Learn how muscles are named. Many muscles' names have clues as to their shape, size, appearance and function. For example, a deltoid is a triangular muscle, oblique muscles have fibers that run at an angle, and an abductor muscle pulls a body part away from the midline.
Learn the muscle groups. There are eight basic groups: The face, the front (anterior) torso, the back (posterior) torso, the thigh-leg, the front shoulder, the back shoulder, the front forearm and the back forearm.
Study charts. Anatomy textbooks have detailed and labeled charts of each muscle system.
Use mnemonic devices---tricks that make complex words and concepts easy to remember. Medical students, teachers and doctors have been using these for centuries, and they have published them in books, class notes and online.
An example of a mnemonic device is the three B's, the group of muscles used to bend the elbow. They are the biceps, the brachialis and the brachioradialis.
Use an applied-memory strategy. Many medical schools use the Dean Vaughn system for applied memory. This system takes part of a medical word, makes an absurd sound-alike association, and ties that association in with the word's meaning. For example, gastr- means stomach. In the Dean Vaughn system, gastr sounds like "gas truck," and a gas truck with a stomach for a tanker is easy to remember.
Test yourself with flash cards.