| Hey there, Many bodybuilders and fitness gurus claim you should “pre-exhaust” your muscles by getting a pump before doing your hard sets. They say this method of training helps you gain muscle and strength faster by strategically increasing the stress on target muscle groups in your working (hard) sets, particularly with your compound lifts. For instance, if you were training your lower body, you might start the session with a high-rep set or two of an isolation exercise like the leg extension (quads) before getting under the barbell (primarily quads). By doing this, the story goes, you’d increase the amount of quad activation during the heavy squats, making them more effective. Another option would be “reverse pre-exhaustion” whereby you (theoretically) increase the activation of one muscle group on a compound exercise by fatiguing a secondary muscle group that contributes to the movement. In the case of the squat, this would entail pre-exhausting the hamstrings in hopes of forcing the quads to work even harder when squatting. Are such techniques worthwhile? What does science have to say? Well, studies on pre-exhaustion are a mixed bag—some show it provides no benefits or even backfires, increasing the activation of muscle groups other than the target ones; while other research suggests it may have some merit. Specifically, there’s some evidence that pre-exhaustion may allow you to achieve the same results as traditional training with less volume and fatigue, which would mean you could essentially get the same results for less effort. For example, imagine if adding one high-rep set of leg extensions to near-failure beforehand made 3 sets of 5 reps with 75% of 1RM equally effective as 3 sets of 10 reps with the same weight. And if that angle doesn’t appeal to you—if you enjoy the work—then you could theoretically use pre-exhaustion to increase the amount of volume you could do in each training session without having to spend more time in the gym. If either of those scenarios were plausible, we’d be foolish to not regularly include pre-exhaustion in our programming. At this point, however, they’re pure speculation, and I believe the research currently available isn’t strong enough to put much stock in such hypotheses. In short, pre-exhaustion may just be yet another way to merely step over dollars (traditional, time-proven training techniques) to pick up dimes (unconventional and unsubstantiated tactics). Moreover, here’s what we know with certainty: If you do nothing but ply the fundamentals of proper training diligently, you can gain more or less all of the muscle and strength genetically available to you. The farther you stray from the first principles of optimal overload, volume, and frequency, however, the more likely you are to get stuck in a rut. That’s why I’m loathe to recommend “advanced” or “sophisticated” training and diet techniques. Often, the risks outweigh the potential rewards. And if you want to learn more about the grammar of gains and how to use it to get fitter, leaner, and stronger than ever before, check out one of my bestselling books: For men trying to gain their first 25 pounds of muscle: ⇒ https://legionathletics.com/products/books/bigger-leaner-stronger/ For women trying to gain their first 15 pounds of muscle or lose the same amount of fat: ⇒ https://legionathletics.com/products/books/thinner-leaner-stronger/ For advanced lifters trying to reach their genetic potential for muscle and strength: ⇒ https://legionathletics.com/products/books/beyond-bigger-leaner-stronger/ Go for it! Mike
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