-: If we look at making the order of those exercises
that you're gonna use, and this first one here
applies two, really whether you're going local
or systemic, is that you wanna go from the least stable
to the most stable.
So if I'm doing a giant set for my total body
I'm still gonna probably start with like the squat,
simply because as I'm breathing hard and my stabilizers
and my core musculature gets a little bit more tired
then I don't wanna be trying to focus on execution
with all of that stuff and those complex exercises
when I'm in the third or fourth exercise
and I'm breathing hard and I'm fatigued.
I wanna put the complex stuff here
and become increasingly more simple.
When we look at that, like most complex
to least complex, least stable to most stable,
so these are kind of saying the same thing
in that the less stable is part of complexity,
but remember complexity also has to do
with how much range of motion there is
and how many joints are involved.
So, especially when we look at the systemic stuff
we wanna do our things that are using
more tissue, so moving more tissue
or moving around more joints first,
and then if there is something,
so if I'm doing squats and leg curls
in this systemic set that I'm doing
for multiple body parts,
I want to start with the squat and have the leg curls
towards the end, because the leg curl
is the simpler exercise.
Fewer joints, it's more stable,
since it's less complex.
Highest to lowest intensity,
so if there is gonna be a change,
and this again applies to both,
so if I'm gonna do a super set
and I was gonna do like two exercises,
I would wanna make sure that my first exercise,
if there was gonna be a disparity in the rep range
the first one was the lower rep range,
the second one was the higher.
Because obviously I'm gonna have the greatest ability
to recruit those fast twitch fibers
and to produce peak power in the first exercise,
and the second exercise my peak power's gonna be lower,
so that's when I wanna have the lower intensity exercise.
Same thing from a systemic standpoint.
If there is something that I am gonna load
a little bit heaver, which is usually gonna be
like a bigger compound movement
when we're focusing on metabolic adaptations
for the transformation or whatever,
then same thing would apply.
I would want to have those early.
Slowest to fastest eccentric.
So, if you look at the first two rules,
we have least stable and most complex first.
That means we're gonna need to execute the most control
on those particular exercises.
And then if we're adding higher intensity,
heavier weight, so all of those things dictate
the greatest area for concern in terms of
mechanical damage or being able to maintain execution
from a intensity or load standpoint,
is gonna be in those first couple exercises.
So we wanna make sure in those that we're really
controlling that eccentric tempo.
And then as I get into exercises that are more stable,
less complex and have lighter loads, lower intensities,
then I can afford to increase the speed
of that eccentric tempo and start biasing
more and more toward the concentric.
So I always wanna focus as I'm going through that set
or the super sets, is I'm increasingly getting more
and more bias towards the concentric.
That's really, really important,
especially if we're trying to limit inflammation
and muscular damage, because as I get fatigued
my potential to create mechanical damage
actually goes up because my nervous system
becomes a little less coordinated,
meaning that the tissues that are supposed to be
allowing the eccentric to happen
don't work as smoothly,
so there's more of a chance for those little
micro tears to occur.
So I definitely wanna do everything I can
as I get closer to fatigue to bias more time
on the concentric, or more focus, more intent,
whether that's by changing the resistance profiles,
the friction that I'm using,
or incorporating more isometrics and squeezes
and holds and pauses and things like that
in a position where it's concentric dominant
in those later exercises.
When we look at doing same body part, okay,
a lot of these are gonna be kind of redundant here,
but most muscles in terms of loading perspective,
are gonna benefit from loading the short position first.
So when I'm doing same body part,
the nice thing that I have now is the option
to do multiple resistance profiles
or multiple tempos or whatever it may be,
for the same muscle groups.
So I don't have to depend on one exercise
to deliver everything that I want to deliver
in that particular set.
So now if I do the short position first,
the short position is the least likely
to create mechanical damage,
but it's one of the most demanding in terms of energy
because as the muscle gets all the way short
more of its fibers have to be contracted
simply to get the muscle that short,
regardless of the load.
So from a fuel and an energy consumption perspective,
which is what we're focused on.
Remember, metabolic training is all about
ATP consumption and the fuel that we're driving into it,
so that short position provides us a way
of massively using a lot of energy in our first exercise
and creating very little mechanical damage.
Now, this does get overridden if I am going to have
an exercise that is unstable and not complex.
Because I need to obey the rules
on the previous slide first in that I need to make sure
I'm minimizing risk of mechanical damage
and I'm maximizing my ability to execute
those exercises by putting the exercises
that are the most neurologically demanding first.
If all of my exercises are equal in complexity
or stability, then I would definitely do this.
So if I was squatting, a squat loads you
in the bottom position, the lengthen position,
so I would put that first because a squat is unstable
and it's very complex, so a lot of joints,
a lot of tissue being loaded.
However, if I was doing hack squats,
I would be perfectly okay, or leg presses.
I would be perfectly okay
putting a leg extension, which overloads
the short position of the quads,
before the hack squat or before the leg press
because I view those as more stable and less complex.
So I would be confident that I was able
to actually execute those other exercises
later in the super set when there was some fatigue
without there being loss of execution
or increased risk of mechanical damage
because I would lose neurological coordination.
So I wanna make sure that I don't choose this rule
when there's a complex exercise,
no complex exercises in there,
then you can really focus on just getting
resistance profiles that are gonna accentuate
that metabolic demand of the set.
As I get in here, the greater my lactic threshold is,
so that basically the greater the stimulus
that I need to achieve to get these adaptations,
then ultimately I'm going to get more of a systemic
effect, because I'm having to pull more glucose
and I'm having to create more lactic acid
to get this stimulus now.
So as I become more efficient
from a metabolic perspective locally,
when I'm training locally I will overload the body
systemically more.
So you have to keep that in check
because you may have somebody start out
and it's a very little systemic load
because they're not very efficient,
but at a certain point in time
they become so efficient at contracting their tissue
that they get so much output when they're focusing
on a local stimulus that they're actually
getting a significant systemic stimulus as well.
So this would be a case where you're double dipping.
You wanna make sure if you are doing that
that it's on purpose, that both of those systems
are simultaneously trainable in that person,
or otherwise you need to change up
your training split or something to accommodate
and lower that systemic load.
If I look at training multiple muscles
in the same, so I'm focusing on super setting
the same muscle groups, but I am in the workout
going to train multiple muscles.
So that's what we're talking about here.
Then I can think of two different orders.
Either I'm gonna put the smaller muscle groups first
or the smaller muscle groups at the end.
If my goal is maximal output,
I'm gonna put the smaller muscle groups first
because they're likely not gonna contribute
any systemic fatigue.
Meaning there's gonna be no systemic limitations
in me continuing to get output
out of the individual muscles.
If I train the larger muscles first,
there is a chance that I will get to
some systemic fatigue before I hit
those larger muscles at the end.
There will be a varying degree
of how much this impacts you
depending on your conditioning
in regards to these stresses.
But what I would say is if you're focusing
on maybe a weak body part from one of these
smaller muscle groups, what that can do
is it can make it easier to kind of stress
that muscle because when you're systemically
a little fatigued, that means you're gonna have
a harder time getting glucose to that tissue.
That means you're gonna have a harder time
recycling the lactic acid, because if I do quads
and biceps, by the time I get to biceps,
my liver's still gonna be dealing
with the lactic acid that's just seeping out
of my quads for minutes, maybe even hours
after the fact.
So in that case the biceps aren't gonna be able
to get rid of as much lactic acid,
they're not gonna be able to get glucose easily,
which means they're gonna fatigue earlier.
That will however increase the (mumbles) stress response
in those biceps because they won't be able
to use the glucose as efficiently,
so they'll have to max out that mitochondria faster
and to a greater degree.
So, when it's oxidative stress,
especially when we're focusing on
bringing up a small muscle group,
that could potentially make it easier to achieve
that stimulus in that small muscle group
by doing the large muscle group first.
So that would be an exception
or a different case where maybe you would flip that order.
Okay, so let's look at drop sets
versus multiple exercises.
These are both ways of extending the amount of time
that we're working.
Even if we're doing two different exercises,
there's likely some drop in intensity
unless the resistance profiles are extremely different.
But when we look at comparing
the exact same resistance profile
repeated at a lighter weight
versus being able to change that resistance profile
to extend work, there's gonna be a different level
of skill needed and there's gonna be a different level
of fatigue that most people are gonna be able
to accomplish depending on how trained
and how efficient their nervous system is.
So it makes less of a difference
when we're focusing on simple muscles,
so simple muscles would be like,
or exercises where we're moving one joint
and it's a muscle or it's like a single belly
or a very, very uniform.
So biceps, biceps is still two bellies
but it's like they function very much the same.
When you get into things like the quadriceps
or the hamstrings where they have multiple muscle bellies
that are basically active at different degrees
during different points in the range,
this is stuff we'll get into the advanced mechanics course.
But when you have those complex muscle groups
what you'll see is there's a much bigger advantage
to being able to use multiple exercises
than there is drop sets.
The other thing is that when you look at
neurological efficiency, it is harder
for you to continue working the same
resistance profile if your nervous system
starts to fatigue.
So if you can switch to another one,
neurologically it becomes easier.
So you have to be way more neurologically efficient
to get more out of the drop set
than you do need to be able to get a lot of output
out of the super set.
So somebody that's got poor coordination,
a super set may be an easier way to get more output
out of them.
As they get a little bit better,
then drop sets may then become a more valuable tool.
But what you'll probably find is the drop sets
are inefficient for people that are neurologically
inefficient.
They'd be better off doing two exercises.
If you have a person that's very efficient,
they will drop off faster, so the drops they need
will be greater.
That doesn't mean the drop set is less effective.
Its actually more effective for them.
The reason they have to drop more
is because they're able to take each one
of those increments to a greater fatigue.
So don't be confused by the fact that somebody's
dropping off fast, that that's a sign the drop set
is not good.
It means they're able to take themselves
to a greater fatigue.
Now you could also have somebody that's extremely
deconditioned and you've chosen drop sets
when that's an overkill for whatever
their lactic capacity is, or for whatever
their ability to deal with oxidative stress is,
so that could also be a reason.
So it's not because they're extremely efficient.
It could be because you're using a set
of rep method, like they don't need extended sets yet.
So you're basically using a program
that is way too advanced for the metabolic stress
that they happen to need.
Last one down here, it's just easier
to exercise when there's a small peak
in the resistance curve.
So when an exercise is only hard at one point
that means the nervous system and the amount of fibers
that you're contracting need to amplify
at that one specific point, and the rest of the rep
there essentially gets to be a little bit
of a break.
So it's easier to do those when you're fatigued.
It's easier to do an exercise where you only have
to maximally contract during a smaller portion of it.
And in that case, that's where being able to manipulate
the resistance profile is ideal.
Obviously if you were doing a drop set
you wouldn't want to have an exercise
that only (mumbles) a very small portion
because it would be very hard for you to
really fatigue that muscle.
But if you could use multiple resistance profiles,
that could be a way for you to extend fatigue
and make it easier on the nervous system,
so you're more likely to get the metabolic stimulus
without your neurological capabilities
being the thing that fails first.