Hooray! At last, we move onto the third column in our most recent triad of training tricks. Thanks again to Billy M from Moloa‘a for his question about how to split up the muscles when you “don’t have the time, energy, or interest in doing a full body workout.”
If you are new to my column, please read parts one and two of this series online. You can find my specific synopses for “Upper Body: PUSH” and “Lower Body: LEGS” at either DougJonesFitness.com or TheGardenIsland.com. Today, we are going to round out our workout with the third, and final, grouping of muscles, “Upper Body: PULL.”
Having separate routines for push, legs, and pull serve as the foundation from which you can organize any workout. While this article is a broad-brush overview, future columns will focus on fine-tuning fitness routines for individual exercisers and individuals’ exercises.
My column about PUSH muscles (chest, shoulders, and triceps) was intended to demonstrate the importance of training related muscles jointly. In other words, we should always try to work the muscles that work together, together. More specifically, if you are going to train the chest muscles during a particular workout, it would be smart to train your shoulders and triceps as well, because these muscles all work together… so you should work them altogether.
My column about LEGS showed that these muscles (gluteals, quadriceps, hamstrings, adductors, abductors, and calves), altogether well-suited for powerful and persistent activity, all, together, require recovery after exercising. In other words, even if your intention is to train only some of your leg muscles during your workout, you must still always rest all of your leg muscles during your recovery. It is difficult to split up the lower body as we do with the upper.
This brings us to the PULL muscles (back, biceps, and forearms), which are perfectly positioned to illustrate the proper order of exercises. For every workout, each group of muscles and their corresponding movements should be arranged in a specific sequence, typically from largest and strongest to smallest and weakest. For PULL, for example, upper back muscles come first, and then biceps, and then forearms.
Why? It’s as easy as one, two, three:
1. When you pull any type of resistance toward your body, hence PULL, you use all of your pulling muscles together at the same time. You are gripping your hands, bending your forearms, flexing your arms, and bringing your elbows closer to your body. Regardless of where you begin or how you pull, all of your pulling muscles are working together to bring your hands to the same finish line, your armpit crease, for lack of a better word (such as “oxter” or “axilla” lol).
2. To receive the most benefit from each and every exercise during a particular workout session, the foremost muscles must be used first most. With PULL, the upper back muscles are bigger than the biceps which, in turn, are bigger than the forearms. As a general rule of thumb, train the biggest and strongest muscles first. It is imperative to train the muscles which require the most energy at the time when you have the most energy. Makes sense, right?
3. The smaller and weaker muscles often act as a direct link to the larger and stronger muscles. As a result, fatiguing the little interferes with training the lot. For example, let’s say that you totally fatigue your forearm muscles with gripping and twisting exercises.
Then, with your weakened grip, you try to perform a set of chin-ups or pulldowns, attempting to target your upper back. These latissimus dorsi muscles (or lats) are the largest and strongest in the upper body, but your forearms and fists are the weakest link. If you can’t hang on, you can’t work out.
So, what’s the moral of the story? The lats shall be first … and the fist shall be last.
Every workout should be organized to optimize the training of each muscle. Training muscles in order, large to small, prevents sacrificing a major (such as back) for that of a minor (such as forearms).
Training the “core” is another story, for future papers. Just please realize the “core” stabilizes your entire body during other exercises, so prematurely fatiguing your midsection could lead to the possible strain of your lower back. Work all other muscles first; work abdominals last. Then, and only then, should you train your lower back muscles. That’s the order, and that’s an order!
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Doug Jones earned his Master’s Degree in Exercise Physiology from the University of Maryland and has served professionals and personalities as a concierge fitness trainer for decades. As a resident of Kaua‘i and Connecticut, he has helped millions of people learn the secrets of fitness and fat loss, both online and in person. To submit your questions, or for more information, call (808) 652-6453 or visit www.DougJonesFitness.com
