Exercise Selection: Choosing the Best Exercises for YOU
No matter what your goal, showing up is half the battle. At least some part of the other half of success involves a well-thought out game plan. When it comes to building muscle and increasing strength, choosing the correct exercises, in the correct order based on your training goals is of utmost importance. There is truly no substitute for hard work and intensity when it comes to weight training and there will unquestionably be individuals whose programs are complete trash but go hard AF and those people will see gains. No doubt. But when you combine that same intensity and effort with correct programming, you will see better results in less time. Choosing the correct exercise at the correct time is one of the most important aspects of training.
There are many factors to consider when choosing what exercises to do when in your program. This article will break down some of those variables including::
How many days will you be weight training and how long are each of those workouts?
What is your training goal(s)
Personal Preference & Injury History
Compound vs isolation Movements
Pre-Exhaustion Training
DAYS & TIME
When it comes to exercise selection the first thing you need to consider is how many days you can reasonably commit to training and how long each of those training sessions will be. If person A can only commit to training 2X/week and person B can commit to training 5X/week, that makes a huge difference on what exercises to choose.
The less time you can commit to training, the more focused your training should be on bigger, “bang for your buck” exercises like squats, deadlifts, big presses and pulls like bench presses, shoulder presses, and row and pulldown variations. These exercises are all compound movements that focus on the largest muscle groups of the body like chest, shoulders, back, hamstrings, glutes, and quads. Compound movements are movements that involve at least two joints to complete the movement. For example, a bench press uses both the shoulder and elbow joint and the same can be said for the deadlift which uses the knee and hip joint.
If you don’t have a lot of time to train, performing single joint movements like bicep curls or tricep extensions may not make as much sense because the amount of muscle being trained is much smaller. Smaller muscle groups like biceps and triceps will work as secondary muscles while you're doing the compound movements mentioned above. It might not be the best use of your time to train them directly but they will still be trained indirectly.
If you do have a lot more time you can train, you can add in more isolation movements for individual muscle groups like bicep and tricep variations, calves, abs, shoulder isolation movements and smaller leg movements that isolate quads and hamstrings individually.
TRAINING GOAL
Different training goals require different exercise selection. If your goal is general fitness or health and wellness the exercises you choose matter very little or one could argue not at all. If you have a goal to compete in something or if you have a specific strength goal in a specific movement then the movements you choose may matter quite a bit. For example, if you are going to compete in powerlifting, you will want to focus your training on getting better at the movements powerlifters compete in: bench, squat, and deadlift. You’ll also want to focus on increasing the strength of accessory movements that will help improve the squat, bench and deadlift as well. The same could be said for olympic lifting or even a ball sport like football to a much lesser extent but still would matter more than a fitness related goal. Depending on your goals, exercise selection may be very important or not important at all. Write down your goals and decide if you need to train specific movements to attain that goal.
PERSONAL PREFERENCE & INJURY HISTORY
If you’ve been training long enough, over time you will adapt a style that you enjoy best. Typically people don’t do things they don’t like so if you continue training you will most likely do it in a style that makes you want to continue week after week. Combine personal preference with injury history and individuals may choose very different exercises on a weekly basis. If an individual does not know how to perform free weight movements, it is probably a good idea to shy away from those movements otherwise you are much more likely to incur an injury. And speaking of injury, if you have issues with specific joints like shoulders, hips, or knees you may not be able to properly perform movements like bench presses, squats, or deadlifts.
Free weights help to build a great base of strength, power, and coordination especially in younger lifters. As you continue to age, machines will become more of a focus because they are typically easier on joints and most people consider them to be safer.
Another preference is not just machines vs free weights but training splits. There are those that prefer to train using total body workouts, others who prefer a body part split, and then others that focus on specific movements rather than muscle groups or total body. A preference for training style will most certainly change what exercises you chose in what order.
COMPOUND VS ISOLATION MOVEMENTS
If you are thoughtfully and purposefully choosing exercises as part of a training routine for yourself, you will make a conscious decision as to what order you will perform compound and isolation movements in. Typically when training for strength purposes, compound movements are performed before isolation movements because it allows an individual to train heavier, it also requires higher levels of technique and skill, and those movements have a large strain on central nervous system fatigue. The reason for this is 1) because you will be fresh and therefore stronger than if those exercises are performed at the end of your training and 2) because these types of exercises become more and more dangerous as you become more and more fatigued because as you experience more fatigue your technique is more likely to be less strict.
For example, barbell movements like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, or olympic movements or variations of those exercises, are typically performed first in a workout for the reasons I listed above. They are big, skillful, compound movements that require excellent technique to perform at high levels. You may have multiple compound movements in a workout before ultimately finishing with isolation movements that require much less skill, muscle, and technique to successfully complete.
PRE-EXHAUSTION TRAINING
This is an exception to the rule above and is a specific style of training where you purposefully train isolation movements first and move onto compound movements second. This type of training is typically performed for one of two reasons 1) muscle growth or a bodybuilding style of training 2) injury prevention or rehabilitation purposes. By training isolation movements first like a chest fly before training a bench press you are training just the pectoralis muscles and nothing else so that when you eventually move on to train a bench press type of movement the muscle that fails first is the chest and not a secondary movement that is involved like the triceps. This type of training will also reduce the amount of weight that an individual is able to push in those bigger movements like bench presses. If maximal strength is not your specific goal and rather building muscle is, this is a great option to pursue those goals. If you have an injury that you are working around this can also be a great method to still train bigger movements because you are reducing your body’s capabilities of pushing the heaviest weight possible and still maximally fatiguing the desired muscles.
I hope you found this article useful and after reading it you are able to decide what exercises to train in what order for your workouts. As I’ve said many times, weight training has scientific principles but it is also an art. The art is making decisions based on individuals needs and assessments.
