Program Design #4: Heavy Before Light
Do you eat your dinner first or your dessert? Hopefully, you get in the important stuff, filling up on protein and quality carbs before consuming a frivolous dessert.
Weight training isn’t much different. Get in the important stuff before you do the fluff.
As with many of these principles of program design, there are exceptions. But in general, I suggest that you do heavier weight/lower repetition work in the beginning of a workout. This is because you are freshest. Once fatigue starts to build up you will not be able to achieve the same heavy weight at the end of a workout that you could at the beginning of a workout. There are several types of fatigue building up. Your muscle is accumulating lactic acid which affects your performance from set to set. You are gradually using up muscle glycogen leaving less fuel for subsequent sets. Your central nervous system is also getting taxed. Finally, you are creating a slight oxygen debt throughout the workout that causes general fatigue (this same debt also causes your metabolism to increase post workout).
Hopefully, you can see how performing heavy work in a fatigued state will decrease performance and reduce safety. Often, we also use the heavier work as a performance gauge. If you were squatting 3 sets of 5 with 100 pounds safely and easily, but you suddenly cannot squat 3 sets of 5 with 80 pounds; we know something is wrong. This is assuming you’re squatting under the same circumstances each time.
We cannot use heavy work as a way to measure progress if one week you do it at the beginning of a workout and the next week you squat after doing leg press, leg extensions and cardio. Obviously, your performance will decline in the squat if your legs are super fatigued from all of that leg work. However, if you do squat heavy under the same circumstance and your performance decreases, that encourages us to ask some questions as to “Why?” For example, we can start to ask how you are sleeping?, how is your diet?, how long since your last workout?, etc.
Does this mean you cannot squat at the end of a workout? No, it does not. But I do suggest not trying to break personal records in a heavy lift at the end of a workout. It is important to be realistic. Also, if you are dying to squat at the end of a workout, it may be a good idea to try an easier version such as goblet squats.
Get in the important stuff first. Leave the light and fluffy stuff for after your main course.
