How To Prioritise Your Training

We all have that one muscle group or lift that we really want to improve… For myself, I just want to improve everything! But when it comes down to it, we do. Whether it’s your calves, quads, biceps or perhaps you really want bigger numbers in your bench, snatch or squat?

This is where prioritisation comes in, you don’t need to limit it to one lift or muscle (you can if you want) but you can’t give something 100% attention while also giving something else 100%. So a plan needs to be drawn up in order to prioritise what you really want to achieve.

In this issue, I will aim to provide you with the necessary guidelines and two variables in your training, backed with scientific evidence as always, to help you craft your own prioritization programme.

IN THIS ISSUE:

• ❌ The “Doing Everything” Drawback

• 🤓 Recent Evidence On Higher Volume Training

• 💪 Exercise Order Selection

• ✍️ TLDR: Key Takeaways & Practical Applications

IMPROVE EVERYTHING
The “Doing Everything” Drawback

In an ideal world, we would be able to just progress every lift and muscle at the same rate and everything would be just dandy. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that, we all have different genetics, muscle bell insertions and responses to training.

You may find your chest and back grow quicker than your limbs, or that your squat is progressing well but your bench has totally flat lined. Maybe your even training with the same gym partner you have for years yet they are making tonnes of progress and you just aren’t.

What works for one, might not work for another (although there are some general outlines that apply to nearly 99% of the world’s population).

Unfortunately, we all have a certain amount of volume we can recover from, this volume limit will differ from person to person.

Basically meaning, if we want to really focus on increasing our bench press or chest hypertrophy we need to prioritise in that area, this will result in extra volume and fatigue demands. Therefore, something has to give to allow room for recovery as our bodies can only handle so much.

The best analogy for this: imagine a cup which you fill with water, the cup is only able to take so much before it overflows, think of this when you think of total body volume and fatigue. Therefore, if you really want to improve one muscle group and you choose to increase volume, volume will need to decrease in another area.

EVIDENCE
Recent Evidence On Higher Volume Training

A recent study by (Enes et al., 2023) found a dose response relationship between volume and strength and hypertrophy responses all the way up to 52 weekly working sets! Be careful not to miss interpret these results however.

The study took 31 resistance trained males on a 12 week Quadricep training program which progressively increased set volume every 2 weeks. Split into three groups after a 2 week washout period and 2 week familiarization period of 22 sets per week, Group One added 4 sets every 2 weeks, Group Two added 6 sets every 2 weeks and Group Three was a control group which remained at 22 sets per week.

The results showed that participants were still able to make progress even at 52 sets of quad training per week.

The key point to take away here is that during this study, with the subjects pushing very high volumes and still making progress… Not all muscle groups were trained upto 52 sets per week! In fact they exclusively only trained squats, the leg press and leg extensions.

This adds to evidence that you can prioritise a muscle, increase it’s volume tolerance by reducing volume and fatigue in other areas of your training.

PRIORITISATION
Exercise Order Selection

This plays a huge factor in your strength and hypertrophy outcomes.

Whatever you place first in your training session gets trained when your fresh and not fatigued from previous movements, therefore it makes sense to put what you want to improve the most at the beginning of your session.

A systematic review and meta analysis by (Nunes et al., 2020) looked at performing multi-joint movements (squats / bench etc) vs single-joint movements first (leg extensions / pushdowns etc). The findings showed that performing multi-joint first resulted in greater strength gains, however performing either first resulted in similar hypertrophy outcomes.

A study by (Sforzo & Touey 1996) on 17 trained men found that training in order of multi-joint to single-joint maximizes the total resistance lifted. However, compiling the data, the authors state that if you want to maximize the stimulus for a particular muscle group, then the exercises for that group should be completed first.

A study by (Simão et al., 2012) came to a similar conclusion as (Sforzo & Touey 1996). Findings showed that exercises performed at the start of a training program respond best to the training stimulus and that exercise order should be dictated by training goal outcomes regardless if it’s a large or small muscle group.

TLDR
Key Takeaways & Practical Applications

When it comes to how much volume you should apply to your given muscle, it seems we can handle more than the recommended volume for general full body training when other muscle groups are reduced.

Maintenance volume for most people for most muscles will be 5-10 sets weekly. This is the amount of volume required to preserve muscle mass, which isn’t hard to achieve. Even when aiming for 10 total weekly sets, 5 sets of bench on a monday, 5 sets of incline dumbbell on a thursday… is pretty easy for most to accomplish.

• General Volume limit guidelines may increase for a given muscle group when others are reduced to allow for less total fatigue and recovery capability.

• You can choose to put one or several muscles to maintenance volume which is enough to maintain your current muscle size while redirecting recovery resources to other muscle groups.

• Exercises order is important. Place the lifts or muscles you want to increase the most at the beginning and prioritize them. Evidence shows this is the best route regardless if it’s a small or large muscle group.

• If strength is a priority, place multi-joint movements at the beginning of your training session when your fresh to allow for maximum stimulus.

We know 6-8 sets per muscle group, per training session, seems to be optimal for hypertrophy (this can vary person to person, with some having much higher per session volume limits, which we have covered in a previous issue). So if you want to increase your training volume consider adding an additional training day if your schedule allows.

Recap:
✅ Whatever your priority is, train it first
✅ Dedicate more volume to that goal
✅ Reduce volume elsewhere to allow for recovery & fatigue management
✅ Consider increasing training frequency to allow for more quality volume