Is Pre-Exhaustion training effective?
By Jamie P
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You can train for hours at the gym, pushing yourself to the absolute limit, but what if I told you that this is unnecessary, and you can train just as hard and 3 times more efficiently?
Through research, pre-exhaustion training has proven to allow you to train more effectively when trying to build mass. Let me explain to you how it works so that you can maximise your time at the gym.
Pre-exhaust training prescribes you to do an isolated exercise just before a compound lift in order to fatigue the targeted body part alone before it goes to work in tandem with others. For example, if you do pec-deck flies, which isolate the pecs, before bench presses, which work the pecs along with the anterior deltoids and triceps, your pecs will be “pre-exhausted” when you start using the bench press. Therefore, during your bench, your chest will be more acutely targeted.
Many workout programs call for you to start with a compound movement like squats for legs or bent-over rows for back. Because multiple muscles are needed to complete these lifts, more joints are working. According to Roger Lockridge of BodyBuilding.com, when you do this type of training “you're focusing on doing the reps and moving the weight instead of working the muscle.” This is not ideal as there is a higher chance of injury and the muscle you are attempting to build is less used than it could have been with a pre-exhaust workout.
Before you begin your compound lift you do an isolation exercise to target the muscle you want to grow. But this means you won’t be able to use the same amount of weight when performing the exercise. It’s important not to worry about this and remember that you will still grow even with less weight.
You should do 3-4 sets of 6-12 reps of a high resistance exercise during your pre-exhaustion exercise, this should be an intense exercise alongside the upcoming compound lift where you lift as much as possible while controlling the weight.
Pre-exhaustion training is essentially a superset strategy, in that it overloads a specific muscle by working it as hard as possible, but instead of pairing exercises that target two different muscle groups, you pair moves that target the same one.
A piece from menshealth.com written by Trevor Thieme states that “if packing on mass is your workout goal, try this approach before your big compound lifts.”
Pre-exhaustion breaks down muscle fibers directly in the target muscle, this floods the muscle with blood so it will get a much better pump, and this prevents injuries by making the muscle group the strongest.
Pre-Exhaustion basically adds more exercises at the start of your work out so you then must train more and grow stronger as the result.
The Pre-Exhaustion training method can decrease the total training volume while maintaining results in strength and hypertrophy (training for strength). The weakest link fails first. In the case of pre-exhaust, that’s a good thing.
You need to push the isolation exercises hard. Go to failure or near failure. Never think of the isolation sets as a warmup. Indeed, the isolation set itself is an exercise in the workout
In conclusion, Pre-Exhaustion is a workout method where you do an isolated exercise focusing on the largest muscle group of the split. You follow the same set and rep range with high intensity.
This breaks down muscle fibers of the specific muscle and floods it with blood, this will result in something called a pump, and this prepares your muscles for the compound lift which will prevent injury.
In my personal experience I have used this type of training and it has shown great benefits in mass and strength.
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