Transcription
Today's episode is going to be on exercise selection and exercise order. They kind of go hand in hand. And in this discussion, I'm going to be talking about a concept called exercise redundancy where we consider that we don't just design a program based on our favorite exercises. What we need to consider is if you get our favorite exercises, we start with whatever it is the highest priority and then it's not just the second favorite exercise. It's like, well, this exercise may have covered off some of the things that the second exercise that you your second favorite exercise already does, so there's no need for this second exercise anymore. We need to consider something that we haven't achieved when we do this first exercise. So, those are the concepts that I'm going to be teaching as well as the exceptions to that rule. So, stay tuned.
I'm going to polish this up. These are one-hour presentations and I'm going to cut out all of the introductions where I say hello to my people so it's as quick and concise as possible. I hope you guys enjoy it. This is kind of geared around anyone who's an industry professional for sure, but if you write programs for yourself, this is information that I would say majority of people just don't know. And I've been in this industry for over 20 years. And not just like in the industry, I've worked really really hard in this industry to be actually good. and the programs that I've created have developed some of the strongest athletes on the planet and I'm giving you this for free. So, hope you enjoy. Let's do it.
My favorite topic to discuss and that is anything to do with program design and it's a small component of program design and arguably one of the most important and that is exercise selection and exercise order. So this is going to be teaching you and helping you create programs that make sense. Okay.
Exercise selection and exercise order cannot be separated. Once the exercise is chosen, it influences every exercise that follows. Designing an effective session is not about picking the best exercises for a muscle group or selecting your favorite lifts for each body part. It's about selecting movements that serve the individual's primary goal and sequencing the exercises logically.
So what does this mean? So, we've got, you know, leg day, chest day, whatever our bros split is. And think about your favorite muscle group. And you think, what's my favorite exercise? That's what we're going to do. What's my second favorite exercise? That's what I'm going to do second. What's my third favorite exercise? That's what I'm going to do third. And so on. And just pick the best exercises for that muscle group and just do them all. Because why would I want to do bad exercises? The fact is once we've chosen our favorite exercise or the the most important exercise that we're going to be doing first, it changes what that second exercise is going to be. So, we don't just choose the second favorite or the second best exercise for that muscle group. You think about an exercise that hits areas that you've neglected in the main movement, which will probably be very different to your second favorite exercise for that muscle group.
So, this is the key considerations for program structure. And this is another topic. You know, when I speak to you guys, it's like I teach you these concepts. Don't just sit there and go, "Great concept. Let's just move on and do what we were already doing. Please use this." Okay? Copy me. All right? You have my permission. All of these concepts are yours. I want to see you program with an understanding of this. Okay?
So, the first exercise of the day is the highest relevance to achieving the trainees goal. Okay? So, what does the trainee mean? Like, if I'm the trainer and I'm coaching you, you're not trying to fulfill my goal. you're trying to fulfill or I'm trying to fulfill your goal. The person who's following the program, it needs to be what is the most important to that individual. Now, this is usually the most specific, most complex, and most stimulating, and also the most fatiguing exercise of the day is what needs to be done first.
So, a little analogy that I often use when we're considering exercise order is if we had two groups of athletes, both of them were performing exercises A, B, C, and D. And one group performed those exercises in that order, A, B, C, D, and the second group did it in reverse order, D, C, BA. The first group would be the best at exercise A, second best at B, third best at C, and so on. The second group would be the best at exercise D, second best at exercise C, and so on. Moral of the story, okay, place first, your highest priority. That's what you're going to get the best at, which makes a lot of sense because that's when we have the most amount of energy and therefore we're going to apply the most effort and therefore we're going to get the best results.
Okay, there's a lot of research on uh things that talk about not in the same words, but the law of diminishing returns. So the first things that we do in the day gets the most stimulus and even like the very first set of the day gets the most stimulus. The second set doesn't provide as much return on investment as the first set and the third set even less and fourth set even less. Which is where team low volume team now talking about the need for reducing volume and the need for reducing the amount of sets that you do on every single exercise. So, a lot of people are now saying things like you don't really need to do more than two sets of any given exercise. Why? This is due to the law of diminishing returns. The first set provides the highest stimulus. The second set significantly less return on investment than the first. And the third set of the day is even worse. So therefore, why bother doing it?
Now, I believe it's not that simple. Okay? It's overly simplified. Yes, the law of diminishing returns does apply. Quoting Alex Horoszi, the law of diminishing returns are still returns, right? So although they may be less, we are still benefiting from it. But either way, we need to take this into consideration when we're considering our secondary exercise in our, you know, by the time we've finished our first sets, our first exercise of the day, we are absolutely going to have accumulated some fatigue. And what we want to do, and this is what I'm going to define next, is avoid a concept called exercise redundancy. Okay?
So instead of choosing the second best exercise for that muscle group or your second favorite exercise for that muscle group, what we need to consider is the areas that we've neglected in the main movement. So what could we have neglected? So I've defined it here as the joint angles, ranges of motion or muscles neglected in the main movement. The choice of exercise here must be less fatiguing than the first exercise, but still addresses ranges or demands not fully covered in the first exercise.
Now, a lot of the times, and this is what we are going to be going into, I'm going to give you guys examples of my eight category model for exercise selection, achieving structural balance. So, whenever I'm writing a program, typically I've got this eight category model in front of me. Well, I don't physically have it, but I I know it very well. It may help you guys to have it plastered up in front of you. And it's very easy to just kind of choose an equal amount of effort and volume from each of these eight categories rather than piling up a ton of volume in any single category. And I'm going to be elaborating on that in a moment.
Now, here's the next thing. There can be more than one secondary exercise. So, just because secondary means number two, um there are instances where we still have neglected. So after we've done our main exercise and our secondary exercise, there could be some areas of that single muscle group that we've neglected, which I'll explain in a moment. After this point, so what we need to consider is the degree of difficulty must decrease as we progress through the session. The first exercise of the day is going to accumulate the most fatigue. The second exercise of the day, we don't have as much energy. So therefore, don't do a really, really hard exercise. And then the third exercise of the day, consider the same thing. it needs to be slightly less complex.
Then we get to the next category, the last category, which I've just titled ancillary exercises. Now, none of these titles are official. It's just the way that I like to categorize these. Okay? So the ancillary exercises, what I use here is a low-cost exercise. So, it's low cost of fatigue. And things that we can consider is firstly, what I usually consider is prioritizing joint health. So if you ever write a program and you think of you know what are your favorite rotator cuff exercises or core work or small muscle groups like that this is the time at the end of the session. So one category is joint health exercise. The next category is low-cost feelood exercises Brett Contras. So he talks about his experience with coaching females. So if you don't know who he is he specializes in training glutes and it just so happens that it's a much more popular muscle group amongst the females. So majority of his audience are females and he trains a lot of fitness models and stage models that have very well-developed glutes. And he talks about the art of coaching as well as the science. So from a science standpoint, he has a PhD. That's the highest accolade you can achieve in the world of academia. So science, he understands it. Yet he talks a lot about the art of coaching coming from real world experience. He still works with he owns a gym and he coaches women every day. That's what he does. And he talks a lot about something that I absolutely agree with the need for factoring in training morale and having the people that you're working with enjoy the work that they are doing. And same with yourself. If you're following a program, you know, enjoying the work that you do is going to allow you to apply more effort and therefore achieve a superior outcome than if you come into the session hate the exercise, give it a halfass effort and therefore get a lesser return on investment. Okay? So enjoying what you do.
Now he talks about strategies such as performing a low-cost feelood exercise for the glutes like giving them like a frog pump at the end of the day. high rep, low load frog pump or that's just one example of exercises. Uh there's other exercises, the Hello Boys, I don't know what you call them. Good girl, bad girl, I don't know what you call them. The adductor abductor machine. Um, you know, low cost of fatigue, but you do a high rep set and you're going to have um a lot of pump in the muscle. You're going to feel great about yourself walking out of the session with a big juicy butt pump. That doesn't sound right, but anyway, you know what I'm saying. Same applies for if you want to achieve the same goal with a big juicy bicep pump or a big juicy calf pump. These are low-cost feelood exercises if that's your goal. So bicep curls, calf raises, if I do a ton of those at the end of the session, what I need to consider is is that going to interfere with my energy levels for tomorrow's session? And if it's a an exercise that's usually like an isolation exercise, the answer is typically no. So, it needs to be a low-cost feelood exercise rather than, let's just say you say, "My favorite exercise of the day is a deadlift." I'm going to recommend you don't use that at the end of the session just because you feel good. It's not a low-cost feelood exercise.
Winston, you warm up hamstrings before the squat. Is this considered a warmup or an ancillary exercise? I don't always warm up the hamstrings before a squat. Sometimes I do. Um, and I wouldn't consider it an ancillary exercise. And in fact, talking about any warm-up exercise, I don't count that with total training volume because as a warm-up, I typically don't perform it at a close enough proximity to fail to deem it effective. I certainly don't apply the principle of progressive overload to my warm-up exercise. So, what I mean by that, and this is a mistake that a lot of people make. If I say things like, "Do you train calves? Do you train abs? Do you train, you know, shoulder health muscles like rotator cuff, the external rotators of your shoulder? And the common answer is, yeah, you know, I'll do the big three, the McGill big three for my core. So, I do that as a warm-up. So, therefore, yes, I do train core. Uh, wrong answer. You warm up your core, but that's not enough stimulus to achieve a positive outcome to achieve meaningful gains. Right? Same with the people who do these external rotation exercises on a band to warm up their shoulders. If I say to them, do you strengthen your external rotators? And they say, yes, I do. I do this as warm-up. Then the answer is no. You don't train them because you're not applying the principle of progressive overload. It's not counted to the volume that I'm actually counting that will contribute to you achieving meaningful gains. Okay.
So, uh let's read this out. So, low cost of fatigue. I prioritize joint health. So, in my session, I typically don't just accumulate extra volume because I need to feel good about a juicy glute pump or whatever it is. I walk out of the session feeling like, okay, good. I've done my prehab stuff, my ancillary joint health work. I know that that's going to contribute to my strength game, but that's just the way that I feel. Now, here's I'm going to play devil's advocate on myself. Who's to say that the primary work isn't good joint health exercise. All right? So, building big pecs, building big lats, building I shouldn't just say big, strong pecs, strong lats, strong romboids, strong delts. Who's to say that's not a effective joint health exercise? Because actually it is. They are important. so strong. Every muscle has a carryover effect to good joint health. Which is where you can say your lowcost feel-good exercises, your party pump for your glutes, your calves, your biceps, your triceps, or whatever it may be, a dumbbell lateral raise finisher for the day to walk out of the session with massive juicy delts. That's a joint health exercise arguably, but it must be low cost. So therefore, if in doubt, if you don't understand what's low cost and high cost, isolation exercises is a pretty good start. Okay, compound, which means multiple joints. So, accumulating more volume on compound exercises will most likely contribute to more fatigue that may interfere with the next day session.
Now, let's talk a little bit about exercise redundancy. Okay, so these here's a definition that you guys can keep. Two exercises can both be effective in isolation but unnecessary together. For example, performing a flat dumbbell press and a flat barbell press within the same session. is loading the same structures in practically the same way. Both are great exercises, but performing them together is an example of exercise redundancy. Exercise redundancy is where you include multiple exercises in a program that train the same muscle in the same way through the same joint actions with the same resistance profile without adding any meaningful new stimulus. Good program isn't about cramming more exercises in. It's about choosing exercises that complement each other rather than overlap. I'm going to give you a ton of examples so you can have a better illustration of this. I'm also going to give you exceptions to this rule because sometimes I don't avoid exercise redundancy and I will choose exercises that are typically considered redundant with intention.
Exceptions to the rule is fatigue management usually with advanced lifters. What do I mean by this? In this context, specificity becomes the priority. So, this is usually as an advanced lifter approaches competition. So, not all year round. Whenever I say advanced lifters, typically I'm talking about high absolute strength athletes. Okay? So, you've got elite athletes that are have a high relative strength. So, usually a lot of the 50 kg weight classes and below, usually females. This isn't a huge concern because they may have a high relative strength, which means they may be able to deadlift triple body weight as a 50 kg lifter. That's outstanding. I work with some elite lifters that do that 150 kg deadlift for a 50 kg girl, woman, whatever. Get offended if you like. However, they usually are able to do heavy deadlifts within the same week. Whereas you get a male that's 100 kilograms doing triple body weight deadlift would not be able to repeat that effort with the same degree of energy multiple times per week and in many instances need to spread that out over the fortnight. So my highest level deadlifters will only deadlift heavy every fortnight. They deadlift every week but it goes heavy session, light session, heavy session, light session. The idea of the light session is to maintain the skill. So maintain practice of that movement. So instead of just saying why don't we just do it every fortnite well because you know frequency of a minimum of weekly for any of these exercises allows us to maintain the skill of the movement which is also important. So back to this talking about the exception to the rule is typically discussing advanced high absolute strength athletes especially approaching competition peak time. So the competition movement must be trained heavy to maintain technical precision and performance readiness. These lifts are highly loadable and therefore highly fatiguing. So talk about a powerlifter as an example performing an exercise like a low bar squat working up to one rep max. Same with a heavy arch bench press especially with the stronger athletes and most specifically the conventional deadlift. These are the most fatiguing exercises that we have. So with my highle lifters, they need to be exposing themselves to a weekly frequency of these movements to maintain the skill. However, if they are performing enough volume of those movements to build or even at the very least maintain muscle mass and strength, they may be accumulating a little bit too much fatigue, which is where I will have separate strategies such as a top set back down set method where we're only doing, you know, a low exposure, one to two top sets of that specific movement under heavy loads. And then the secondary exercise I will choose a variation that's not as loadable and therefore not as fatiguing but can be considered redundant because it targets that muscle group and joint action in the exact same way. However, the reason why it's not redundant is because we haven't performed as much volume as necessary to progress on that exercise. Okay, I'm going to elaborate on this as we go. Hope you're understanding.
Okay, so back to the definition as written on the slide. Performing enough total volume of the exact competition lifts to build or even maintain muscle would exceed the lifter's recovery capacity. The solution is to limit the lifter's exposure to the primary lift while accumulating additional volume through closely related variations. Although these variations may appear redundant, they allow continued stimulus to the same movement pattern with a lower fatigue cost. So this is where we enter the top set plus variation model. So you may have heard me talk about the top set back down set method which is another strategy. I'm just giving you guys the example of where I avoid the rule of avoiding exercise redundancy. Okay. So this is not exercise redundancy because it's the same exercise. So that's top set back down set. But a lot of the times when I do a top set back down set method, I perform the top set and the back down set method I accumulate more volume of the movement but I intentionally reduce the effort so that it's not fatiguing. When I do a top set and variation model, I don't have to reduce the effort. By default, it's a harder exercise to load. So, I can still train it at a high effort, but because it's hard to load, it's not that heavy, it's also not fatiguing. Slightly different strategy. If I'm confusing anyone, please let me know.
Examples. Okay. Okay. And the first example that comes to my mind is one that I'm using currently on Halfthor Bjönson who I'm coaching to deadlift 515 kg at the enhanced games on May 24. So he's currently about I believe it's 14 weeks out. And right now he only gets because he's so damn strong from now he's like our strategy is to not deadlift heavy more than once a fortnite. is not script deficit deadlift and this has been in my programs since I started working with Sebastian you know >> so therefore 14 weeks and even back when it was 16 weeks so this is when this specific program started 16 weeks out only gives him eight total exposures to a heavy deadlift because if we so that means fortnightly heavy deadlifts which means if we deadlifted heavy every week he's so damn strong that it's so heavy therefore so fatiguing he won't be able to recover from it. So it sounds like eight 16 weeks or 14 weeks is a long time but have that that's the amount of exposures we get to that heavy lift and right now the strategy is heavy single so one set of one and then two sets of five of a snatch grip deadlift from a deficit. Now to add context to this, his next heavy deadlift session is 410 kg and the weights that he's doing snatch grip deadlifts on is, you know, between 230 to 260 kg. So it's significantly less. It's about 60%. However, I will tell you now, even the world's strongest deadlifter finds those weights on the snap trip deadlift from a deficit challenging. They're hard to do. But because the absolute load is quite low, they produce less systemic fatigue. You're working as hard but it's a lighter weight, so it's not as fatiguing on the body and it's the body is able to recover from this stimulus a lot quicker than the more loadable option, which is the straight up conventional deadlift.
Other examples with other lifts, the low bar squat using a back down of a paused or a one and a quarter squat. So these are exercises that target the movement. It's the same movement, but we've slowed it down. We've added a pause. we've added a one and a quarter and therefore decreased the loadability of the movement. So therefore due to the decreased load it has decreased the fatigue competition bench press especially with the super strong bench presses. So this is where you know your 5x5s it sounds like a nice idea however that can be too much load too much volume for the strong lifter to be able to recover from. Sounds like a strength stimulus, but this is a high volume phase for an elite bench presser. So therefore, I would do a top set of a bench press, whatever the rep range, it's usually kind of strength rep ranges. So that means less than five or less than six, 80% plus of your 1 RM. I'd do one set, maybe two, probably still one. And then I'll do back down work on exercises like a pause spotto bench press or even flat dumbbell press. So, it's training the movement the exact same way. Seemingly redundant exercise, but because we didn't accumulate enough volume on the top sets, it's not enough work to progress in strength or even at the very least maintain strength or muscle mass. Okay? So, the strategy here is to maintain specificity, accumulate volume, and manage fatigue.
Now, let's have a look at the eight category model for structural balance. Now, if you guys know me for long enough, you you'll have seen this a lot, and I don't care. I'm going to show it to you again. These eight categories are not perfect. There are muscle groups that are excluded in this that we can and should add on such as your joint health exercises, arms, neck, calves. There are movements that aren't added to this. And a lot of people might look at the lower body patterns. So the squat knee dominant and squat hip dominant. And a lot of people look at it and say, "What about the lunges?" Well, actually, I categorize any of the lunge or unilateral lower body split squat lunge variations within that squat category. So, it's just a onelegged squat. Okay, so lunges do fit in these categories. And we do have a knee dominant lunge and we do have a hip dominant lunge. How do we determine the difference between the two? A knee dominant lunge or squat has more knee bend. How much knee bend? As much as possible. How much is that? where the hamstrings squash against the calves in the bottom position. And usually this will be paired with a vertical torso angle. Okay? So the knees come forward, the torso is vertical, the hamstrings pressed against the calf versus a hip dominant squat or lunge pattern, which is where there is typically a lot more forward torso lean and therefore a more acute angle at hip joint flexion and therefore less knee bend. Okay, so this is where it starts to make sense. If I do a squat session and my first exercise of the day is choose your favorite squat pattern, whether it's a high bar or low bar, think about it as what category does that come under. So usually, let's just say a powerlifter doing a low bar squat, which is typically where our powerlifter squat, that is a hip dominant pattern. So what's a secondary exercise that would not be redundant? Okay, not necessarily a leg press, not necessarily a Bulgarian split squat. Why? Because they're both hip dominant. They are redundant exercises. They target the same muscle and the same joint action in the same way with a different machine. Okay? Or a bar from a barbell to a machine, whatever it is. So instead, you'd be better off choosing one exercise from the hip dominant squat category and then if in doubt, secondary exercise from the other category available. And all of the other categories have the same examples which we are going to get into. So let's have a look at these categories. These are tools and templates for you to own. Okay? So if in doubt, and this is what I'll often teach people, I mean I don't have this in front of me when I design programs, but I just know it very well. Have a look at the exercises that fit within these categories. Okay? So in a press session, you can consider first exercise of the day, choose one from horizontal push. Second exercise, choose one from the vertical push. Like that's a pretty easy way of avoiding exercise redundancy, strengthening the push pattern in a slightly different way.
Stiletto squats, hack squats, squat patterns that were knee dominant. in this knee dominant squat pattern. High bar squat, I should say with elevated heels. Front squat with elevated heels, split squat, where the knee progresses over the toe and the hamstrings press against the calf and the torso remains upright. That's knee dominant CC squat. Now, here's the next piece of context that we need to add to this. Uh, you know, and this is kind of going on the, you know, the topic of when people say, you know, things are bad, this exercise is bad. A lot of the times we have to understand context when we're considering if an exercise is bad or not. So people saying things like, you know, knee over toes is bad, a squat is bad because I saw Xlifter, you know, completely rupture their ligaments in a squat. It's like, okay, let's add some context to this. The context is that individual's probably trying to max out on that exercise. Now, here's a rule. Here's a general rule. Every exercise comes with a different profile. Some exercises suit very very heavy weight and low reps. Some do not. Now, which ones do and do not? To keep it simple, compound exercises, which allow you to spread the load over multiple joints and multiple muscle groups, are typically quite complex and are more suitable for low rep sets and heavy loads because you are able to spread those loads over multiple joints and multiple muscle groups. For example, conventional deadlift, low bar back squat, powerlifting style bench press, which are also exercises that are typically deemed not suitable for muscle hypertrophy. Why are they not suitable for muscle hypertrophy? What are the rules of muscle hypertrophy when we're selecting what's an appropriate exercise for a bodybuilder? Bodybuilders are very specific when they perform an exercise with which muscle they are specifically targeting. When you do a deadlift, what muscle are you targeting? Well, all of them kind of thing. I want as many muscles to contract as possible so I can shift this heavy load. Same with a low bar squat. Same with an archback bench press with a wide grip powerlifting style. It's not just pecs. I'll tell you right now, if I take a movement like a powerlifting bench press to absolute fail. Um, I can't tell you which muscles failed first. It's a combination of kind of everything. It's not necessarily pecs. It could be pecs a little bit and the deltoids are going to contribute and same with the triceps, right? Context matters. You know, I'm not telling you to go and do a knee dominant squat to a 1RM. Think about the movement profile and think about the load ability of that specific exercise. Okay.
Another example, people say things like, don't flare the elbows in a bench press. Now, I have worked with highlevel bodybuilders that specifically flare their elbows in a bench press in order to target the pec muscle, the pec major in the fully lengthened position. Now, let's add a little bit of context to this. Who's been told not to flare their elbows in a bench press? Usually powerlifters who perform heavy one rep maxes. Do bodybuilders perform heavy one rep maxes? The answer is for fun they may, but typically when they want to be working towards their goals of building the maximizing muscle growth, typically they're using a higher rep range with lighter loads. And when they perform those exercises such as a flared elbow bench press or another word for that is a guillotine press. I'm pronouncing that incorrectly. I don't speak French. Guillotine, whatever. Excuse me. Now, that exercise is seen, you know, that's it that goes against the exact cue. Tuck the elbows in a bench press. But it is the exact technique that a bodybuilder may use to target a specific muscle in a specific way. What's what's more context to the way that it's targeted? it is loaded with lighter loads and higher reps because that's what suits that exercise. Okay, now let's dive deeper into this. Why does that not suit? So what's the benefits of that exercise? It places the muscle at the greatest stretch. Okay, so the more you flare the elbow, the more we're stretching the pecs. The more we tuck the elbow, the more we're placing the pecs in a shorter position. Midtuck, mid-range pec contraction. Close tuck is the shortest position, which is kind of like not a very good way to load the movement. So, let's add to this. What's the strongest contractile length of a muscle? We have fully stretched, mid-range, and fully shortened. The strongest is mid-range. So, a powerlifter wants to place the pec in its mid-range by tucking the elbows because that's the strongest contractile length of the muscle. A powerlifter will also want to avoid placing the pec in the fully lengthened position because that is the weakest. What do we know about weak things? Weak things break. Let's have a look at pec tears. Not sure if you want to. It's a little bit gruesome. But if you Google pec tear on YouTube, you are going to see a few common things. Firstly, the pecs typically tear when the barbell is on the chest. Why? Because that's where the pec is at its greatest stretch and therefore it's weakest contractile length. Something else that you'll also see is typically the elbows flare as it's happening. What happens with elbow flare? It increases the tension on the pec major. So this is why we are teaching tuck the elbows and even pick the chest up. So arch the upper back so it doesn't go to that full range where it takes the pec major to the fully stretched position. Another example is a stiletto squat or a squat with a 1 RM load. Don't do those exercises. Don't do knees over toes with 1 RMS. Choose the appropriate rep ranges. So, if you want to have a look at um squats performed correctly, you'll probably be looking up people like Tom Plattz, very famous for the best quadriceps in bodybuilding. And he loved exercises like that. And he is a huge advocate for high volume. And he actually is on record talking about low reps, heavy loads doesn't build quads, which I disagree with. It can for certain individuals. and he talks about how he used to squat up against people like one fellow by the name of Fred Hatfield who's also named Dr. Squats. He was able to squat over 1,000 lbs which is 453 something kg is 1,000 lb. Tom Plattz can't do that. But Tom Plattz's quads were way bigger than Fred Hatfield. Context matters and there are exceptions to every rule and everybody is different, individual differences, etc. Okay, hope this is all making sense to you guys.
So, I've given you guys the exercise categories so you can better understand like if you're choosing on your push day, one from a horizontal push, your secondary exercise, choose it from the different push category. Let's put this into practice. So, I've got two programs for you. Very good. Copy, paste, put your logo on it, sell for a lot of dollars, make money, thank me later. Now, I'm giving you an example first of a program. So, this isn't a periodized plan. So for those who understand or don't, periodized plans don't tell you the reps and sets and the exercise that we do on Monday. The periodized plan tells us the training stimulus for that various phase. Okay? So a periodized plan is the long-term plan which sorts out the different training modalities such as you know starting with higher volume to achieve work capacity. Then we move to reducing the volume to achieve strength. Reduce the reps so we can increase the loads. And then we move to a peaking phase. Not once have I mentioned how many reps, how many sets, and what exercise we're doing. But that is what a periodized plan looks like. This here is a messocycle. The messocycle. Also, you can consider this the program. So if you're familiar, this is the kind of thing that I give you guys every four weeks. So I like four weekly messy cycles. doesn't mean 6 weeks is wrong or 5 weeks or 13 weeks. Winston psychopath. Okay. As long as you're able to justify the messocycle duration. Sorry, that's a personal joke. Winston Lamb, I'm going to expose him. He does 13we meocycles. Um, just so be careful of him. Anyhow, I like four weeks. Um, but sometimes I write 8week programs as well. 52 weeks. Fair enough. That's starting to make more sense. That's starting to You know what I do? 3x6 macro cycles which is uh four-week blocks four times four week blocks within the macro cycle takes us to 48 weeks which is three cycles per year with a 4-week fun phase during Christmas now you know so have a look here so this is a typical program where we're following the rules of avoiding exercise redundancy okay so let's have a look at day one squat in no particular order so I go lower upper lower upper you can start with bench day whatever it may be It doesn't really matter. When people ask me these questions, when I give them a program like this and they say, "Do you mind if I start with an upper body? Is it going to change the program?" No, it doesn't. I don't think of the calendar week, right? So, Monday to Sunday. I just think of, you know, start with upper body. So, we start on day two. So, that's bench, then day three, and then day four, then day one. Like, whatever order you have it, as long as it's upper, lower, upper, lower, and not lower, lower, upper, upper, that doesn't make sense. Okay.
So, let's have a look at the squat day. So, stiletto squat 3x8. So, by the looks of this program, I mean, of course, I created it, so I know exactly what it is, but let's just say I didn't. I'd look at that and go 3x8, that means I can't load it real real heavy. So, to to add context to that, um 80% is kind of like 80% and plus is our strength phase. And how many reps can you do of 80% and plus? Like six reps and lower, right? So, this is automatically eight reps. And therefore, I know it's a lot lighter than 80% of your max, right? And then we choose an exercise. So that means it's not on the strength phase. So if it's higher volume than the strength phase, typically what are we working towards? Hypertrophy. You guessed it, right? So I'd look at this and say this is a lovely choice of exercises for a hypertrophy stimulus. First exercise of the day on squat day, knee dominant squat pattern. That's a stiletto squat. Uh you look, I've written stiletto squat. Now I'm expecting you and I should write this and I typically do with a high bar position. So stiletto squat with a low bar kind of like kind of defeats the purpose. There's exceptions to every rule, but we're assuming a tide bar here. So, that is a purely, you know, knee bend, minimal hip bend, vertical torso, maximal knee bend, hamstrings press against the calf. We are focusing on quads. That's a knee dominant squat pattern. So, therefore, what's a secondary exercise? What's something that we can do that targets a joint angle or a range of motion or a muscle that we neglected in the main movement? Well, very simply, that's from the quad dominant pattern or the knee dominant pattern. Let's choose something from the hip dominant pattern. What have we got here? As I said, lunges go within these categories. And I'm choosing a Bulgarian split squat. Typically, Bulgarian split squat, forward torso, lean, knee stacked over ankle mish t vertical tibia. Okay. Now, one of the rules here with exercise order is there can be more than two secondary exercises. What is an example of this? Well, let's have a look. Did we neglect any muscles? So, what are the muscle groups we're working towards? This is lower body squat pattern. It's kind of like quad day, right? Did we neglect anything here with our quad dominant squat pattern? So, vertical tibia knee forward progression over the toe and maximal knee bend. Secondary exercise, forward torso lean with our Bulgarian split squat, minimal knee bend. Did we neglect anything? Of course we did. I know you're thinking it. Rectus for. So this is a muscle that's undertrained during squat patterns or I should say during compound lower body squat patterns. Okay. So the rectus forous is a barticular muscle compared to that's one of the four quadricep muscles. The other three starts with the word vasis. Vasis mediialis lateralis and intermediates. They all have one thing in common which is they only cross the knee joint. Therefore they are only responsible for knee joint extension. The fourth quadricep muscle is the rectus forous which is a barticular muscle. It crosses the knee joint and the hip joint. And when we move both of those joints at the same time such as a compound movement like a squat or a lunge, it usually moves them in a conflicting pattern. So the rectus forous flexes the hip and extends the knee. When we're squatting, we are flexing the hip and flexing the knee or extending the hip and extending the knee at the same time. So they are conflicting actions and therefore thank you Mish and therefore is underdeveloped during a squat pattern. So therefore the rectus forous is neglected. How do we target a biotic muscle? Isolating it. What's a good isolation exercise? Have a look at C leg extension. Okay. So this is a complete session for the quadriceps completely avoiding exercise redundancy. Fourth exercise of the day lowcost feelgood exercise. I've or joint health exercise. Now I consider what are the main joints that we're loading during these exercises for my lower body day. This is usually my opportunity to add in core work. So I've added in Copenhagen plank. It's not better or worse than ab wheel rollouts or crunches or planks or whatever it is. Okay. As long as you can justify why. Great. There's day one avoiding exercise redundancy. Day two bench press. Let's just do the A's. So A1 is push. B1 is push. Okay. So that's all the pushing muscles. The ones are the pushing muscles and then the two is the pulling muscles. So starting with A1 close grip bench press, B1 is high incin dumbbell press. C1 is dumbbell lateral raise. Okay. So if you understand how we're doing this, so one is in the horizontal push plane. If you understand, I've put the high incline dumbbell press in the vertical plane. And then a muscle that we've neglected is the lateral deltoids, which we can target with a lowcost feel-good exercise such as lateral raise. Secondary movements. Let's go to the pull pattern. So barbell bent over row. That's a horizontal pull pattern. Okay. So B2 is going to be a pull down. Okay. So we go horizontal pull. We go over to a vertical pull on the secondary exercise. And then the third exercise of the day is a lowcost feelood joint health exercise which I've chosen a rope face pull to the top of the head. I'm only going to go day three now cuz I'm going to go avoid day four because it's very much the same as day two. Let's go to day three. Deadlift. Snatch, grip, deadlift from a deficit. Great exercise. What have we neglected? What's a secondary exercise? Hip thrust. How is that an exercise that hits those muscles on a different joint angle or muscle length? Hin deadlifts. All patterns of a deadlift. Romanian deadlift. Conventional deadlift. Snatch grip deadlift targets the glutes in the fully lengthened position. Okay. So, the profile, the loading profile of that is max load placed on the glutes when we are at the bottom, which is where the glute is at its fully stretched position. A hip thrust targets the glutes in the fully shortened position. Okay, so a lot of the times people argue which one's better or worse, you know, lengthen or shorten. Well, why not both? Okay, and quite common whenever we see people debating over which one's better. We don't get to only choose one. So, it's not one or the other. It is one and the other. And then, is there any muscles of the posterior chain that we've neglected? Yes, there is. Hamstring curls will fix that. What is the muscle that we've neglected? We've neglected the short head of the biceps forous. Okay. So that's four heads of the hamstrings. People say three muscles. Yes. One of the muscles is called a bicep which has two heads. One is a long head and one is a short head. The short head doesn't cross the hip joint. And therefore its only action is knee joint flexion. So when you do your amazing deadlifts, good mornings back extensions, you're not touching short head of biceps for morris. How do we target it? By flexing the knee. Hamstring curl. Great example. Nordic drops. Great. So that's an example of a typical layout where we are avoiding exercise redundancy. Now, so get that program, sell it for as much money as you like.
Now, this is a program demonstrating an exception to the rule. This is where I'm intentionally using exercises that are seemingly redundant. A high absolute strength athlete peing for competition such as a powerlifting competition. Let's have a look. I've only done three days. You can do a fourth day and follow the same principles. Day one, of course, we're starting with squat. What's the first exercise of the day? When we're peeking for a comp, we want max specificity. It's going to be comp squat or typically it's a low bar squat. Now, in this example, we're doing one set of one. Okay? Doing enough volume of heavy singles to accumulate the amount of volume necessary to build muscle or even maintain muscle is going to be way too fatiguing to do tons and tons of sets of one. And a lot of people ask that, why don't I just do 10 sets of one? You know, that's going to be hugely stimulating. Yeah, it's also going to be hugely fatiguing. And I'm not going to lie, some people it's a great program. I've done programs similar to that. But in most instances, high level lifters, that's too fatiguing to do in a single day. So, one set of one. Now, I want to continue adding more volume on that movement pattern because I'm not done yet. one set of one. It's exactly what I need to get good at singles, but it's so damn heavy that if I do more sets of that, I'm it's going to contribute to further fatigue. How far out from competition does someone start this? I typically say my peak phases will last for 4 weeks. Blanket statement. There's exceptions to every rule. Okay, so you could say 4 weeks. And why four weeks? Because it is a significant reduction in volume. And if you reduce volume significantly for more than four weeks, you're most likely going to start seeing a d-training effect. So therefore, keep it short. Keep the reduction in volume phases short. Okay? So four weeks is what I say is is fair for a peaking phase. Look at the secondary exercise. It's more low bar squats, but I'm giving you so just to keep it simple. Everything is the secondary work is 2x4 paused of the same movement. Low bar squat with a pause 2x4. So what does the pause do? It forces us to spend more time in the bottom position, which is the hardest position of the squat, that makes us have to reduce the loads that we're lifting. It makes it hard to do those sets, but because the load is lower, it's not as fatiguing. So therefore, we can accumulate significant enough volume to maintain or even improve. Okay. Now, I've chosen a leg curl. So, this is a little bit strategic. So, this allows me to perform quadriceps with hamstrings on the same day. And have a look. Let's just skip to day three. Deadlifts. The same principle. I do my main deadlifts. And look at the third exercise, leg extension. So this allows me to include some additional volume on quadriceps on my posterior chain day. This is for a strength athlete like a powerlifter. Starting with a big heavy conventional deadlift and then the secondary exercise, 2x4 pause deficit deadlift. Same joint angles, similar range of motion, a little bit longer, but it's fine. It's seemingly a redundant exercise. However, it's allowing us to accumulate more volume on a less loadable movement. Highly stimulating, not as fatiguing. And now let's go to the bench press day. First exercise of the day. Comp bench one by one. Very fatiguing. You know one by one is not just fatiguing especially for bench press. It's a high risk of injury. Bench press heavy singles high risk of injury. Most exercises heavy singles as that's the highest risk of injury of all of our exercise and rep range selections. One by one. Highest risk of injury. Pause spotto bench press. It's a great variation but not as loadable. very hard to do heavy lifts, heavy exercises here, but it's a great way to apply a high effort without applying a high amount of fatigue because it's not as loadable. Hope this makes sense. Okay. And then, you know, the third exercise of the day, we've added in the low cost feelood exercise even for a peak. Leg curl, slap them in for your comfase. Leg extension, slap them in for your com phase. Tricep extension. Guns get the huns. Tries get the guys. Buyers get the guys. I don't know. Who do you need? Who do you need? Anyway, I hope this all makes sense, my lovely team. Um, there's two free programs for you. Girls get the girls. What do we need? What do we need, Jazz? You know, this is a beautiful peaking day. This is a beautiful hypertrophy phase. Follow it. All right, my team. Love you all. Thank you. Appreciate you also. Thank you. Thank you. I hope this was some value and uh have an amazing day. So, today is Wednesday. I always lose track of the days. These sessions are the ones that remind me of what day it is. I'm sure I'll speak to most of you tomorrow. Have an amazing week, everybody. Hope you all had happy Valentine's Day. We just had that last week, didn't we? Happy Valentine's lovers. And I'll see you guys tomorrow. Thank you. I don't know where the hang button is yet. Thanks, guys. I'm trying to find the hang up button. See you guys. I'll keep talking until I find it. There it is. No, that wasn't it. That wasn't it. Here it is. >> I'm not very clever. Okay. Where were you when I needed you? That's why I missed it. It's your fault. >> purposely stayed silent so I could wait for it. >> This is You setting me up. You You knew I was going to do this >> always. >> You'd think I'd learn from the first time. >> I still can't find it anyway. >> I found it. >> You got it. >> Love you. >> Bye. Bye. Five.