Does Exercise Order Matter?

Have you ever looked at your program and wondered why they were in that specific order?

Does it really matter which order you complete each exercise?

The answer, yes!

If your training program has been completed with scientific thought behind it, your exercises have been allocated in an order for a reason (many reasons, actually).

Here at Bloom, we order our exercises in a certain way to ensure you get the most out of each session. We want to make sure your exercises, sets, reps and rest times all match up with your training goals. These variables will all look different depending on your goals!

Here is an example of a typical resistance training session here at Bloom:

ACTIVATION EXERCISES:

Usually 2-3 exercises that are selected based on the main exercises. These activation exercises are intended to warm up a certain muscle group and joint, and allow the Central Nervous System to “fire up”. For example, if you were to complete a deadlift in your main sets, we may prescribe a ‘Good Morning’ to ensure the hamstrings, hips and posterior chain are all warmed up. If there were certain movements you needed to work on, we could also focus on these as a warm-up before moving on to your main sets. An example of this may be squat depth or overhead mobility.

MAIN SETS:

Our main sets will be listed from MOST challenging to the least. Challenging in terms of the number of joints and muscles used, complexity and energy required to complete the exercise successfully. Examples of these may be a deadlift, squat or power clean.

Once the bigger, compound exercises have been completed, we work down the list to the less taxing movements. These are typically your single joint, accessory movements. Examples may include glute exercises, tricep extensions or bicep curls.

Depending on the goals of the session, rest, weight and volume (how many reps you complete) will all differ.

CARDIO:

Typically speaking, we will place the cardiovascular exercises towards the end. This is because if we placed them first, we would be too fatigued to complete the main strength sets well. However, if cardiovascular improvements were the main focus of the session, we may consider placing it first to ensure maximum effort.

MOBILITY / COOL-DOWN:

Depending on any movement issues that may come up in your session, we may recommend you finish with some mobility work to cool-down. However at Bloom, we don’t prescribe traditional ‘cool-down’ methods. Examples of mobility exercises we may recommend are thoracic stretches, hip flexor stretches or lower back movements.

As you can see, lots of thought goes into how your session moves from one exercise to the next.

It isn’t just a random grouping of movements (or at least, it shouldn’t be)!