Exercise selection

Training my ass off in the gym I see a young guy come in. He sits down at the pec deck machine and does three sets of 12. He then moves onto the seated chest press and does the same, again with about a 2 min rest in between sets. This is pretty much pointless training, for a few reasons. Firstly if you want your body to change the overload principle must apply. The body must be stressed enough so that it has to adapt to stress placed upon it. The pec deck, the seated chest press, they're just not the same as the lying bench press or dumbbell press with a quality weight. We need best bang for our buck in our training and that is why exercise selection is so important.

The inner/outer thigh machine is a poor exercise selection when one could lunge or deep squat. Exercises selected at the beginning of a workout must also be the hardest. Squats, lunges, deadliest, bench press, dips etc. leave tricep pushdowns, curls etc. for the end, working small muscle groups in isolation is easy, big exercises....a bit more to ask. You wouldn't want to squat after 50 mins of training would you?

If weight loss is your goal you need to make better use of multi-joint/muscle exercises so expend as much energy as possible. Always remember that should be your goal for every weight-loss workout, get rid off as much energy as you can so plenty of reps, little rest periods, combined with quality cardio, get that bloody glycogen out of your body so fat can be utilised more efficiently.

Edinburgh Personal Trainer Mike Heatlie www.mikeheatlie.com www.mikeheatliepersonaltraining.com