A Exercise Order

The ideal exercise order depends on the context and overall goal of the program. Exercises with more neurological complexity or complexity in timing, joints, or coordinated effort should go earlier in the workout to reduce risk and take advantage of neurological abilities that diminish over time. Certain exercises have a greater transfer or carryover than others. Exercise order can also be based on specific needs, like rehabilitation or muscle development. Exercise order should be based on the goal, training age, and motor learning of the individual. Exercise order can follow progressions like simple to complicated, stable to unstable, slow to fast, and single joint to multi-joint. Exercise order can also be based on the effectiveness of certain exercises or pre-pump to create tissue damage. Exercise order should be rational and avoid extreme reduction or expansion. What's the ideal exercise order? When should we put a certain exercise in the workout? Really matters about what the context of that exercise is and then what the overall goal of that program is. So if we look at what exercise should go first versus what exercise should go last, it automatically creates a hierarchy certain exercises are more value than others, right? So classically speaking, we look at total body lifts that have more neurological complexity or complicated aspects like timing or joints or just coordinated effort will go earlier in the workout because the thought is is that one it's a little higher risk if that's done under fatigue. Two, that there is a certain neurological ability that we have that diminishes over time. Three, that bioenergetically and biomotorly like we have a certain level that we have at the beginning of the workout relatively speaking to the end of the workout. And then finally is saying, hey generally speaking, we want to do the things that we value more so early as opposed to later. That we believe that certain exercises will have a greater transfer or carryover than others. Which is really important because as we start to break down performancing and training success versus you know bad training, we can look at it from the context of if all exercises are created equal and everything should have value, we should be looking to progressively overload and progress and and have diminishing returns attributed for every single exercise. Versus not all exercises are created equal and not every exercise has as much of a strong inclination to progress or progressively overload and have some sort of contingency or diminishing returns for it. It creates a different schematic. It creates a different mindset. Then we can look at it from a like more specific need, right? So we do an inventory of someone and we realize that they're deficient or weak or incapable of certain areas and this is going to be more value for them relatively speaking to others, right? So a rehabilitation like setup or return to play. Maybe there's a different hierarchy. You know, maybe that they're doing a lot of stuff that's for specific work. So the need to do certain exercises in a certain part is not as strong, right? And I think that's the process we need to evaluate as exercise order. More so than anything, it's what is the goal, what's the point, what are we trying to accomplish, right? And then there's some other things too of like of where they're at on their training age and motor learning. You know, do they have the movement pattern locked in? Like a lot of this stuff is going off the expectation that they could probably do that movement unsupported or unaided or unfacilitated by anything else. You know, that's the dynamic that's really challenging about this because the assumption is that they're really good or they already have movement patterns so all things are created equal. Well, they're really not. That the exercise that is locked in and ready to go probably can be pushed later as opposed to earlier regardless if it has more systemic value than the exercise we're not as good at. So let's break down some of the stuff that we know. Let's start to look at the beginning and the end. Let's start to look at what is the effectiveness of certain exercises. Let's start to look at what is the hopefully objective of training. So generally speaking, we can look at a lot of the progressions based off that we talked about in our progression principles module. That simple to complicated, stable to unstable, slow to fast, single joint to multi-joint, kind of hold a lot of weight in regards to exercise order. We can put that in reverse, right? So whatever would be the later of the progression should be earlier in the workout, right? So a multi-joint should come before a single leg or a single joint. A complicated should come before a simple. Unstable should come before a stable. A fast should come before a slow. Okay, now we're getting somewhere, right? Hopefully that's logic. Like that's just looking at this from a stance of that makes sense. If you're listening to this, you know, I agree with that. We can start there. Because if we don't have a simple schematic of what is, what is the reason why we put a certain exercise before another, we really can't get anywhere other than just looking at subjective personal opinion. Because the reality is when we talk about exercise order, we're gonna, it's hard to detach from personal preference and bias. I value certain lifts or certain exercises more, either because I have a strong affinity for it or because I've seen it have a direct correlation to a lot of people's success, so therefore I think it's more valuable to have this. Squat being one of them. Like, I, the question that drives me nuts, if you were to ask me this at a seminar, if you're gonna ask this on an interview, I will lose my mind, is what three exercises would you do and why? I would never do just three exercises. It's a stupid question. It's reductionist-based thinking. It's dangerous. It's faulty logic. You should never ask that question. You should never think in that frame. Because it's unrealistic. It's unnecessary. It's not even a worthwhile thought. It's a bad thought experiment. Because what it's trying to do is have me reduce down whatever it is that I believe into three things that you should do repeatedly over time. You know, for instance, if you've read Peter Atiyah's book, Outlive, he talked about all you need to do is pull-ups, carries, and hinges. Pull-ups because of upper back strength, carries because of grip strength, and then hinges because of low back strength. Sure, that's fine logic. That's a great, like, if most people are sitting around doing nothing and this is a nice alternative to getting them to do something and they can zero in on that, do that two or three times a week, that's a win. I'll tell you what, though, that's a really shitty program. It's a shitty program and we know that. If you're listening to this, you know that. And you know that because it's going to create a lot of structural imbalance. It's going to create a lot of things to be served in terms of, I don't know, performance or aesthetics or just honestly, quite frankly, monotony. People get bored so easily and so quickly. But, on the other end, we've got an extreme other version of, like, everything is chaos and nothing should have any kind of a rationale as to why we do it. So, we just should choose with our heart and decide in that moment what could be challenging and invigorating and stimulating for that person. That's not good either. That reduction and expansion have certain limitations as well as certain things that are positive. And, as we start to look at exercise order, we want to avoid the pitfalls of being on the far ends of this spectrum of extreme reduction and extreme expansion. We want to be right in the middle. We want to have a perspective on certain exercises that have more value based off of that person's needs or, generally speaking, than others. We also want to be appreciative that not every exercise is as much of a panacea or this perfect answer to all problems. You can't just hinge, carry, and pull up and think you're going to be good for developing athletes. Or, all you got to do is work passive range lift offs and PAILs and RAILs and you're going to be done for developing athletes. Or, like, hey, all you got to do is sprint and this. And, like, it doesn't work like that. Now, if I'm doing a workout with, let's say I'm doing Peter Tia's workout, like, I'm probably going to do an inches first, pull up second, carry last. That's just from a wrist profile. Let's say that I'm doing a, like, I was at a seminar with Joey Burgles and he talked about doing three exercises. You should sprint, you should do pistols, and you should do pull-ups. Okay, I'm probably going to do sprints first, I'm going to do pistols second, and pull-ups last. But, I'm not going to do any of those programs because those are really shitty programs. And, I told this to Joey, I told this in front of the group, that's a shitty program. If you just sprint, do pistols, and pull-ups, you're going to get hurt. You're doing a gross disservice to your athletes and clients if that's all you do. Maybe you believe in this mantra of, like, micro-dosing. You just do two exercises every single day. Great. Have structural balance and do the exercise that has more risk or more direct systemic value first. Invert that progression. The risk associated, the value associated, needs to be prioritized and put first. Now, let's say, on the other end, is we have a specific need, right? Someone says, hey, I really want to develop quads. They came off an ACL, they have atrophy quads, especially one side that's a surgical side. They need to restore knee flexion. They need to improve the ability to decelerate and absorb because they got to go back to return. They got to go back to playing basketball. What do you do? Well, you know, like, well, technically, hinges, carries, and hinges, carries, and pull-ups are my programming. So, you just kind of SOL developing quads. Hopefully, we get enough quads just from irradiation and osmosis, as some would like to say. Maybe I'm just, I'm just doing cars, pails, rails, and passive range liftoffs. I'm like, yeah, hopefully, it's created enough systemic stress. So, I purge through the tissue in the anterior part of that, that leg, and I got to do a lot of, like, minimum effective dose, micro dosing, multiple, multiple inputs a day. Maybe I get really dialed in and do some BFR, and I can create enough systemic stress there. We're just saying, well, maybe I need to do some damn TKEs, and some body weight split squats, and really try to create adaptation in the tissue, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Maybe I need to look at that objectively, and saying that my reductionist-based approach to training is incomplete, and that's okay. Maybe the other end, I'm like, oh, man, I'm just extreme chaos manifested during exercise. All we're going to do is open-sided games, and just challenging, stimulating, implicit learning environments. You're not going to make any headway developing tissue in that quad. Relatively speaking, a person that's going to pull my leg extension three times a week, like, I'm just saying, like, there is a cause-and-effect relationship, and he actually says that we do, and we have to appreciate that, and that might be more relevant to what is asked about that person, right? So, there goes into another progression of more relevant things need to go early. The task requires us to do this. So, the phasers literally do this one job, right? Like, let's say that I work with GenPod people, and all they care about is that they look good. So, maybe we need to have a caloric expenditure that meets whatever their body compositional needs. We need to have a caloric intake that meets whatever their body compositional needs are. And we look at it from a work standpoint, what's going to have the most systemic stress is going in early. So, maybe it's something like pushing a sled prior to doing a pull-up. Maybe that order matters quite a bit, right? And I think when we break down training and exercise order, and whatever it is that we look at, that when we choose to put exercise first, there's got to be a reason. And we can look at a couple different models. One of the ones I generally love would be John Meadows Mountain Dog Training Program, where he does this, like, pre-pump to get blood flow to the area. And the idea is, essentially, you're taxing these type 1a muscle fibers to get to, hopefully, a little bit more of the type 2a, 2b, maybe 2x muscle fibers more directly in this, like, neurological window called his, like, strength phase. B1, B2, where you do, like, a 5x5. So, you do 3x20, and then a 5x5. Same muscle group, maybe similar pattern. So, you might do, let's say we're doing upper body day, where you're going to do chest flies paired up with rear delt, and then you move into low-inclined bench paired up with bent-over row, right? If we took away the volume, the sets, and the reps, and the tempo, and the rest, that would look like a ridiculous exercise order, right? Like, hey, we're going to do pec flies and rear delts, A1, A2, and then we're going to do low-inclined bench and bent-over row for B1, B2. Like, that exercise order does not make sense. But if you add back in the sets, and the reps, and the tempo, and realize the goal is to create as much tissue damage in that area as humanly possible, then you have a better perspective of why that exercise order is what it is. Christian Thibodeau had an interesting progression doing unstable stuff prior to really stable high-threshold movement patterns, right? So, before you do a, like, let's say, a lower body day where you do, for your primary movement, B1, B2, back squat, and heavy RDLs, maybe you do bounce discs, quarter squats, or pistols, paired up with maybe a fizzy ball acro, and you're doing some perturbations on there. And the idea is you create this unstable environment that creates greater recruitment prior to these big recruitment-oriented, high-threshold, high-motor unit, high-muscle-fiber integrated movement patterns. And you get hopefully a little bit more direct things like rate coding and synchronization, coupling, all this stuff associated with more neurological efficiency from doing slightly unstable stuff before. That exercise order is attached from the sets and reps and the volume and overall premise makes no sense, right? Where you do bounce discs, quarter pistols, and fizzy ball leg curls with perturbations prior to doing back squat and RDL, with goals hypertrophy. And I think that matters quite a bit. And I think sometimes, too, we associate, like, okay, like, I'm going to do a traditional athletic-based program. I'm going to do plyometric sprints, Olympic lifts prior to doing heavy-loaded compound movements. I think that makes sense. I think that's intuitive. I think that really, really is more of our wheelhouse. The folks that listen to this probably go, yeah, that looks like a really good exercise order. Let's say that's not a primary goal here. Let's say the person just absolutely just needs to put on a muscle mass. That's it. Let's say that I got a 14-year-old kid who's playing high school football. He's 140 pounds and he needs to play linebacker, right? Like, his clothes hang off of him and he looks ridiculous. He looks like a child playing with net. I want him to be able to sprint faster, jump higher, but I also need him to be able to go out there and not get hurt. So maybe I do a pre-fatigue. Maybe I do a post-exhaustion. Maybe I do a rest-pause. Maybe I do something that's going to be more isolated, right? Let's say the guy's got an awful movement skill. We could argue that he shouldn't be starting football just yet, but let's say he can't do a squat or a hinge. Very low training age, very low motor competency. You know what? Screw it. I'm just going to do something that's going to be a successful way to put muscle mass on this kid right away. I'm going to do leg extension, leg curl, lat pulldown, and some sort of machine press. And then while I'm doing that, while I'm trying to create this cross-sectional muscle area change or this longitudinal muscle area change, I'm working these movement patterns in a movement prep, where I'm doing some sort of grooving pattern at the end. So when I get to end season, maybe I can maintain that stuff throughout the year. I can develop these motor patterns over a longer period of time. I'm going to do an exercise order variation. We're going to do the stuff that has most value early. So I'm going to work on squat, hinge, push, and pull in terms of like this movement prep, elongated thing. I'm doing three mounts, all three planes, doing all this stuff. And then I get to the end, we're just going to do one tip of failure on leg extension, leg curl, lat pulldown, and machine bench. And that's it. That's our program on that day. And I have a grooving, and then I have a really really trying to hammer the tissue area. And I think that's stuff that we have to evaluate here. Remember, going through the progressions, going through what is relevant, what is important, what's going to matter, what's going to make a difference. You know one of the things that we talked about within the module as you guys read through this, you can see that when we put multi-joint compound movements later, their effectiveness goes down. I think that's pretty obvious, right? We're more fatigued. Neurologically, we don't have as much plate, maybe fatigued tissues and things like grip. We look at other ends of the spectrum, that sometimes is inverted, right? Where we also look at something like post activation instantiation. We're accentuated with more complex things, but with simple things preceding it, right? So if I do a back squat prior to doing hurdle jumps, which hurdle jumps are more more nuanced and complex than back squatting, that improvement during hurdle jumps goes up, right? Reaction forces go up, jump heights go up, etc., etc. That's an exercise order that's inverted to what we're normally accustomed to. But there's a rationale and a reason behind that, because we want to improve power output in subsequent later exercise. Then I'm bringing more high threshold motor units to the party when I back squat prior to jumping. Again, it comes down to the goal. What is the goal? If the goal is X, we need to do our exercise order and progressions to meet that. This is a, in my opinion, a really important topic, because I think we automatically default to, all right, just do, do power exercises first and then work our way down. There's a book out there called Strength Coaches Playbook for sometimes the peer system, where it kind of flips on its head, looking at the idea of exercise order and, you know, what goes through and prioritization of, like, the three big movements of total body, lower body push, upper body push, as, like, the precedent for foundational athletic programming, and then building exercise order around that. You can see the origins from what Ken was coming from, from a Bill Starr approach, where he looked at the three big movements of squat bench and deadlift, and doing a heavy, moderate, and light version of that. Every day, starting off with a heavy, working your way down to a moderate, working your way down to a light, and starting off with a heavy version of that squat bench and deadlift every single day, and then rotating through. So, for instance, day one, let's say it's going to be a heavy lower body day, so we'll do back squat, we'll do the moderate version of the upper body push, like an incline bench, and then we'll do the light version of the deadlift, so maybe that's a RDL. We move to our second workout of the week. We can see that the heavy version now is going to be what was a moderate on day one, so maybe that was a heavy bench press. Then we do the moderate version of that hinge, so maybe that goes into a deadlift, a traditional deadlift, and then we do the light version of the squat, so maybe that's the day we do a split squat. And then we look at day three, then it goes to a heavy version of that hinge, and we get to drop our deadlift, which is slightly heavier than a deadlift, slightly heavier than an RDL, and then maybe we look at from a moderate version of our lower body push, so maybe you have the front squat instead of a back squat, or a split squat, and then we look at the light version of our pressing, so maybe that's an overhead press. Key thing is not every one of those days is starting off with a lower body push, which technically might be the quote-unquote king of all exercises, depending on how you view that. Same thing as Joe Kemmer's talking about the two system is total body, lower body, upper body. If we want to stress the tissues, if we want to stress the movements, if we want to stress the body systemically, we might need to have balance between all three of these things. And then when we look at exercise order, we look at all these variables associated with each other, they all have the rationale as to why we might put something earlier as opposed to later. They all have a reason as to why we might have some sort of expectation from that goal if we prioritize one versus the other. But on the other note, sometimes if I just simply look at the needs analysis with that person in front of me, desires or absolutely needs, I can cater that exercise order to best meet that person. Then I can prioritize what's going to bring the most value to that person based off what that person can do and what that person needs to get the best results from that program. I'm giving permission to be curious and give a deeper insight into programming is so nuanced and so important to evaluate what's actually necessary and what that person actually needs and then be able to attach from whatever prescriptive thing that you may or may not like to do. Let's pause right there. I think it's a good stopping point. We'll get into practical here next segment of this module. You know, but the big thing is, you know, when we look at this and we're talking a lot more about Bill Starr's 5x5 program because I just want to give a teaser to that. If we look at the results that we get from exercise order, we can kind of leverage and squeeze out more from whatever it is that we're doing in our philosophy is. Alright, let's pause right there. Let's get, let's get into the practical section of this next time.