Optimal Exercise Selection
Exercise selection will be strongly influenced by your goals. A powerlifter does a very different workout than someone training for mixed martial arts, and neither of those is the same as the workout for a bodybuilder. Why are they so different? The specificity of training principal I mentioned earlier, that is different sorts of training produce different adaptations. Since our goal is retention of lean mass during a calorie deficit, we need to focus on engaging as much muscle mass as possible as that lets the body know it’s not ok to get rid of it.
With that in mind our first job is how to break down our training requirements. There are three main methods that I know of:
1) The traditional five part method: Chest, Back, Arms, Legs, Shoulders
2) The muscle method: Quads, Hamstrings, Calves, Abs, Obliques, Pecs, Lats, Rhomboids, Spinal Erectors, Deltoids, Traps, Biceps, Triceps, Forearms, Glutes
3) The movement pattern method: Vertical Press, Vertical Pull, Horizontal Press, Horizontal Pull, Quad Dominant Legs, Hip Dominant Legs, Trunk Flexion
Those are pretty much in order from worst to best. Breakdown by movement patterns is pretty much the accepted method nowadays, though there is some hybridization with method #2. The reason for this is that it tends to promote better overall growth, and prevent muscle imbalances that would cause injury or lack of progress. Method #1, while still used by many, is considered to be antiquated and not very effective.
So for method #3, we’ll want to select an exercise that corresponds to each movement pattern. Some exercises are better than others though, here’s some simple rules on how to decide:
1) Heavier is almost always better since it will produce a bigger response
2) Free weights are better than cables which are better than machines. More instability produces a wider effect as your stabilizer muscles kick in. Don’t take this to extremes though, instability which too seriously degrades the amount you can lift is generally counter-productive, lifting weights on a bosu ball for example.
3) Compound movements that involve multiple joints are better than single joint movements where that is possible. Again, this is because they involve more muscle mass acting at one time.
Why do we care about how much muscle we involve at one time? Two reasons, first it’s more time efficient, I don’t know about you but I have things in life to do besides hang out in the gym all day, and second the larger the muscle mass involved, the more growth hormones are released, and the better your progress.
So with all that in mind, here are some good choices:
Vertical Press: Military Press
Vertical Pull: Pullups
Horizontal Press: Bench Press
Horizontal Pull: Cable Row
Quad Dominant Legs: ATG Squat
Hip Dominant Legs: Stiff Legged Deadlift
Trunk Flexion: Incline Weighted Situps
That’s a pretty good selection, but we missed a few areas: Traps, Calves, Forearms, Biceps, Triceps.
Traps: Trap Bar Shrugs
Calves: Calf Raise
Forearms: Supported Wrist Roller
Biceps: Barbell Curls
Triceps: Dips
When you put all that together we’ve got the beginning of a good program. We’re going to want to pick a set and rep scheme for each exercise that places us in the hypertrophy zone. 4×8 is a great choice as it gives a nice mix of sarcomere and sarcoplasm growth, 5×5 is also very good, it was made popular by early bodybuilding star Reg Park who built a very nice physique using that scheme. In the next article we’ll talk about fatigue and how to organize your lifting schedule.