How to Order Exercises Within Your Workout (Science Explained)

In this video, Milo from Stronger By Science explains the research around exercise order for building muscle, gaining strength, and building power. How should you order exercises? Should you do compound lifts first?
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#bodybuilding #powerlifting #scienceexplained
"How to Order Exercises Within Your Workout (Science Explained)"

[@kneewizard6246]

“Ill have a large bench press, medium incline press, and a side of flys” “Sir this is a Wendy’s”

[@strongerbyscience]

Wendy's is truly GOATed fr fr -Milo

[@chonkusdonkus]

I will absolutely be doing isolation exercises first on lower days to lower my injury risk, thanks for the video, happy to hear I'm not leaving any hypertrophy on the table.

[@DarthNoshitam]

Same. I'm recovering from hip surgery so it just makes sense to pre-exhaust

[@ophirmayer1]

Can you give me a example? I have knee issues after squats, should i do them after leg extensions for example?

[@DarthNoshitam]

@@ophirmayer1 Exactly. Pre-exhausting your quads allows you to achieve a higher intensity on the squats (i.e., closer to failure) with a lighter weight, which is safer for your joints ☺️ Just don't pre-exhaust to the extent that it compromises your squat technique

[@lowellwalters]

Based on a video from Dr Mike and my personal goals, my upper day start with a superset of chest and back warmups, immediately followed by a working bicep/tricep superset, followed by working chest/back superset. It's been a great way to stimulate arm growth with less focused arm volume and without hurting my chest and back training.

[@ruaanbourman2019]

I have been following Dr Mike for some time, and came across a stream with Dr Wolf. Glad your channel appeared I do love the theoretical and practical information. Thanks it did clear up something I was unclear about 💪

[@michaele.strasser9641]

Very interesting. Thanks a lot. I know the older recommendations about how to order exercises. After many different setups I found for myself significant differences between different orders. Not so much for hypertrophy, but for the overall training experience. When I do a full upper body plan instead of push-pull my bench press reduce my pull ups performance, but not vice versa. For whatever reason... Overall I found very little to none hints that the last exercise in a session got less stimulus than the earlier exercises. At least as long as my rest times between sets aren't very short and I am not more out of breath collapsing than anything else.

[@honeybrew5063]

I prefer doing first what I want to prioritise or when I want something to be a limiting factor later (e.g. Overhead Extensions first, CG Bench after)

[@Flint9250]

Not the 8 hour arm workout theme song 😭😂

[@marley720]

I would be interested too see a study which compares putting all training of one muscle group together vs splitting it up - comparing alternating between chest and back vs one after the other.

[@ryandeffley7652]

I actually like doing a few sets of leg extensions to prime my quads and knees before I squat or do any single leg work. Just like leg curls before deadlifting. Also, I've found that doing a row first is a great primer for bench pressing. On the flip side, it feels better to do an OHP first to prime the shoulders/scapula before doing weighted pullups.

[@lolololalala8225]

In a busy gym I usualy do the exercize that is free at the moment. I will try to do the most important one first, since I still have patience to wait for it when it's occupied.

[@leo_lopes_augusti]

Upper body workout => mixed (chest/back/chest/back) or straight (chest/chest/back/back)? Any studies on that? I much prefer mixed

[@spurzo-thespiralspacewolf8916]

When I used do fullbody workout, I did one workout where I started with all my upper compounds then did my lower compounds then on to isolation work for upper then isolation for lower. The next workout I’d start with lower compounds first then upper compounds then lower isolations then upper isolation only doing 2 workouts per week. 3 sets per muscle each workout with a total of 6 working sets per week. Now I do an upper /lower split, still only 2 workouts per week but I’m hitting each muscle 1 x week still with 6 sets per muscle per week, but all 6 sets are in one session.

[@user-bl9fj7kf1s]

What is the latest meta-analysis about order of eating at a buffet? 😊

[@382u3uuej]

From what I have seen on this video and other channels (mostly Reinassance Periodization) is that for hypertrophy the order of exercises is not too important for results, but it is important in the sense of connective tissue fatigue management via pre-exhausting the muscle, I bought a few years ago the RP hypertrophy template of x6 a week full body training and in there sometimes it has isolation before a compound, why? Because if you do dumbbell flies for your chest before flat bench pressing you are pre-exhausting you chest, and therefore the exercise in which you lift the most (flat pushing) you will lift less but it will still yield you hypertrophy since the order does not matter too much, and you will also get less connective tissue fatigue. This program also this did only once a week with back, there was a light workout of just a few sets of back (because it was x3 a week, 2 hard days and one easy day) and in the easy day it was biceps first and then vertical pulling, this was IMO to prioritize biceps a tiny bit that day and to be weaker for pull ups, for less connective tissue fatigue. Exercise order for hypertrophy makes sense IMO for specialization phases (I want to dedicate a mesocycle to my arms so I do them first) and for managing connective tissue fatigue, another example would be a quad isolation movement and leaving squats for last for when you are weaker.

[@nwmxrider]

I always wondered if you had a home gym and time to do 3x4 sets of your lift throughout the day. IE 3x4 fb later in the day 3x4 inc bench later on during the party 3x4 of flat fly

[@mjs90201]

I am interested in what science may say about the order of cardio (moderate or high intensity) intervals in a workout that includes lifting. I like to start with a high intensity cardio interval. Then I'll do lifting if the machine I want is available, or else I'll do HIIT until the machine becomes available.

[@Yupppi]

I'd be curious on how to structure your workout session if your goal was both power and strength training for sport with barbell movements. Say squats for example. What kind of sets and loads (ranges) would you use for which, what order and what would be decent cues for enough or volume ranges.

[@Flint9250]

Which sport are you training for? That’s probably going to determine a great deal regarding your exercise priority and workload.

[@greasyfingerprints]

What's a school crusher?

[@MT-hy6pr]

A question I have is: why workout in sets? Let's say you're doing full body, 3 sets of each exercise. Why not do 3 circuits of the exercises instead? Greater rest times, shorter workout overall as you're not waiting for one particular muscle to recover etc. In theory it's far superior.

[@lowellwalters]

I've heard Wolf and others tout the use of supersets for the reasons you offered. I imagine he'd feel similarly about circuits as long as each exercise in the circuit focuses on a completely separate muscle group, like chest press-supported row-ab work. If it was chest press-supported row-chest fly-reverse fly, he'd probably express concern that the flies will hurt your performance in the press-row portion. But...I'd bet he'd like the idea of a press-row superset followed or preceded by a fly-reverse fly superset, with 1-2 min rest btn those supersets

[@IISocratesII]

Would these findings also apply to exercise order in terms of muscle groups? seeing the studies it doesn't look like it necesarily answers the question as to whether lets say on an arm day you do all of your bicep work, then all your tricep work (or vice versa), VS going bicep/tricep/bicep/tricep etc. I know it says doing an exercise earlier may be better in terms of strength outcome but that is only on the first movements of a session, and it doesn't seem like the only possible scenario judging from how the study programs were laid out, lets say you do 3 bicep exercises in a row, the muscle will be so fatigued in later exercises on that muscle group that you'd be moving less load in that exercise than if you had a tricep exercise between each bicep exercise, essentially giving you a long rest period before hitting it again. Same logical could apply to PPL, chest/shoulder/tricep/chest/shoulder/tricep/ as opposed to all the chest exercises, then all shoulder ones, then all tricep etc, and same for Pull day or Leg day, you get the point. Does that make sense in terms of my questions? (hopefully it does)

[@JoshBenware]

It seems they only tested full body 3x a week, and therefore only used one isolation exercise and one compound. They obviously needed to disperse the volume throughout the week. The answer to your question would probably depend on intensity and volume.

[@IISocratesII]

@@JoshBenware volume and intensity (using RIR) would be standardised, if it wasn't the result would be completely useless.

[@bloodysath]

If exercise order doesn't matter for hypertrophy, why is no one splitting a full Body Day like: Upper Body compound, lower Body Isolation, Upper Body Isolation, lower Body compound. Cause longer pauses between sets are better for hypertrophy?

[@15awesomehighfive]

Question, if anyone can answer: say I have 4 sets of a given exercise, and I know for a fact that by the third set my technique and performance will be heavily affected by fatigue. Is it a wise decision to split my 4 sets into an 2 AM and 2 PM sessions with around 6-8 hours rest in between in order to have better performance and achieve the desired weight&reps&RIR&technique combination? Am I spoiling my recovery, for example? Any other detrimental effects?

[@SwamitKher]

Yes each muscle group gets trained fresh so it works

[@vivi4140]

amazing video

[@rafael_ellanios2708]

Make for legs again plz

[@TheHybrid350]

Great

[@johnstevens5722]

#TeamCalves

[@JoshBenware]

Isn't this the channel that had Trexler and Knuckles?

[@slee2695]

Yeah they're coworkers

[@rockyevans1584]

Without Greg they'd lose the stronger part of the name. You misspelled "helms", common mistake

[@JoshBenware]

I'm just wondering why I don't see them anymore. Are the hosts now going to be pak and milo?

[@slee2695]

@rockyevans1584 milo's competition total is 1300..not amazing but pretty good

[@rockyevans1584]

@slee2695 nothing to sneeze at, but Greg's total is stupid. Guys a tank and possibly even better at breaking down data for practical application to the laymen

[@PeteMcQueeny]

seQUENCING

[@nateperez6587]

Dr. Milo “Meta-Analysis” Wolf

[@TommyEgan.7]

Dr. Wolf, please do a video about the effects of masturbating or how many times a week can we have sex if we want maximum hypertrophy. There are a lot of myths but you're the doctor here so what's the deal. Is that killing our gains or what ? Thanks for all the videos, they're great !

[@KM-hk8tc]

I just made sweet love to my wife prior to exercising - I find my energy is slightly diminished. I knew it would happen but beggars can’t be choosers right? Regarding the ancient practice of slapping pens salami I find my energy is off if it’s more than once a day. I would just withhold for a while and observe

[@mrbartuss1]

I would love to see a video on combining strength training with running

[@RCCurtright]

I second this! Specifically if running will kill leg gains. And how much rest should I allocate after leg day before running and vice versa.

[@MagpieR6]

​@@RCCurtrightrest is based off how your legs feel, wait for them to recover just like you would for weight training then run, and vice versa.

[@SakuragiLastname9]

Don't listen to this guy. We need to be rabdomaxing and doing rich's 8 hour arm workout

[@weekendwarrior8179]

It’s nice to know science has backed my style of training. I’d like to results when comparing strength/hyp with bi/uni lateral movements done separately, together, or not at all.

[@markstuber4731]

I'm more interested in exorcise order's effect on injury.

[@mikeplumb112]

I do what I want to prioritise first but il try find an isolation movement for it, for example... i want to prioritise upper chest on chest day so il do incline cable flys's first with 2-3 sets to failure at 8-12reps. Then il go incline bench. The amount of shoulder pain I have has drastically decrease and hypertrophy has actually improved.

[@Mister_Terrific806]

Please stand for the national anthem 2:51

[@gerym341]

Another great video. Thank you, Doctor and SBS TEAM

[@ponkanpinoy]

Open access is one of the best things to come in science in the recent years.

[@gokukakarot1855]

For the algorithm

[@ophirmayer1]

If hypertrophy is correlated with volume, and I can do - for example - much less squatting after leg extensions but not vice versa - isn't the exercise order crucial?

[@drno62]

Not if you even it out with more leg extensions

[@ophirmayer1]

@@drno62 then your squats will get even worse

[@drno62]

@@ophirmayer1 But that's irrelevant for hypertrophy

[@ophirmayer1]

@@drno62 overall volume, aka number of sets, reps and weight is highly relevant

[@drno62]

@@ophirmayer1 Squatting a lower weight is irrelevant if you take your sets to near-failure. Volume for hypertrophy is measured by hard sets, not volume load

[@lowellwalters]

I really appreciate your style of humor, Dr Wolf! A mix of dry humor, like the 8-hour arm workout, and sarcasm, with some self-deprecating humor on occasion, and great video editing/effects. And without any of the curses and sex references so I can watch your videos with others around. I want to be entertained while I learn and you offer me perfect mix!!!