train this muscle, it can help you to increase your range of motion and decrease the chance of lower body injuries.

If you want to get these benefits, start doing kneeling tibialis anterior stretches, isometric exercises, and resistance band movements. But the easiest way is to strengthen this muscle is to use the leg curl machine.

If you want to hit this muscle from different angles, you can also perform additional exercises, but it isn’t necessary to see serious gains.

4. Sternocleidomastoid

This muscle is located at the front sides of the neck and is needed to turn the head to the right and left and tuck your chin. Training your neck muscles might not seem very important, but it’s recommended to do it if you want more stability while performing heavy weightlifting exercises and have a symmetrical body.

The easiest way to train neck muscles is to perform weighed neck extensions and flexion. Start doing weighed neck extensions by lying down on a bench and putting the weight plate on your forehand by using your arms to make sure that the weight plate wouldn’t fall on your face or anywhere else.

Use your neck to move the plate up and down. Complete the same process while lying on your right and left to train other neck muscles.

Because all of these muscles are relatively small, you don’t need to use heavy weights. Also, completing just a few sets per week is enough to see these muscles getting bigger and stronger.