Pre Exhaust Training Vs. Post Exhaust Training
It’s a fact that after some time passes, it becomes hard to achieve the same level of muscle growth. That’s especially true in the case of resistance training.
The reason is simple: your muscles get too used to the stimulus you provide during the training. One way out of that is by means of pre exhaust and post exhaust training. But in this article, we’ll especially focus on pre exhaust training vs. post exhaust training.
As we just mentioned, the issues lie with the stimulus you place on your muscles. The same routines might’ve worked in the initial phases of your training.
Here, the monotonous training routines are to blame. The inability to gain muscles can really drag down your whole energy levels. Also, it holds true even for women because of their varying hormonal levels.
Thus, let’s see which method is better for you through our article on pre exhaust training vs. post exhaust training.
Pre Exhaust Training
If you’ve been working out for a while, you may already know what isolation and compound movements are. These are forms of exercise that trigger movements from certain joints and muscle groups.
Compound Movements
With respect to compound movements, you’re making use of movements that involve many joints. The aim is to focus on more than one type of muscle group.
These include deadlifts, pull-ups, dips, push-ups, squats, and so on. These types of exercises burn greater amounts of calories by making use of a larger number of muscle fibers. Besides, compound movements are the best if your goal is to maximize the involvement of muscles.
Thus, if your aim is strictly towards becoming stronger and gain more muscles, this might be the way for you.
Isolation Movements
Unlike the former type of movements, these types of exercises focus on a specific muscle group. It does that by means of employing only a single type of joint.
Bicep curls and triceps extensions belong to the category of isolation exercises. Thus, it’s quite obvious that such types of movements don’t really involve a lot of muscle fibers. That’s why, when it comes to strength training, the scope of an isolation exercise is minimal.
At the same time, it helps you treat any imbalances that might be present in the muscles or joints.
Pre Exhaust Training Regime
The pre exhaust training regime employs a mix of both the compound and isolation types of movements. The aim is to focus on entirely exhausting the muscle you’re working on.
Also, that’s carried out before you go onto the compound exercises. Thus, by the time you’re done with the exercise, it ensures that your muscles are entirely fatigued.
You begin a pre exhaust training regime with isolation movements, say leg extensions. After that, you pick up a compound movement exercise such as squats. The goal of such a mix, as mentioned earlier, is to completely overload and exhaust the target muscles.
But does it really work? There isn’t enough data to back up the claims made by bodybuilders who follow such routines.
Rather, the data available limits the benefits of such movement exercises. In that regard, it’s vital to look at the findings of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research at this juncture. According to the study, any given method to gain muscles produced as much if not the same results.
Besides, it went on to say that the isolation training rather decreased the overall training performance. Thus, it questioned the need for the former that leads up to compound movements. That’s because compound exercises are the core of any training regime.
Post Exhaust Training
This type of muscle building regime also consist of the same types of movements. These are the isolation and compound movements.
At the same time, the sequence is the other way around. That is, with regards to post exhaust training, you do the compound movement exercises first. After that, you go on to the isolation exercises.
Thus, pre exhaust and post exhaust training are mirror images of each other.
In terms of exhaustion, your muscles experience much lesser fatigue. That’s because you’re starting with the compound exercises, say bench press.
Thus, in a way, you’re able to hit peak levels of performance through compound movements. On top of that, that’s what it’s all about since compound movements are the core of the regime. Besides, it also complements the study carried out.
After you’re done, you can overload the muscles with the isolation exercises such as dumbbell flies. Thus, by the time you complete the set, your muscle will attain maximum wear and tear and fatigue.
Pre Exhaust Training or Post Exhaust Training?
One cannot deny the fact that both of these training regimes offer a way out of monotonous routines. At the same time, it’s also true that there lie variations in the result that both these regimes produce.
In the case of pre exhaust training, you’re able to exhaust the target muscles. But it comes at the cost of decreasing the level of performance. And that may result in falling short of a few points with respect to gaining muscles.
In contrast, when we talk about the post exhaust training regime, the focus is on compound exercises. Besides, that’s how it’s supposed to be.
Also, the training regime has a positive impact on the performance levels. Thus, needless to say, post exhaust training seems to be the more efficient method. That holds true, especially for the case when we are considering muscle gain.
At the end of the day, both these training regimes are optimal for gaining muscles.
It’s just that when it comes to pushing through, post exhaust does it better than pre exhaust training. At the same time, you’ll be able to gain muscles no matter which method you choose (1).
It all comes to personal preferences. If you can keep your performance constant, you never know pre exhaust training might work out for you. Thus, we hope that you benefitted from our article on Pre Exhaust Training Vs. Post Exhaust Training.
