[EasyEJL]

I'm not talking about prefatiguing (which would be doing something like 2 sets of 40 reps of light flies before doing bench presses) but exhausting the smaller muscle groups before doing the big compound exercise.

This is NOT something you'd do every exercise or even every week, but more something on the order of once every 4-8 weeks. Its more of a "shake up" move in that it causes you to work the muscles in a different way than your normal.

Specifically i'm talking about doing a full tricep with burnout prior to doing chest exercises. so something like

3 sets of heavy skullcrushers
3 sets of seated db extensions
3 sets of kickbacks
2 sets of 20-30 reps of triceps pushdowns

then on to bench press. Same thing for back, but biceps first.

The negative point of view is that your chest or back is so much stronger than your tris/bis that if you have weakened tris/bis then you can't thoroughly work out your chest/back as you won't be able to use heavy enough weights.

The positive point of view says that since these are compound exercises, there are points in the range of motion where the tris/bis provide more of the power than the chest/back. So by preexhausting the tris/bis you force the chest/back to be the only active force during the entire range of motion, stimulating the chest/back in a different way.


I like it, it seems to help and I see a jump in weights the next workout when I go back to chest first then tris. What do you all think?

[CryingEmo]

I don't think it does. From what I've read you want the weakest muscles that stabalize to be able to hold out the longest in order to load the larger muscles with heavier weight for longer periods/ more reps. Pre-fatiguing smaller muscles would go against this...

[jeglinas]

I have done the reverse exhausing the larger muscles first a nice change of pace for the short term I've noticed a jump in weights Like doing fly then bench press

[EasyEJL]

I think its more about hitting a portion of the range of motion and forcing the larger muscle to do the work there, that it doesn't normally do.

Take wide grip lat pulldowns. for the most part, I believe your back handles the first 6 inches or so of motion, then biceps cover most of the rest down to the last 3-4 inches of motion. by wiping out the biceps first, granted you have to work with a lower weight, so those portions that normally get hit hard don't get a full workout, but the span of motion that is between those uses your back for the power that normally comes from the bis.

Same thing on bench presses basically, there is that portion of the motion that the tricep provides most of the work, and the portions where the chest does.

[SteelEntity]

To me it doesn't make sense because pre exhausting will just lessen the amount of weight you can lift so even if for example you exhaust your triceps to isolate your pecs more you will still be lifting a lot less weight, so to me it is counter productive. In case you didn't get that heres an example.

Pre exhaust triceps will allow you to bench 250lbs x 10 x 3

If you don't pre exhaust then you can bench 310bs x 10 x 3

My theory is that even if the supporting muscles are taking 30-40lbs directly off the chest, then you are still lifting heavier weight and stimulating more muscle fibers because of the contributing muscles to stabilize the weight. Plus compound movements are better, if you want to isolate the pec more then do machine work. My 2 cents on it anyway.

[Joshua86]

I definitely wouldn't use the pre-exhausting method all the time, but I can see how it might be a useful tool for breaking through a plateau, or if you're wanting to increase the intensity of a certain muscle group. For example, pre-exhausting the deltoids or triceps before you train the pectorals. And if you're still in the phase of training where your goal is primarily to put on mass, like me, I wouldn't necessarily advocate using this technique. Perhaps only using it once you've already achieved a great foundation of mass and you're just wanting to target specific weak points.

But like I said, I don't think it's a technique that's supposed to be done for a sustained period of time. Rather, used for short-term goals.

[BodyWizard]

pre-exhausting the secondaries & stabilizers increases the chance of injury, and not just due to hurting the muscles (somethings don't like getting crushed by weights in free-fall) - and the stabilizers in particular are a technicolor, 3-D beyotch to get healed properly.

What I do for example is let the triceps limit my presses, then use flyes to further work the pecs, then finish finish off the tris with a few skullcrushers.

You might be one of the lucky 25 so I'm not telling you not to: do what you think is right. Just be careful.