What does it cost to look up which muscle drives a lift?

Nothing here. All 158 exercise pages are free to read, need no account, and are open on the web, so you can read one on a laptop or send someone a link to it.

No. Each page has a looping demonstration clip and a written muscle panel that separates what drives the lift from what only steadies you. If you want animated 3D anatomy, this is not the thing that gives you it.

What does the muscle panel actually say?

It names the muscle the lift is built around, the few that genuinely drive it alongside on lifts made of two halves, and the ones that assist or stabilise without driving it. They are three separate things on the page rather than one list of muscles worked.

Somebody training on their own who wants to know what a lift is doing before they do it. It is not built for coaching clients, and there is no professional tier, because there is no paid tier at all.

Does it do anything besides the exercise pages?

There is a workout builder that logs each set against a weight and shows what you lifted last time, and eleven written guides where every figure traces to a named, dated paper.

Back to the library

A free Muscle & Motion alternative

The same question, which muscle is actually doing the work, answered on a free page you do not have to install anything to read.

Last updated 28 August 2026

Start with the honest part. Muscle & Motion is built around animated 3D anatomy by a team that includes physiotherapists and specialists in how the body moves, and on depth of anatomy it is ahead of this site and will stay ahead of it. If that is what you are after, buy it.

What this page is about is narrower: what it costs to look one thing up, and whether you have to install anything to do it.

158 pages, free, open to anyone

Every exercise here has a page on the open web. No subscription, no account, no app to put on your phone before you can read one. You can open a lift on a laptop, or send the link to somebody who asked what it works.

There is no paid tier at all, so there is no individual plan, no professional plan and nothing held back for later. That also means there is nobody here to sell you anything, and no ads.

What the muscle panel says

Each page names the muscle the lift is built around, then the ones that only hold you steady, and keeps them apart. On the few lifts made of two halves it names the second driver too.

Those are three separate things on the page rather than one list of muscles worked, because a list that runs the driver together with the stabilisers answers a question nobody asked. A mirror shows you the shape of a lift. It does not show you where the load is going.

You can browse that way as well: filter by 14 muscles, 5 kinds of weight and 3 levels, with the muscle filter matching what drives the lift rather than what steadies it.

Start anywhere in the library, or with a Romanian deadlift or a pull-up.

What you are giving up

No 3D model. No animation you can rotate. No stretch or posture library, no yoga, and nothing built for showing a client on a clinic screen.

What is here is a looping clip of the lift and words about it, written from watching the clip. That is a smaller thing, and saying so is the only way the rest of this page is worth reading.

The written guides name their sources

Eleven guides cover what comes up across exercises: how long to rest, how many sets, how many reps, whether to train to failure, what progressive overload requires.

No figure on them stands alone: each names a paper, an author, a year and an identifier, and the build stops if one has no stored paper behind it.

Start with the mind-muscle connection or compound against isolation.

There is a logger too

The workout builder logs each set against a weight and shows what you lifted last time. Kilograms move a quarter at a time to 200, pounds half a pound at a time to 441, and it runs signed out with your sessions on your own device.

Common questions

What does it cost to look up which muscle drives a lift?: Nothing here. All 158 exercise pages are free to read, need no account, and are open on the web, so you can read one on a laptop or send someone a link to it.
Is there 3D anatomy?: No. Each page has a looping demonstration clip and a written muscle panel that separates what drives the lift from what only steadies you. If you want animated 3D anatomy, this is not the thing that gives you it.
What does the muscle panel actually say?: It names the muscle the lift is built around, the few that genuinely drive it alongside on lifts made of two halves, and the ones that assist or stabilise without driving it. They are three separate things on the page rather than one list of muscles worked.
Who is it for?: Somebody training on their own who wants to know what a lift is doing before they do it. It is not built for coaching clients, and there is no professional tier, because there is no paid tier at all.
Does it do anything besides the exercise pages?: There is a workout builder that logs each set against a weight and shows what you lifted last time, and eleven written guides where every figure traces to a named, dated paper.

About this page

Muscle & Motion is a separate product made by Muscle & Motion LTD and this site is not connected to it. It is free to download and sells subscriptions, listed on the UK App Store at £14.99 a month or £89.00 a year for an individual, with separate professional and business tiers, checked on 28 August 2026. Both change, so their own listing is the one to read today.

Nothing on this page is a claim about how well they do their job. They do it well, and for a trainer or a physiotherapist the professional tier is buying something this site does not sell. The comparison here is only about what it costs to read one answer. The rest of the comparison lane is written to the same rules.

Open any lift and read what drives it.

BUILD WORKOUT

Free to read, all 158 of them, with no account.