"Muscle Building Techniques": should you use 'pre-exhaustion'?

Pre-exhaustion has long been one of many muscle building techniques used for intensifying the workload on a particular muscle. It's a tactic often used for improving a lagging body part when that particular muscle happens to be one that can be worked with a compound movement. In fact, the pre-exhaustion muscle building technique can only be used on just such a muscle group.

Compound movements are weight training exercises that resemble everyday natural bodily movements. These are squatting, pressing, and rowing movements. For example, behind-the-neck presses resemble the movement you make whenever lifting an object over head to set on a high shelf. Squats are what you do when pulling some weeds in your front yard. Bench pressing is basically what you do when you need to push away that belligerent drunk who tripped into you at a night club. And rowing movements are basically… well… what you do when out on a lake in a boat or trying to pull open a jammed door.

Muscle building techniques like 'pre-exhaustion' have long been used as weight training intensifyers.

Some bodybuilders believe the best way to build the chest, lats, shoulders, and legs are with the muscle building techniques of compound movements. The reasoning goes something like this: "You can use heavier weights doing compound exercises; therefore, you'll get bigger by focusing on them."

Well, one of the most intense muscle building techniques that this theory ignores is the pre-exhaustion technique. Pre-exhaustion simply entails performing an isolation exercise immediately prior to performing a compound movement which also hits the muscle that was isolated. So if you were working your chest, you'd do a set of dumbell flyes (isolation) and upon completing that set, you'd jump over to the bench press (compound) and knock out a set of that exercise.

Talk about "intensity"; the flyes will have effectively "pre-exhausted" the pectoral muscles so that the bench presses will feel as though they're isolating the pectorals rather than equally dividing that muscle's work with the triceps and deltoids. This results in more overall direct work for the pectorals. It's this ability to break down a muscle group faster that makes this muscle building technique so intense.

Pre-exhaustion is equally effective on the shoulders and quadriceps. You can follow side lateral raises (dumbell or nautilus) with a shoulder pressing movement. You can follow leg extensions with a leg press movement. I'd stay away from free-weight squats when using this muscle building technique for safety purposes.

Pre-exhaustion might be best reserved for lat exercises. Given that a lot of trainees tend to have trouble isolating their upper back, utilization of a Nautilus lat isolator followed by some pull-downs and rows might be just what gets them those "wings".

Although the arm muscles can be worked with pre-exhaustion (i.e. triceps extensions followed by close-grip bench press), it tends to be most effective on chest, quads, delts, and lats.

The big key to making this most unique of all muscle building techniques effective is to perform the compound movement immediately after the isolation exercise. Traditionally, there's no rest time between the two.

The other key is to use this muscle building technique sparingly. As with many such intensifiers, it can easily lead to overtraining. If using pre-exhaustion, pay very close attention to the targeted muscle's recuperation ability between workouts. If recovery begins to lag - cease and desist.

Then, try out the ultimate of synergistic muscle building techniques right here.

Comments

[No Nonsense Muscle Building Review]

'Although the arm muscles can be worked with pre-exhaustion (i.e. triceps extensions followed by close-grip bench press), it tends to be most effective on chest, quads, delts, and lats.'

I agree completely, I find the bigger the muscle the more exhaustion you can force upon it.

Tom