Choosing the right exercises is never an easy process if you do this correctly. There is many variables to consider such as current health status or previous injuries, and there are many things you must assess before hitting the gym and lifting big weights. What works for one person may ruin another, so an assessment is critical. But before you even do an assessment you need to know WHAT is the objective of this workout? What is your goal? This is very important for the process of program design and what will be the focus on the training. In this article I am going to explain why the order of exercises is just as important as selecting the right exercise or method, and how you could either enhance or lessen the effectiveness of your program by where you place key exercises in your workout.
What Is The Objective Of Your Training?
As mentioned in the intro knowing your objective is critical for how you design your workout. This will determine exercise selection, exercise order, sets, reps, rest and tempo. All of these factors can change a program considerably. For example doing 3 sets of 8-12 reps will improve muscle size but will not produce great results with sprinting and power development for a basketball player. It is essential to know this before moving forward with anything. Read our article about goal setting here for more information on how to do this if you are not sure.
Secondly you must complete an assessment to identify any weaknesses or movement dysfunction that will compromise your ability to progress with more difficult training. We would classify this as NEEDS! Below is a great video to watch where we take you through a standard assessment for the everyday person wanting to get fit or lose a bit of weight, and then finish with a sports specific assessment that includes more complex abilities like speed, agility and power.
Other great articles to read with more detail on how to assess are below and there is stacks of FREE Reports you can by clicking here
Now that you have all this information about what you WANT to do, and what your body NEEDS, it is time to construct your program.
The Most Difficult Exercise MUST Go First
Now when it say the hardest exercise goes first, this would be after you have completed a thorough warm up. I cannot understand how people skip a warm up and go straight to lifting heavy loads. There is no way your body is ready to perform at it's best without a warm up. Elite professional athletes know this and you will never see them skip a warm up, ever! The warm up prepares the joints for upcoming work, pumps blood into the muscles making them more flexible and able to move with full range, and lastly prepares the mind for the workout ahead. It is a time to focus and concentrate, leaving all outside distractions and stress from your life out the door.
Read more about specific warm ups for injuries and sports in our article Use This Warm Up Routines Before Your Next Workout
When we say difficult, what does that actually mean? How do you define difficult? Well this will vary depending on the person, but generally this will be the most complex and difficult exercise for you to do. Often an integrated movement utilizing several joints at once and demanding your 100% concentration. This would be a deadlift for someone rehabilitating from a bulging disc back injury, or an Olympic lift for a sporting athlete seeking to improve power development. Integrated movements are always more complex than isolated exercises and should precede them for this reason. There is so much more brain involvement and so many moving parts that potential disaster with an integrated movement is likely if you are too fatigued because you did these exercises last.
Examples of complex integrated movements are:
- Squat
- Lunge
- Deadlift
- Unilateral arm or leg exercises
- Multi joint lifts
- Plyometrics
Isolated Exercises Go Last
Now this is where things can get contradictory. For many times people will hear me say, "isolate to integrate". Meaning we use an isolated exercise to stimulate a weak muscle before trying to integrate it into a bigger movement. For example in the video below for Knee pain and strengthening the VMO we do exactly this.
However the big difference is we will NOT do this in the same workout! Often the isolation stage will be done several weeks by itself before gradually phasing into the integrated strength stage.
For example with a person who has knee pain we may use 2-3 sets of clams and hip extensions for glute activation, along with several mobility drills and simple stability and movement retraining with body weight for squats and single leg stance. Once we feel they have begun to demonstrate the movement skill competently we move to the next phase being integrated strength. We now begin to phase out the isolated clam and hip extension by only using 1-2 sets at the end of the workout in favor of loaded deadlift or single leg squat.
Sometimes we use exercises that borrow some of the isolated effect to assist the integrated movement. Ulrik Larsen from Rehab Trainer calls this "iso-integration", and you can see an example of this in the video below.
After completing the complex exercises first we could then follow up with isolated drills to further enhance strength of weakened areas.
Examples of isolated exercises are:
- Rotator cuff exercises for the shoulder
- Abdominal exercises for the core
- Glute exercises for the hip
- Calf raises for the ankle
*Understand that we NEVER use an isolated exercise to fatigue a muscle before an integrated movement.
For example something I see quite a lot is using abdominal exercise before a deadlift or squat would be disaster as the small abdominal muscles will be too fatigued to work in the more complex and loaded exercises to protect the spine from damage. Abdominal exercises should always go last. You can also begin to see how circuit workouts and Crossfit workouts that are not correctly designed have the potential to create serious damage, especially if you do not have perfect form, or carry an existing injury. I would never take a person to complete fatigue and then ask them to complete Olympic lifts, deadlifts or front squats where they must be able to hold high degrees of intra abdominal pressure to protect the spine. The risk versus reward is not worth it.
How does this theory look in practice? Let's take a look at a workout I used last year for a shoulder impingement I was dealing with.
Example 1 - Shoulder Workout
Firstly I completed a specific warm up that included several mobility and stability drills identified in my assessment that were needed.
For the first few weeks when I was in a lot of pain mobility and trigger point release along with simple stabilizing drills was really my only workout.
After my pain subsided and I was ready to up the intensity and begin strength work I knew I was going to struggle with pushing movements. Overhead was going to be too difficult at this point in time but I knew if I could develop horizontal pushing and perhaps a turkish get up my progress toward being pain free would be great! This meant that these two movements must be early on. I also knew I needed to improve thoracic extension and my ability to maintain good posture and the deadlift was going to be perfect for this. Although I had never hurt my back I also knew the deadlift was not my best exercise so this would need to be up the order. I figured the deadlift would prepare me perfectly for the two exercises that worried me by activating grip strength and also great thoracic posture so it would go at the top followed by the two that could hurt me. Lastly I wanted to keep some strength work for the other patterns of movement like lunge and rotation. Every exercise has a reason for being there, and there is a reason for where it is placed.
Here is how I structured one of my workouts.
- Warm up
- Deadlift - 4 sets x 6-8
- Single Cable Push - 4 sets x8-12
- Turkish Get Up - 4 sets x 2
- Front Squat - 3 sets x 8-12
- Bent Over Row - 3 sets x 8-12
- Multi Direction Lunge - 3 sets x 20
- Kneeling Woodchop - 3 sets x 8-12
My bonus exercises if I had time and was not too tired was to include some Yoga Push ups and Serratus Anterior drills. See videos below.
Now while this workout was great for me, I would not use this program exactly like this for the next person I saw with shoulder impingement. Why? For they are not me, they may have other injuries, they may not have good form with squats or turkish get ups. I have to assess them and program accordingly. There is definitely exercises I would want to include but when and how I do that all depends on the person. And as I mentioned earlier there was also many other things I did prior to this workout that enabled me to get to this stage.
You will find exactly how we do this for shoulder pain in our detailed report below you can get by clicking here.
Example 2 - Knee Pain Workout
The second example is one is for knee pain. I encourage you to watch the video below as this gives a great explanation of how this process works and also how I might break this up into 3 different workouts over a week to allow for better quality execution of difficult exercises.
Again the same rules apply as with the shoulder before applying strength work.
- We must ensure there is no pain
- Mobility and stability is a must before strength
- Most difficult exercises first
You can read more about the gradual process of doing this in the article - How To Improve VMO Strength In 5 Simple Steps
With knee pain the movements that are most difficult to perform are always squats, one leg exercises and sometimes lunges. Deadlifts in this case are much easier for they do not require much knee movement. We also know that weak glutes and tight hips are a common factor to knee injuries so deadlifts and hip extensions are going to be a great way to strengthen without much chance of aggravation. However with the squat we know that this can easily cause trouble if we rush it, but will also be a big problem if we avoid it and do not find a way to strengthen the knee in this position. The single leg squat is going to be the key, but again you are going to have to take your time getting there.
One big thing to appreciate here is that the stiffness at the hip, and quads in most cases will inhibit your ability to correctly move and strengthen the legs. You will need to be constantly trying to weaken the neural message between sets using foam rolling or mobility drills to ensure you complete good technique.
An example of a workout I might use is as follows.
Monday
- Warm up
- Foam roll and mobility for hip & ankle
- Squat (with heel plates)
- Lunge
- Single leg hip extension
Wednesday
- Warm up
- Foam roll and mobility for hip & ankle
- Deadlift
- Hip Extension
Friday
- Warm up
- Foam roll and mobility for hip & ankle
- Single Leg Deadlift
- Lateral Lunge
- Clam
Did you notice that Wednesday workout with the deadlifts has only 4 exercises? This is intentional as it allows a "recovery" type of workout where I can still strengthen but not need much knee work. My two key workouts are the other two. I would also have a series of upper body exercises included in this as well with a high emphasis on standing exercises utilizing the slings to encourage better stability of the lower body but I just listed the leg drills to give you an idea of what a structure might look like. Over the coming weeks I might try to do 2 workouts of the squat instead of one, and then eventually 2 of the single leg day. The one I could compromise over time is the deadlift day. Once things are at a manageable level I can include all on the same workout as I would do when not injured. Just in the beginning it is easier to break it up so you can do each of the movements with great form and not fatigued.
For our detailed Knee Pain program that has all the assessments and programs mapped out with a 60 minute video and PDF instruction manual CLICK HERE
Okay we have looked at exercise order if you have injury but what about if you are not injured and just want to get strong and fit?
Example 3 - Strength & Fitness
Does exercise order still matter if you have no injury? Yes absolutely. You have to know what is the objective of your workout. What are your weaknesses? The workout will need to be built around these two ingredients. This will obviously vary from person to person so it is impossible for me to give you an example here but let's say your goal is to improve upper body strength and fitness and you have never been great at chin ups or overhead exercises. Your best exercise is the squat and you have great leg strength. My program might look like this.
- Warm up
- Chin ups - 4 sets x max
- Barbell Squat - 4 sets x 8-12
- Single dumbbell overhead press - 4 sets x 8-12(the following 4 exercises to be completed as a circuit 3 times)
- Push Ups - 3 sets x maximum reps
- Squat row - 3 sets x 10-15
- Medicine ball oblique throw - 3 sets x 8-12
- Power ropes x 30 secs
- Walking lunge x 20
You can see that I place two of the difficult exercises early on separated by the squat which is your best exercise. This allows me to get the two hardest ones first but still allow good quality by separating them with your favorite. All the exercises that follow are very much integrated movements that will demand some fitness and promote exhaustion. I would not do these first for they would compromise the strength and technique of the more difficult exercises. As you can see the order is just as important as the exercise choice. It can make or break the effectiveness of your training session.
This is just one example of many that I could use and if we looked at sports it would be even more complex as we would be trying to include other variables such as agility, power, speed or balance. You can read more about sports in this article - How To Choose Exercises For Sports
For hundreds of workout ideas you can also get the Little Black Book Of Training Secrets that literally has 101 workouts all mapped out for you. Click here to get your copy.
Summary
I hope this has given you a better understanding as to the importance of where exercises are placed in your workout. Knowing exactly what your workout objective is, and what your weakness is, is critical in knowing how to do this. A random approach to your training will yield poor results. If you are injured it is even more important for you could even make your injury worse by getting this wrong. The exercise may be the right thing to do but placing it too early or too late means your body cannot adapt to the stimulus effectively. One last thing always be wary of fatigue. The exercises that come last in your training should be much easier or ones you are very confident at getting right every time. Avoid doing exercises with spinal loads last such as deadlifts, squats and Olympic lifting as the chance of fatigue ruining your ability to protect the spine is very high. Always complete these exercises first and any abdominal isolated movements last.
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