Program Design #3: Exercise Choice, Part 1

Whether it’s watching TV, grocery shopping at the market, or trying to work out, there is no shortage of choice. Unfortunately, without the right tools or knowledge, we may have no way to distinguish between two choices.

It can be truly over whelming and can lead to information overload! In today’s continuation of my program design principles [link], I will try to help alleviate some of the potential confusion of;

Exercise Choice:

I mentioned in that blog post that for any given training program, you probably have 20 decent exercises to choose from for each particular muscle group. First of all, keep in mind that is a very rough estimate. Second of all, keep in mind that I wrote “decent”. If we just looked at exercises in general, you may have much more than that, but let’s stick to the basics.

How do you choose? It depends on your level of experience, goals, effectiveness, preference, frequency, equipment available, and injuries.

As I look at that sentence, it seems over whelming as well, but do not worry, I will attempt to simplify everything.

Level of Experience

If you are brand new to fitness, you won’t be doing overhead squats with weight or Olympic weight lifting. Machines are actually a decent place to start because they are usually safer and have pictures showing how to properly use them. Can people still screw up and use machine improperly? Of course, I am only pointing out that for a complete novice, machines may offer some benefit over diving into the free weight section. I’ve seen the worst form in the free weight section by people who simply tried to do their own thing with no guidance.

Do you have a bit more experience in the gym? Are you comfortable watching some instructional videos on YouTube? Then that opens up your exercise options quite a bit.

Have you been training for long enough to call yourself intermediate? Have you ever recorded your lifting? Or worked out with a suitable partner who watched your form? Again, this opens up the options.

Goals

Pick exercises suitable to your goal. If you are a girl who only cares about developing your back side and you do not care about balance, then do not do leg press, leg extensions, and front squats for your leg workout. All of those exercises target the quads much more than the glutes. If you wanted to be glute girl, you should set up the workout more like this; deadlifts, hip thrusts, glute bridges and some single leg work. This is just an example.

If you want to be the world’s bench press champion, then spending your day doing pushups for the pump and chest flys may not be the best strategy. Your body responds to specific demands placed on it by getting better at meeting those demands. Plan accordingly.

Effectiveness

Some exercises come with a greater “bang for your buck” factor. It’s usually fairly intuitive. For example, if on a certain day, you wanted to work your legs but only had time for one exercise; what would you pick?

Quick, first answer. If you said squats you understand bang for your buck. Most people would likely say squats or leg press. Why not leg extensions? Because that only hits the quads and leaves out your glutes and hamstrings.

OK, let’s try the same experiment for the upper body. If you only had time for one pushing exercise what do you pick? If you said some variation of a bench press, you are in the majority. Dips or Overhead Press would work fairly well too. You would not pick tricep pushdowns. There is nothing wrong with tricep pushdowns, but all of the other presses I mentioned will hit the chest, shoulders and triceps all in one.

Whether you are short on time or not, you will want to include good “bang for your buck” exercises in your routine. Why? Because who wants to spend 3 hours in the gym? Plus these types of exercises are a great boost to your metabolic rate.

Preference

Your preference matters in several ways.

First, it is important that you enjoy what you are doing. The more you enjoy exercise in general and a particular exercise specifically, the more likely you are going to be able to form a lifelong habit. So I encourage you, please include those exercises you enjoy. Make them a part of your routine.

However, preference matters in the opposite sense. If you find yourself ONLY doing a few exercises that you love. You will be on track to develop imbalances and overuse injuries. That’s no fun, and that overuse injury will stop you from doing the exercises you do love.

We all understand as adults that we have to do tasks we do not enjoy as part of our day. Try not to view these tasks in isolation. View them as part of the whole. Remind yourself that a balanced routine is important for your long term health and fitness. If you want to keep doing the stuff you love, find the time to do the exercises you know you should be doing.