The last few articles I have written showcasing some complex functional multi-joint exercises I have only explained what the purpose of the exercises are and how to do them. What I did not explain is actually how you would organize them into a strength workout effectively so you ensure you keep everything balanced and avoid over-training. While it is great to know how to do these exercises you can create problems if you do not know how to structure your training schedule and program. Program design is a real science in itself when you really understand certain principles around movement and the human anatomy. It can be constant balancing act between using certain muscles too much and creating stiffness and injury, versus not using them enough and creating weakness injury. A great program can avoid this. In this article, I will explain my program design using a set of guidelines to help ensure I maintain balance while getting the most out of my strength potential.

If you have tried completing several sets of the multi-joint exercises featured in this article you will soon realize they are extremely exhausting and very difficult to do too many of them effectively in one workout. Secondly, while these exercises are very good at trying to use the body the way it was designed, they will often require regressions to help the body restore mobility, stability, or strength to specific areas that are restricted or inhibited. The needs and abilities of each person will vary significantly from one to the next so it is impossible to provide a template that works for everyone. 

While it is great to have a big library of functional exercises with ideas of improving how you move or developing skills like strength or power, you cannot just randomly put a heap of exercises together and hope it all just works out right. If you overdevelop one area because it looks fun or because you enjoy doing it you risk weakening or ruining an opposing movement or muscle groups leading to imbalances and eventually injury. This is where you need some guidelines to follow to make sure you don't drift off into random exercise selection.

Most traditional types of strength training have been based on body-building principles of chest, back, legs, etc which is in some context a good start but far from ideal. Firstly, we very rarely move in isolation like this anyway and most of these exercises are unnecessary and can even end up causing muscle imbalances. Secondly, what do you do for exercises that utilize almost every joint and multiple muscle group?  

This poses several other questions such as:

1. How do you know how many exercises is enough in one workout?
2. How many sets should you do?
3. What order should you use them?
4. How can you be certain it is balanced out?

These are all great questions and it can get very confusing at times which is why I use some simple guidelines to help me structure the workouts effectively for each person.

What Are My Program Guidelines?

Before discussing the guidelines it is important to acknowledge that there are generally three types of people that complete strength exercises that will have slightly different types of programs.

These are:

1. Sports
2. General fitness
3. Injury and rehabilitation

While these populations vary the guidelines I use are very similar.

These are quite simple and something I have discussed before in articles relating to sports where I am often trying to incorporate numerous types of abilities and skills which cannot be done in one workout. I break up the workouts to meet specific needs and abilities so the person does not over-train or compromise the effectiveness from excessive fatigue. The more advanced the exercise the bigger the emphasis is on quality as opposed to volume of training or endurance.

The video below gives you a great look at this with relation to sports strength program design.

You can see more about this in the articles

• How to choose the right exercises for a sports specific workout
• 8 skills and abilities needed for sports

For the general population who just want to get fit, strong, and maybe lose some weight I base my programs around improving posture and improving basic movement patterns.

As opposed to the body-building methods of chest day, back day, legs day, etc this movement based approach basically trains all muscles in one workout. As some functional movements use several joints you may find that some muscles are trained more than others and I often base my program design on training the weaker and more dysfunctional patterns more than the stronger ones.

The last group of people and where I haven’t spent as much time explaining how to do this is when it comes to injuries and rehabilitation as this can get real messy. There is obviously a problem with one or several movement patterns that make it impossible to train correctly.

I have to use assessments to tell me where to go and it all depends on the type of injury and where the person is at for what type of program I will put together. You can see a detailed explanation of this in the article – How to complete your own assessment for knee pain

It is fair to say most multi-joint exercises are not appropriate in the early stages of rehabilitation anyway and I am often trying to introduce only one of these at a time, usually towards the end of the program when you are trying to help the body move efficiently.

Okay so what are these guidelines?

• What is the objective of the workout?
• Make sure the program covers every movement pattern.
• Place the most difficult exercises early in the workout before you are fatigued.
• Double up on exercises that target weaknesses
• Use mobility exercises between sets where needed
• Use supersets to enhance movement quality

Here is a quick summary of these points to understand why I do this.

What Is The Objective Of The Workout?

This is so simple yet it is amazing how many people do not do this and not really sure what they are even trying to achieve with each workout. Sure they know they want to get stronger but what you need to be more specific than this if you want to address weaknesses.

This is extremely important for it sets the tone or the theme of everything you are about to do. This determines what type of sets, reps, and tempo as much as the exercise selection itself. The old saying of failure to plan means plan to fail is so true.

Each workout must have a purpose and each exercise must have a reason for meeting or fulfilling that purpose.

When you have a specific objective in mind it is amazing how much easier it is to select the right exercises and use the right methods to achieve this objective.

Ensure Each Movement Pattern Is Trained

Every program you design should include exercises that attempt to improve the 7 key functional movement patterns. These are the foundations and fundamentals upon which every movement we complete is built on so it makes sense to have an exercise or several exercises that enhance these.

If you are not sure what these patterns are they are:

1. Squat
2. Bend
3. Lunge
4. Twist
5. Push
6. Pull
7. Gait

Watch the video below to see a summary of these.

By improving movement quality and strength across these patterns you improve the strength of every muscle in the body. The variation of difficulty the exercises you will need to use for each pattern will be quite different as some movements you will find easy, and others very challenging. This is where you could be using advanced progressions with the squat and lunge pattern, but a simplified regression for the bending and twisting pattern.

Sometimes I might deliberately train one movement more than others or even leave out some movement patterns out entirely in one workout as my goal was to specifically correct or restore weakness that was causing a problem. This means I may not have time to cover all the movement patterns in one workout as my guideline suggest. However, if I do this I know that the next workout needs to cover the things I didn’t do in the previous workout to ensure everything is maintained. This way I get the best of both worlds for I can enhance the weaker or dysfunctional pattern but maintain the others.

The key is I had to have a goal or specific objective for each workout so that I don’t miss something. Nothing is random or made up, everything has a purpose.

Difficult Exercises Must Be Trained First

When I 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 could be a deadlift for someone rehabilitating from a bulging disc back injury, or a squat or lunge for someone with a knee problem. Or it could be one of the complex functional movements from some of my recent articles and you should begin to see how it can be risky to include too many of these in the same workout.

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.

You can read more about this and see specific examples in this article – How important is the exercise order in a strength workout?

Double Up On Exercises That Target Weaknesses

This is not a hard and fast rule but it is something I tend to do for it can be very difficult to restore strength and function to specific area with one exercise. Often you need several exercises to hit the muscles and tendons with different angles, intensity, equipment and methods to ensure it functions efficiently and automatically.

A good example of this is with the glutes as they are prone to weakness and inhibition from overworking muscles making it extremely challenging to get the muscles to fire in compound movements.

I might have to use a combination of hip extensions, deadlifts, and abduction exercises like crab walks and clams to be able to progress to the more difficult exercises like single leg deadlifts and lunges. Even though each of these exercises targets the glutes in a big way they are slightly different in how it is done. Relying on only one to do the job neglects the way the muscles needs to function in other movements.

You can read more about this in the article – Pros and cons of the 15 best glute exercises

This is not limited to the glutes as this same problem will be encountered with areas like the core or serratus anterior with the shoulder. It will take a combination of exercises usually programmed as gradual progressions over several weeks to restore strength and stability.

Use Mobility Corrections In between Sets of Strength Exercises

This flows on from the previous step and is where you see the problem of muscle inhibition at play. In the recent article about the joint by joint approach I talk about this concept specifically across all the joints and the muscles associated.

Muscles are not all designed the same as some are prone to weakness whereas others are prone to overworking and becoming short and tight. When something is overused or damaged the way these muscles interact with each other is disrupted.

The tonic muscles by way of their design begin to develop a method of overworking and dominating all movements and in essence “shut down” or "steal" the phasic muscles workload completely. This creates an imbalance within the body as muscles not capable to perform various movements continue to work developing trigger points and tightness, while at the same time other muscles are becoming weaker due to lack of work. The longer this stays this way the further the imbalance becomes and inevitably reaches a point of chronic pain.

To prevent this scenario from ruining multiple joint movements I regularly use a mobility exercise between sets to ensure the dominating tonic muscle is “weakened” so it cannot steal the work of the often weak phasic muscle.

You can read more about this read this article – How to identify mobility restrictions that affect how you move

Use Supersets To Enhance Movement Quality

This is not essential but it does allow you to get a lot more volume of training completed without taking an enormous time to do your workout.

Supersets contain pairings of exercises that can target the same muscle/muscle group, One set is performed of one of the exercises in the pair, then the other immediately afterwards. A short recovery can be taken between each pair before the next set is performed.

This type of workout method is normally used as great way to hit the muscle fibres and stimulate fast muscle growth, particularly if they targeted the same muscle group and medium to heavy weights are used. For this reason they have often been a key part of many body-builders and advanced strength training programs.

However, I have found it to be invaluable with rehabilitation to work opposing muscles together or allow for longer resting times but not letting the body get cold by using an exercise that does not compromise the main one.

Check out this article for several examples of this – How to use supersets in your workouts

Now that I have explained my program guidelines how do I answer my questions from earlier?

How Many Exercises Should You Use In One Workout?

Normally I would say 8 exercises would be enough to build strength without over-training and compromising form with excessive fatigue. However, with these multi-joint exercises this may be too many and I definitely would not have 8 complex exercises in one workout. I usually find 6 exercises is enough and only 2 of these might be the really difficult to execute multi-joint exercises.

As I might have 8-10 of these exercises in my toolkit I have to be creative in how I structure my workout so I don’t overdo it. What I would prefer to do is split them up over three different workouts that I alternate between each session.

This way I will still be able to develop my skills and strength but avoid pattern overload. If there is one particular exercise I am struggling with I might do this one several times in a row and always at the start of the workout as discussed earlier.

How Many Sets Should You Do?

Normally 20-25 sets is enough workload to produce muscle adaptation without overdoing it but once again as these exercises are so challenging I may not need as much.

I have covered this exact question in a detailed article before so I won’t go into too much detail and repeat myself. You can read this article here – How long should a strength workout last?

To determine how much is needed in a workout we need to establish how many sets and reps you need for each exercise.

In a 2015 study by the Journal of Strength and Conditioning they found participants who completed 5 sets per exercise built more muscle than those who completed only 1-3 sets per exercise after six months of training.

This would support the argument that more is better, however in a 2019 study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise they found that while 5 sets beat 1-3 sets per exercise for muscle growth, all groups showed significant increases in strength and endurance with no “significant between group differences”.

What this means is you can still achieve great results from 3 sets instead of 5 sets which is perfect for most people who are time poor to begin with. As long as your exercise intensity is right, you will have done enough to create a muscle overload. Any additional sets will produce marginal improvements that may even prove to be counter-productive if you end up with an injury.

 In theory you could still do well with only one set but it is pretty tough to get the intensity right with only set, so like to use the first set as a warm-up and followed up with 2 additional overload sets to create the overload.

I myself find that I need at least 3 sets and sometimes 4 sets to get to my potential. Especially on exercises for like the deadlift or complex pushing exercises to ensure I have the technique perfected. I do not want to go lifting heavy straight away as I feel I need a few warm-up sets to test out how I feel and also get the blood pumping into the tendons and muscles.

How Can You Be Certain The Workout Is Balanced Out?

Well, this is where it does get really messy as many of these multi-joint movements use several key movement patterns and muscles several times as seen in the videos below.

I tend to favour more of the posterior chain exercises with multiple exercises that hit the glutes and hamstrings quite heavily versus the anterior chain exercises that target the hips and quads. This comes back to addressing the common muscle imbalances and dominance that most people have which is tight and dominating quads over weak and inhibited glutes and hamstrings.

However, this is not always the case and does not mean you should not train the quads. You also must remember that the glutes, quads and hamstrings work together in “big” movements like squats and lunges so you are not really cutting any of them out. It just means that many of the hip-hinging exercises which many of the powerful multi-joint exercises require will force a stack of work into the glutes more so than the quads.

As long as you still have some knee loaded exercises included like squats, lunges, and step-ups you will still be working everything balanced.

With the upper body most of the time I will keep an even balance between pushing and pulling movements, however I might complete more of one than the other depending on the person. This comes back to my previous guideline of doubling up weakened areas. I also do not employ the long held belief that you need more pulling than pushing exercises to avoid upper cross syndrome. I covered this in great detail in the article – How to correctly execute pulling exercises for shoulder strength and function

To answer this question is very difficult and I cannot give you an absolute number. As long as you have at least one exercise for of each of the key patterns you should be fine.

To help you out here are a couple of workout examples.

Level 1 - Basic Functional Fundamentals

This first workout does not include anything in motion other than the forward lunge and is arguably more concerned with stability and strength than anything else.

The main emphasis is with the bending action and hip loaded movements of the Romanian Deadlift and Hip Airplane. I added hip extension as an additional exercise which could be a used as a barbell hip thrust if the person is strong enough, to create an additional overload and build more strength into the glutes. This is in preparation for the upcoming programs that will demand incredible strength and power in order for the multi-joint exercises to be executed correctly.

The push and pull movements are quite simple and once again this is to give the body every chance of having a strong platform to build upon. The cable woodchop is in a kneeling position to allow you to learn the correct pulling arc and build some core stability as an anti-rotator before learning how to create rotation. The forward ball roll is a very simple core exercise to teach the body how to control extension and protect the lower back from being compressed.

Also note that there is a total of 8 exercises in this workout.

Level 2 – Intermediate Skills and Learning How to Weight Shift

The main focus with this program is learning how to use the weight shifting skill when completing a multi-joint exercises. This is primarily seen with the cable push and cable wood-chop but also with the lunge pull exercise.

As explained in my previous article learning how to effectively weight shift from right to left with multiple movements and in several directions is critical for movement efficiency. The secret to making the more complex exercises in level 3 work is learning how to effectively transfer the weight of your body from one side to the other without compromising your posture, core stability, or compensating at the hips or feet.

The dumbbell squat press exercise is a lot harder than it looks and is the only one in this program that needs explosive timing. I could alternate this with the much more controlled stepping shoulder press exercise if I wanted to focus more on the motion controlled movement. Both are great exercises it just depends on what I want to focus on more.

While these exercises are a progression they are still quite controlled as the tempo does not need to be as explosive with these movements as it will be in level three. The suitcase carry and side plank exercises are great anti-rotators to counter the explosive rotary power movement seen in the weight shifting exercises. This is a perfect example of how versatile the core needs to be and why you need to have this huge variety in your program to ensure you teach the body all the skills it requires, as opposed to just the ones you like.

Note that there is only 7 exercises this time with the side plank really a bonus exercise.

Level 3 – Advanced Skills to Improve Gait & Movement Efficiency

This last level is the most difficult and to be honest I could really split this into two parts and use some more simple exercises such as push-ups, chin-ups, crab walks, and hip thrusts to complement the multi-joint exercises. But if I was to really push the limit and develop my movement efficiency this is how I might do it.

With the Romanian Deadlift instead of going heavy and making it all about strength I could use the uneven barbell or even stick to the single leg deadlift from last time. The only reason I chose to use the uneven deadlift is to minimize how much fatigue I am going to put into the legs so I can save my muscles for the more complex exercises to come. The uneven deadlift continues to teach the bend pattern and how the core must work with the glutes to avoid any lateral tilting of the trunk.

You will notice how there are four exercises that are linked to gait as opposed to the first two programs that both only had two exercises for this. The squat pattern and pulling patterns are the least trained movements whereas bend and gait are the most trained which once again is consistent with the strengths and weaknesses of most people.

Also, the explosive speed and timing needed with the single cable push with weight shift and step, the backward step with single cable pull, and even the barbell side to side squat press are significantly greater than the previous programs. These are extremely tiring and utilize almost every muscle in the body which is why it is so hard to do too many of these in one single workout.

This workout also introduces the Turkish Get-up for the first time which is another extremely tiring and complicated exercise in its own right. Even though you only use one rep this is really does take a lot out of you and is a great way to build incredible core strength with an exercise that links the upper body and lower body together. This is where I like to use another workout that uses this and the farmer’s walks between sets of other exercises in a circuit format to build strength endurance. Click here to read that article.

Want More Ideas?

If you want more ideas of how to put these exercises together into complete strength programs and even cardio and sporting workouts, make sure you get a copy of the Little Black Book of Training Secrets where I share 101 amazing programs. Click here to see more about what is inside this special report and download your digital copy instantly.

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Summary

I hope this articles gives you a better understanding of how to use these exercises effectively with other ones and how to gradually progress the difficulty of them so you don’t overdo it. Some people get very frustrated with the complex exercises for their coordination may not be that great or maybe the weaknesses they have don’t allow them to do them correctly. It is fine to regress back to more simple ones for a while and then gradually build up to learning them again later on. The good news is that if you can progress to the more challenging variations all the exercises you used to think were hard will now be really easy. It is not that your muscular strength changed considerably, it is more that the brain found a better way to move. At the end of the day that is what it is all about.

For more ideas and information on specific topics I may not have covered in detail be sure to check out our INDEX PAGE on the website that has over 300 of our best articles. These are all sorted into categories for quick reference so you can find what you are after more easily. You can also subscribe to our FREE fortnightly newsletter by clicking here.

If you do need specific help with your exercise program please feel free to reach out to me for help and we can set you up with your individualised program.

About The Author

Nick Jack is owner of No Regrets Personal Training and has over 19 years’ experience as a qualified Personal Trainer, Level 2 Rehabilitation trainer, CHEK practitioner, and Level 2 Sports conditioning Coach. Based in Melbourne Australia he specialises in providing solutions to injury and health problems for people of all ages using the latest methods of assessing movement and corrective exercise.

References:

• The Gift Of Injury - By Dr Stuart McGill and Brian Carroll
• 8 Steps To Pain Free Back - By Esther Gokhale
• The Vital Glutes - By John Gibbons
• Movement - By Gray Cook
• Functional Patterns
• Corrective Exercise Solutions - by Evan Osar
• Back Pain Mechanic - by Dr Stuart McGill
• Diagnosis & Treatment Of Movement Impairment Syndromes - By Shirley Sahrman
• Low Back Disorders - by Dr Stuart McGill
• Ultimate Back Fitness & Performance - by Dr Stuart McGill
• Core Stability - by Peak Performance
• Athletic Body in Balance - by Gray Cook
• Anatomy Trains - by Thomas Meyers
• Motor Learning and Performance - By Richard A Schmidt and Timothy D Lee
• Assessment & Treatment Of Muscle Imbalance - By Vladimir Janda
• How To Eat, Move & Be Healthy by Paul Chek
• Scientific Core Conditioning Correspondence Course - By Paul Chek
• Advanced Program Design - By Paul Chek