# Exercise order



## Sully (Sep 17, 2016)

I was reading a study over on Ergo-log, and it reaffirmed something that I've been doing for the last few years. Every few weeks I look at my lifts and break down my weakest and strongest lifts. I then move my weakest lift to the beginning of my workout. This does a couple things for me that I really benefit from. 

First, it helps prevent boredom and keeps me from getting into too much of rut. When I do the exact same workout in the same order week after week I find myself turning on the autopilot and not really concentrating on what I'm doing. My progress suffers and that's when I tend to hit plateaus. 

Second, it changes up the stimulus. Your body adapts to changes in stimulus, and that's what causes muscle growth and increased strength. Changing the order of exercises is yet another change to the stimulus that your body experiences, and it creates another change that your body has to adapt to. 

It helps to bring along smaller, neglected accessory muscles faster, especially if you don't usually train them until after your larger muscle groups. The common thought process is to train large muscle groups and follow that up with smaller muscle groups i.e. Chest first then tris. Back first then, biceps. And that does work. The only problem this order presents is that no matter how good we are at isolating the larger muscle group, inevitably we always still use our accessory muscle at least somewhat. 

I find that many times once I've completed my large muscle group training and moved onto smaller muscle groups, my smaller muscle groups are already at a level of fatigue that sometimes makes it difficult to achieve the number of sets and reps that I feel I should be able to achieve with the given weight. Often times the final exercise in my routine ends up being shakey and having terrible form, all in the name of just trying to get the reps in. 

What I found is that when I move my one weakest exercise to the beginning of my routine, regardless of whether it's a small or large muscle group, is that this lift starts to increase in weight very quickly. It's never impacted any of my other lifts negatively that I've noticed, nor does it negatively impact my recovery, or anything else that I've ever noticed. Overall, it's a simple strategy that has always paid positive dividends for me, and it requires you to do basically nothing to reap those rewards.

 This is not necessarily a novel concept either, and I'm not trying to take credit for "inventing" this idea. Just throwing something out there that I haven't seen discussed here that guys might benefit from. Give it a shot and let everyone know what you think.


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## Sully (Sep 17, 2016)

Almost forgot, here's the study I read. 

http://www.ergo-log.com/trainfirst.html


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## gkn525 (Sep 17, 2016)

*Newest first*

Great info lol sully I've pretty much always stuck with the per exhausting"the smaller muscles(back then bi's&chest or shoulders then tri's). Have you ever tried back&tri's,shoulders or chest&bi's?I've been thinking about trying this but never seeming to let the pre exhausting of the bi's with back,etc...


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## ASHOP (Sep 18, 2016)

gkn525 said:


> Great info lol sully I've pretty much always stuck with the per exhausting"the smaller muscles(back then bi's&chest or shoulders then tri's). Have you ever tried back&tri's,shoulders or chest&bi's?I've been thinking about trying this but never seeming to let the pre exhausting of the bi's with back,etc...



I've always been big on using the pre-exhaust training method as well but I'm a big believer in mixing routines up and trying things in different order.


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## Sully (Sep 18, 2016)

I've tried a lot of different training methods and routines over the years, but these days I stick to a few methods that have been shown to work well both in the gym and in the lab. After a few years I figured out that it was difficult to judge the effectiveness of some of the changes I was making because they were usually huge, sweeping changes. It's much easier to know if something is effective if it's just a minor change to an already proven routine. 

That's how I know that this method works. It's not a major change to anything in your already existing training routine. Your overall volume for the session will only change slightly, if at all. The only change is moving a single exercise to the beginning of your routine in order to be able to train that movement while you're at your freshest and strongest and can really isolate and focus on the form and contraction. 

It usually only takes 3-5 workouts in order to start measuring significant improvements in that particular lift.


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## psych (Sep 18, 2016)

Holy shit that is a great idea. I never thought of cycling lifts besides my main 3


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## Sully (Sep 18, 2016)

psych said:


> Holy shit that is a great idea. I never thought of cycling lifts besides my main 3



Give it a shot for a month and see what happens. Whatever your weakest lift is for each workout, just move it to the first lift of the day.  Keep everything else the same. Betcha that lift becomes one of your stronger lifts in short order. 

Remember guys, make small changes and give it time to find out if it's effective or not.


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## chrisr116 (Sep 19, 2016)

I am fixing to head to the gym now for arm day.  Gonna give it a go.  I need a change up anyways.  Thank Sully...


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## jitenmazee (Sep 20, 2016)

Wow dear, this is really a great effort and i like your article and tips. Thanks for sharing.


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## rangerjockey (Oct 3, 2016)

This is just my 2 Cents worth.  I have somewhat always train instinctively, and reversering my training program is what I use to do to prevent bordom.  most people will do this without much thought just to do something a little different, now there is some science behind it.


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