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Exercises - Combining
Exercises - Combining
Combining Exercises for Optimum Effect
What's in a routine?
For those involved in a weight-training program, creating a well-designed routine is a daunting task. It is all too common for a person to haphazardly string together a series of exercises, neglecting to consider how they interact with each other. The net effect is a hodgepodge of maneuvers that have little cohesion. Ultimately, if you want to rise above the ordinary and maximize your potential, a more scientific approach is in order.
Training is a science and proper integration of the principles of bodysculpting will significantly influence your progress. It is a fact that certain exercises compliment one another, working synergistically to produce optimal results. Others merely overlap, providing little additional utility. Unfortunately, even many competitive bodybuilders and fitness professionals do not fully comprehend this process and continue to train in a haphazard fashion.
Ultimately, the extent to which a muscle can be isolated will dictate your ability to augment muscular size and shape. However, isolation can only be achieved in certain muscle groups, and even then with varying limitations. The following are examples of muscle groups that lend themselves to isolation techniques:
Shoulders: The deltoid has three distinct heads, each one with a specific purpose: the frontal head allows you to raise your arms to the front, the medial head allows you to raise your arms to the side and the posterior head allows you to rotate your arms to the rear. Accordingly, by using exercises that approximate these movements, you can effectively isolate each deltoid segment at the exclusion of the others. Thus, front raises target the frontal head, lateral raises stress the medial head and bent flyes work the posterior head. Although multi-joint exercises such as the military press primarily stimulate the frontal delt, they serve to compliment the use of isolation movements because of their propensity to develop many of the stabilizing muscles within the shoulder complex.
Triceps: Like the shoulders, the triceps also are a three-headed muscle complex. While complete isolation of each head is not possible, you can shift focus to either the long head, or the short and medial heads, by varying your arm position. Maximal stimulation to the long head (the lower most portion of the back of the upper arm) can be achieved by bringing the arms overhead in exercise performance. Consequently, exercises such as overhead rope extensions and overhead dumbbell extensions will exert the greatest amount of stress to this area of the muscle. Alternatively, as you bring your arms down and close to your body, the short and medial heads increasingly active in the movement. Hence, exercises such as triceps kickbacks and triceps pushdowns work these portions of the triceps more directly.
Frontal Thigh: The frontal thigh is comprised of several different muscle groups, most notably the quadriceps and adductors. The quadriceps is a four-headed muscle where stress can be altered by knee extension (straightening the knee from a bent position) or hip flexion (bringing the leg forward from a straight position). As a rule, in any exercise where you straighten your knees from a bent position without any hip involvement, you will maximally target the three "vastus" muscles (medialis, lateralis and intermedius). Leg extensions, for instance, primarily work these muscles. On the other hand, any exercise that utilizes movement only at the hip (such as a weighted front kick) will direct more stress into the rectus femoris (the quadriceps muscle that is best seen at the upper portion of the thigh). In addition, movements that bring the thigh across the body (such as cable or machine adductor pulls) will provide greater impact to the inner aspect of the thigh. Alternatively, when both the knees and the hips are involved in an activity, stress is distributed throughout the enire muscle complex. Thus, compound movements like squats, lunges and leg presses are overall thigh developers that can be excellent choices for adding shape to the upper thigh.
Unfortunately, other muscle groups provide almost no ability for accentuating specific portions of a muscle, thereby limiting shaping capabilities. In these cases, it is impossible to effectively employ isolation techniques because of muscular proximity. However, while this may decrease your training options, other techniques can be utilized in order to foster supreme development. The following are examples of muscle groups that cannot be isolated:
Back: While the particular muscles of the back cannot be targeted individually, you can shift the overall stress to certain areas by utilizing different angles in your training regimen. There are three basic angles of pull that can be employed to train the back: overhead movements such as pulldowns and chins (focusing more in the lats), 90-degree movements such as seated and bent rows (focusing more in the mid-back muscles such as the traps and rhomboics) and circular movements such as pullovers and straight arm pulldowns (focusing more on the chest/back tie-in muscles). Choosing one exercise per workout for each angle of pull will, over time, maximally stimulate all fibers within the muscles of the upper back and help to achieve complete development of this complex.
Chest: The chest is another muscle group where isolation of the various muscles is not practical. You cannot segment the pectoralis major from the pectoralis minor, no matter how hard you try. However, complete stimulation of the entire chest can be achieved by varying the degree of incline in the bench: The upper chest is maximally stimulated at an incline of roughly 35-degrees, the middle portion is most involved when lying flat and the lower segment receives the greatest stress at a moderate decline.
Abdominals: Contrary to popular belief, the upper and lower abs cannot be isolated in training. The abdominals are one long sheath that runs from your sternum all the way down into your pelvis. The muscle is not separable and it contracts as a single unit. However, the upper abdominal region becomes increasingly active in movements where your chest is pulled downward towards your hips. Thus, by choosing an exercise such as the crunch, you can effectively target this area. Conversely, movements that require raising your pelvis up towards your stomach will place a greater degree of stress in the lower abdominal region. Hence, you can force this portion of your midsection to do more work by opting for exercises like leg raises or reverse curls.
When applying these principles into your routine, it is essential to be economical in your efforts. In their quest to target all areas of a muscle, many aspiring bodybuilders simply perform an exorbitant number of sets and exercises, theorizing that this will cover all bases. This misguided approach is not only extremely inefficient, but also it can lead to overtraining where performance is decreased and results are compromised.
Don't attempt to pack a month's worth of exercises into a single session. Rather, concentrate on the quality, not the quantity, of exercises in your routine. You have limited energy reserves available for training and each set that you perform reduces your overall capacity to work out. Therefore, you must carefully choose exercises that best compliment one another. The movements should combine harmoniously, targeting different areas of the muscle complex that you are working. Any exercises that overlap should be eliminated them from your training regimen, paring down to the bare essentials. Remember: Less can be more!
For instance, there would be very little utility to performing both incline barbell presses and incline dumbbell presses in the same workout. These movements essentially target the same areas of the chest. Utilizing both of them in the same session would be superfluous and cause you to expend valuable energy reserves that could be put to better use.
Rather, it is preferable to alternate these exercise variations from one workout to the next, performing incline barbell presses in workout one, incline dumbbell presses in workout two, incline machine presses in workout three, etc. You can then add variations of dumbbell flyes and cable crossovers to completely target all areas of the chest. In this way, you interject constant variety into your workout, which helps to prevent muscular adaptation as well as reducing exercise boredom. Moreover, you will not deplete your energy resources, thereby allowing you to train with peak performance throughout your routine.
Finally, while this article provides a framework for developing a successful routine, it does not delve into performance variables such as rep range, speed of movement, rest intervals and other factors. You should endeavor to continually experiment with these variables in order to achieve a physique that is consistent with your training goals. Ultimately, this will allow you to fine tune your workout regimen and actualize your genetic potential.
Remember: This information is not intended as a substitute for medical treatment. Before starting an exercise program, consult a physician..
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