pre exhaust

[dieten6134]

have been training for a couple of years and always looking to mix it up!

for chest i usually do compound moves like bench press and dips and then move onto isolation moves. however, i have heard that doing flyes, etc before your bench press can be beneficial and a good way to shock your muscles. is this true?

any opinions?

[mxd]

Pre exaust has been proved bunkham recently, from eletro magnetic scanning iirc.
The muscle fibres in the pre exausted muscle don't fire as effectively and the fibres in the secondary/supporting muscle groups are more activated.

[Gareth83]

discussed here:

http://forum.myprotein.co.uk/showthr...hlight=exhaust

If the search function could actually pick up three letter words we'd have a much better forum!!

[Martay]

Yeah, especially with the number of people I imagine to be searching for "abs".

[bwlc]

Pre exaust is an excellent technique for increasing the intensity of a workout. Anyone who has used this technique correctly will testify that its fairly brutal.

[Canuck Singh]

Pre-exhaust is almost like an extreme type of warm up

[Powerlifter0]

mixing it around alone will shock the muscles no matter what you do.

[hailtotheking]

Many bodybuilders swear by pre-exhaust as a method for improving the mind-muscle connection - i.e the ability to improve 'feel' of a specific muscle working during specific exercises. for example, for many people the bench press is actually not that great a pec builder because alot of folks simply dont have any muscular control over their pecs when they press. Pre-exhausiting with some flyes with strong mental focus on feeling your pecs doing the work, and then going on to benching, supposedly improves the ability to 'feel' and involve the pecs more during that movement. 'Pre-exhaust' is probably a poor term for it, as you arent really trying to exhaust the muscle, you are simply trying to improve neurological feedback from it by doing an isolation movement for it prior to compound lifting. It has never been suggested as a way to build strength, just a tool for neurologically retraining specific muscles to respond better to compound movements that use them.

I have trained in competetive bodybuilding gyms in the past where alot of guys swear by it for improving development on lagging muscles, esp. with the pecs on the bench press, and another popular one is doing leg extensions or machine hack squat before squatting to improve quad control during squats.

[bwlc]

Quote

mixing it around alone will shock the muscles no matter what you do.

That statement is incorrect. Progressive reps (to a point) and regular increased poundages within good form, including plenty of rest and a healthy balenced diet is more than adequate for growth stimulation. If you constantly try to, as you put 'shock' your muscles you will just end up lacking consistancy within your lifts and become a jack of all trades. Occasionaly a change is good, but if you constantly shift from one thing or another in a desperate hope of gains you end up with a hap hazard non logical training approach.