The BEST and WORST Exercises For Muscle Growth (Based On Science)

Foreign.

What's going on, everybody? And welcome back to the Built With Science podcast. You're here with your host, as always, of course, me, myself, and I. That is Max Coleman, AKA Coleman at all. And sitting directly in front of me, 1500 miles away from me, is the one and only Daniel Plotkin, AKA D Block Plotkin, AKA Danny Boy. And today we're going to be discussing something that I'm actually quite surprised it's taken us this long to talk about. But what makes an exercise good for muscle growth. Gone are the days of you just going to the gym and doing what feels right for you, randomly choosing an exercise based on seeing the biggest guy in the gym do it. Note. Now, because of today, you're going to be able to rely on some evidence, some logic, and some principles of how to choose the best exercises for individual muscles. We're going to talk about the principles of what makes an exercise good for muscle growth in general, and then we're going to go more specifically how to choose an exercise for you based on a bunch of different things. But before we do that, Danny Boy, why don't you go ahead and tell us what does it mean for an exercise to be good for muscle growth?

Yeah. So first, I wanted to cover one very important thing. So you said D blot or D plot block. There was that. Oh, deep block. But see it.

But I'm gonna stow that away for a future episode because that would be an incredible joke for basically just you, unfortunately, Western blot Plotkin.

Imagine I had a blot named after me. That would be. That's what I was getting at. That would be epic. So fun fact, and I could be wrong, but I believe that all of the blots other than the Southern blot are just scientists way of making a joke. So the Southern blot wasn't named for anything related to directions, but it was named after the person whose last name was Southern. And then scientists thought it would be funny to name the other blots directionally. So. I know, I know. That is hilarious.

Big old fuck you to those scientists for basically just trying to make it more and more difficult for people to remember and memorize what these blots actually do. So instead of using a name that actually somewhat corresponds to how they work or what they do, they just go for the funny option, which shows you that some scientists, the present company excluded, can have a sense of humor, believe it or not.

Correct.

I also could be completely making this up, but I don't believe I am, at least for. For some of Them. So.

And belief is all that matters when we're talking about science. So, Danny boy, what does it mean for an exercise to be good for muscle growth?

Yeah. So what you want me to go through, like, all the categories, just, like.

Literally, just generally speaking, like, yeah, so it makes.

Just in general, I think the biggest thing by far is just that the muscle is stimulated really hard. And that's really as far as you need to go from a hypertrophy standpoint. Is the thing that you're lifting causing a mechanical stimulus that allows your body to be like, all right, let's turn up the signaling related to adding some tissue. So that's really what it comes down to from a super high level standpoint. And then all of the categories that we'll get into today are basically categories that best allow you to create that mechanical stimulus for the most part, that turns into a chemical stimulus that allows you to add that tissue.

So basically, an exercise that ultimately, like, you perform, and it tells your brain, hey, we need to grow this area, because we were doing this activity. But there are a ton of different things that can ultimately lead to your body signaling to your brain that we need to grow this particular area. So let's get into some of those potential signals.

Right?

Some of those potential things that will lead to signals.

Right.

First and foremost, specificity to a certain muscle or region. And barring Danny boy's just super weird phraseology here, basically that just means if you want to grow biceps, we got to perform the function of the biceps.

Right.

And ultimately the biceps do a bunch of stuff. But generally speaking, when we think of the biceps, we think of elbow flexion, not necessarily supination. Supination or shoulder flexion or anything like that. But if you want big biceps, ultimately you're gonna have to do something that involves some sort of elbow flexion.

Right.

And then you have here the biomechanics, and potentially some muscles like the biceps, for instance, cross two joints. So what about those? Are there any specific concerns that we need to take into account when trying to grow muscles that cross more than one joint?

Yeah, so I think if you wanted to get super complicated, you could. But I think there's two broad tenants for thinking about the biomechanics for an exercise beyond. All right, what does this muscle do action wise? So the two joint muscles or muscles that cross two joints need to be considered in a sort of special case from a hypertrophy standpoint because of the fact that there's many exercises that are doing the opposite action at both sides of the joint which makes it so that the muscle is one, going to be called upon less by the nervous system, but two, if the muscle actually tried to do both actions at the same time, it would oppose itself. So muscles that fall into this category are the rectus femoris crosses both the hip and the knee. The hamstring, three of the foreheads cross the hip and the knee. The tricep long head crosses both the shoulder and the elbow. And to make a long story short, doing a combination of isolation exercises and compound exercises is what's going to give you the best overall growth for a specific muscle group. Because you get a combination of the one and two joint muscles.

Yeah, so I think the, the best example to give here is like the triceps longhead, I think, I don't know, at least maybe for me it's the easiest to conceptualize. But when you're doing, let's say a press of any kind, right, the triceps long head because it's involved in shoulder extension and elbow extension, right. You are at the same exact time simultaneously shortening the triceps on one side and lengthening the triceps on another. Which basically tell your brain is like, I don't know what to do here. So just have all the other muscles that extend the, the elbow do all the work here because the triceps long head's just not going to be able to do a good job of it.

Right.

So ultimately doing only pressing for your triceps, though it will probably grow your medial and lateral head pretty well. The long head is certainly going to suffer. So you're going to need to do some exercises that involve just elbow extension to make sure that the triceps long head is getting some love. And it's the same thing for like the rectus femoris, right. We can't do just squats or lunges or, or leg presses because the rec fem is going to suffer. And no one wants to have just three giant Basti muscles and a weak little rec fem. I mean, it'd be the most embarrassing thing in the world going to the beach and having a small rec fem.

Right.

And I think this kind of lends itself well to don't be redundant in your exercise selection kind of more from a top down program view. You don't want to only rely on like. And I'm basically just parroting what Danny boy said in a less articulate way. But you don't want to be, you don't want all of your tricep exercises for instance, to come from pressing, because ultimately you're going to result in some lesser triceps, long head growth. Same for the rec fem. You're going to need to do some squats or leg extensions, because if you only rely on squats, that muscle is going to suffer.

Cool.

Anything else you want to say there before we move on to the next principle?

Yeah, I think we. We covered it well. Just to sort of tie a ball on it. Yeah. As you go up in a press, you're lengthening at the shoulder and shortening at the elbow. So two opposing actions there. So that's why the long head is. Gets less growth in sort of pressing exercises. The same would go for a bench press and so on. So there's a whole lot of camps that would like to very strongly make the claim that all you got to do is press and all you got to do is squat and so on. And it's very clearly just untrue. One, just based on the mechanics themselves. But two, we have direct evidence in all of these muscles showing that no to some growth, but definitely not optimal growth for the muscles that are doing opposing actions on both sides.

Perfect.

Cool.

All right, next category of principles to follow for muscle growth with respect to exercise. Selection is the limiting factor of the exercise, meaning the muscle that you're trying to target, it better be stimulated, not necessarily to its maximal capacity, but it has to be doing something during the exercise.

Right.

So, for instance, in a squat, if you're trying to squat for your quads, if that's the primary reason you're squatting, and you don't need to fail a squat because of your quads alone, but they better be doing something. They better be at least somewhat fatigued from the set of the squats that you're doing.

Right.

It doesn't. And to be fair, most people rarely ever fail the squat because of their quads, at least I find usually it has to do with their lower back or their core, just in general not being able to support the weight anymore. But their quads are still breaching some sort of threshold in which they are being fatigued from the exercise. Anything you want to add there? I'm sure you could articulate that better.

And I think that was good in that you wanted to make sure that the muscle is at least reaching a threshold of stimulus for that set, because we know that there's obviously going to be a point where there's no extra growth because of all the fatigue dynamics from set to set and so on. Once you reach a certain Threshold, it's probably not going to necessarily benefit you that every single variable needs to be optimized to make sure that that muscle is the limiting factor with no extraneous variables. So I think you articulated it well and said that as long as it is one of the main reasons why you're stopping a set, you're probably not leaving too much on the table, especially because you're going to be doing a combination of stuff during the session, and that is probably going to allow you to cover your bases.

Cool. Yeah.

So again, it doesn't. You don't have to fail the squat because of your quads, but if you're doing squats for your quads and you never feel anything in there, you never get sore, you never get any sensation in the quads at all. And really, the only thing that ever lights up is your glutes and lower back, Maybe the squat isn't a great option for you.

Okay.

I think another thing to cover there is that a lot of the time when an exercise falls into that category, it gives us a pretty broad stimulus to other muscles as. As well. So what you may be theoretically giving up in stimulus for a given muscle, you're gaining through a stimulus for a bunch of other muscles as well. So when you. We'll get into it from a time standpoint later on, but there's other factors that would play into whether you'd choose that exercise.

Cool. Okay.

Next principle is a lengthened challenge. So you. The exercise that you choose should either place a decent stretch or allow for a decent stretch on the muscle that you're trying to target, or the force curve of the exercise should be favorable for the lengthened position, basically meaning, like, for instance, a.

Good.

This is a terrible example. Okay. Yeah, we'll just use the inclined curl versus the. The preacher curl in this particular instance. Like the incline curl theoretically is a really good exercise for the biceps because it places a big old stretch on the biceps.

Right.

And the reacher curl, which does the opposite, it actually doesn't place any stretch on the biceps at all. But it is the most challenging when the biceps are in their longest position with respect to that exercise.

Right.

So allowing for at least one of those things, or the exercise that you're choosing is probably a good idea, ideally for both, if you can. If you can get both, like, for instance, a squat is the most challenging in the length of position and allows for an absolute gnarly stretch on the rectus femoris that would probably be more favorable than, let's say, a leg extension. In which the resistance curve isn't very favorable, meaning it gets the hardest at the top and is the easiest at the bottom. Not to mention, most leg extensions don't allow you to achieve a really deep degree of knee flexion anyway. But at least having a decent stretch on the muscle or making sure that it's the hardest when the exercise is, when the muscle is in the most lengthy position. So, for instance, like a lateral raise, to give another example.

Right.

A lateral raise is the hardest by far when you're at the top of the movement.

Right.

When the arms are completely abducted from the body.

Right.

However, if you lie on your side and do a lateral raise, that force curve is completely inverted, meaning now it's the absolute hardest when the arm is down by the side and the easiest when it's completely abducted. So that would likely be a better option than just choosing a traditional dumbbell lateral raise in general.

Right.

And then if you wanted to take it even further, you could lay on a bench and allow your arm to travel behind your back. That, at least theoretically, might place a larger stretch on the delts and still give you a favorable force curve while you're doing it.

Right.

Anything you want to add to that?

Yeah, I think the only thing I would add is just our uncertainty around which of those variables matter more and how. We're still sort of piecing that together, and it'll probably matter by muscle group in terms of how much that muscle is actually stretched and so on. But I think you summarized it well that getting a combination of both is probably a very good idea. But the.

Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

But the example that you gave is probably the best evidence that we have to show that the position for being in a stretch position isn't necessarily the end all, be all. You also want to challenge that muscle in a more lengthened position. So if it was only about putting the muscle in a stretch position, you'd expect an inclined curl to get more growth than the preacher curl. But the preacher curl is actually in a more shortened position. But the challenge in the range of motion is in a more lengthened position, and there was actually more distal growth from the preacher curl. So it seems like it might be either context dependent or there's. Again, we're talking about thresholds. There might be a threshold at which you want the exercise to be hard in the lengthened position. So just putting the muscle into a stretched position, but the challenge being hardest closer to the mid or the shortened portion is not going to be perhaps the most ideal. But where or how Long is long enough. We don't really know just yet.

So to add even more uncertainty to that, because that was a study that came out a few years ago that would suggest, oh, maybe maximal torque at lengthened is more important than maximal lengthening.

Right.

However, a recent study came out looking at the Nordic hamstring curl versus the seated hamstring curl, and they saw more growth in the stretch position versus the the exercise that had a more favorable fork.

Right.

For instance, the Nordic hamstring curl is far and away the hardest at the bottom when the muscle is the most stretched. To be fair, the my one caveat to that, I don't know what, like leg curl machine they were using. It's possible that the leg curl that they were using is the hardest at the beginning and it allows for more stretch. I will say that I'm skeptical of that because that's rarely how hamstring curl machines work. But it is possible. But it just, again, just to add levels of uncertainty to our confidence on which one is more important, we can't say so for certain just yet.

Cool. Yeah.

One thing I wanted to add for since we're already talking about mechanics, muscles, positions and so on, is for another consideration about how the muscle is structured. When a muscle has a broad attachment, it does allow for more variability in how you can target specific regions of a muscle.

So the lat is a great example here.

Yeah. So a lot of muscles, they just have a tendon insertion that doesn't allow for much targeted training in terms of which muscle gets the most stimulus. So a great example of this would be the quad or even the tricep and the bicep to some extent and so on. They, they don't have a broad attachment. They have a narrow attachment at both ends. But the opposite would be muscles like the chest muscles like the lat, and muscles like the glute, where they have a broad attachment, where you can get different angles, allow you to slightly target different regions of the muscle. So the clavicular versus the sternal fibers are going to get slightly different stimuli depending on how you, you move your arm through adduction. So the same is true for the glute. How you decide to abduct or extend in the sagittal plane is going to slightly hit different regions of the glute. So I think just adding that second variable, one, two joint muscles and two broad attachments sort of rounds out the main meat and potatoes of what I think matter from a structure standpoint, other than the fact that like the muscle has to actually do the action. Like, if you're pronating when the biceps supinates, then obviously it's not going to be maybe.

Who knows, though? I mean, like, just to. Just to. To count. Like, I mean, literally pronating. I don't. Yeah, that did.

Yeah.

Yeah, sorry.

Yeah.

I mean, that was a really interesting conversation, though.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I think the, the pronation thing is a really good example of maybe stretch isn't everything. And this is your conjecture. I want to make that very clear before we start talking about this. But for anyone who's ever done reverse curls, right, Your brachioradialis goes crazy as far as sensation is concerned. I mean, there is nothing that lights up the back of your forearm like doing some reverse curls. And yet, at least theoretically, you're putting the biceps brachii into a more stretched position. So that should theoretically be a better exercise for that if you're looking at, like this through one variable lens.

Right.

Which Danny boy will tell us a billion times is never a good idea when choosing it, when. When talking about anything with respect to biology.

Okay.

I just wanted to throw that out there because I think that people are so quick to be like, chin ups are better for the biceps than. Than palms facing forward, even though there are arguments on either side of that, so we can't know for sure.

Right.

It basically goes back to the threshold thing. Like, do you reach a threshold at which that muscle is so poorly leveraged for the action, even though it's getting a stretch, that it's going to get less stimulus? So in the case of the, you know, reverse curl, you're making it so that the brachioradialis is a really good option and potentially getting to the. That threshold of the biceps brachi being less of a good option. So we don't really know and that's why direct evidence would be needed there. But yeah, like you said, sensation wise, it does seem very, very evident.

Yeah.

Yes. And we'll get into the fact that, you know, facts don't care about your feelings here in a second. But, but that'll be for later in the episode. One thing I want to make pretty clear, we're talking about principles that make that. That inform whether or not an exercise is good for muscle growth or not. And we've already covered what I would say are the kind of like really big two, you could say big three, depending on how confident you are about the length and factor. And the rest are still very important, but I would argue far less important than the things that we've already covered meaning, and what I mean by that is their threshold is probably a lot lower than the others. So, like, for instance, stability is the next factor.

Right.

And what I mean here by the threshold is lower is that going from a se. A standing barbell curl to a seated barbell curl, the difference there on biceps growth is probably going to be null. Like you wouldn't. You would probably never notice a difference at all with respect to biceps growth between those two exercises. However, doing a bicep curl during an earthquake, let's say, versus just on a flat standard ground, the difference in growth there is probably, I would imagine, pretty substantial. Now, funny enough, the one study that we have kind of looking at this compares Bossu ball squats to traditional squats and they actually found no difference in quad growth between groups. However, Danny boy, you can kind of talk on, or maybe you can pontificate as you will on to, as to why you don't think that necessarily we should rely on evidence in this particular case.

Yeah, I mean, I think just it goes back to the one study thing I don't ever wanna sometimes. So it all really, really boils down to where you're leaning on in terms of principles, evidence, experience and logic. And I think here we're not going to lean strongly on evidence just because we don't have that much evidence to lean on when it comes to really unstable training from a hypertrophy standpoint. But just with logic alone, you can surmise that there is going to be a level of instability that just doesn't allow us to recruit those higher threshold motor units like your example. You get a strong enough earthquake or you get unstable enough surface like a freaking ice skating rink or something like that, you're definitely not going to be stimulating those high threshold motor units. So I just don't see a world where that's not the case. But in that middle ground like you were talking about, there does seem to be a lot of wiggle room where you don't have to shred. Like, there's a very common trend of just strapping yourself in in every way possible and putting something behind every single joint to make sure that absolutely nothing but the joint of interest is the one that's moving. And it's just in many cases, unnecessary. Is that going to be worse? Almost certainly not. But it takes time to set those things up. And you also lose brownie points from people looking at you that think you're a weirdo.

And that's you're doing BDSM while you're Just trying to exercise in the gym, right? Yeah, yeah.

So obviously kind of a joke, but there is a point where it could fall into the realm of ridiculous in terms of setup.

Yeah.

And again like a more stable exercise in theory is better, but only once you surpass that like pretty low threshold of not standing on a boss who ball while you're doing overhead press.

Right.

Uh, seated versus standing over head press probably doesn't make a huge difference or anything like that. I think seated versus standing is just the most clear example of like adding stability to an exercise without doing anything that's just ridiculous. Like using a biodex and strapping every muscle down or strapping every joint down that's not directly involved in the movement.

I think just to put an actual practical spin on it, the, the best examples are probably typical machines versus typical free weights. So something like a hammer strength incline press versus a dumbbell incline press. Like are you going to get much more stimulus from the hammer strength? Probably not. If we ran a study and we compared them, like, are you confident that you'd get more growth from the hammer shank press? My guess, I don't know what your actual answer is. My guess is probably not.

Yeah, assuming all factors are equal. Absolutely not.

Yeah, exactly. Like one rep in reserve and we'll talk about later on. You know, perhaps you can go closer to failure and so on with certain implements. But all else being equal, I would be shocked if even a well designed hammer shrink machine that can get you into that stretch position and even the resistance curve similar to the dumbbell, I would be still surprised whether that difference instability would actually manifest in differences in hypertrophy and then add on the variable of a full program. So if you're just comparing those two, then you know, maybe you'd see slight differences. I'd even be shocked by that. But then add on that's part of a whole program where you have some, some more stable, some less stable and so on. And I just would be, you know, floored if that made a very meaningful or any measurable difference.

Agreed.

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Okay, moving on to the next. Not super critical, but still worth thinking about. Factor for muscle growth and exercise selection is progressability. How easy is it to progress this exercise? Again, not one of huge concern here because of the multiple different ways that we know you can progress an exercise thanks to a phenomenal study. I, I think the title is something like progressive overload without progressing load or something like that. I, I don't know, it's not off the dome or anything that finds that, yeah, either increasing weight or increasing reps is a very viable way for inducing progressive overload and continuing muscle growth over the course of a training cycle.

Right.

And so some exercises are going to be better suited for one progression scheme than another. For instance, I think people so often use progressibility as a good argument for why the bench press is a really good exercise for the chest because it's really easy to add small increments of load over the course of a training career. However, not all exercises are like that. So for instance, the lateral race. Most gyms, their dumbbells go in fives. Usually you have 5, 10, 15s, 20s, 25s and stuff like that. If you're lucky, you might have a gym that has 12 and a half and 17 and a halfs and stuff like that. But going from a lateral race three sets of 10 at 15 to trying to do three sets of 10 at 20, I mean, that's a substantial increase in the amount of weight that you're using. And it might be really, really challenging for you to get, let's say even five reps with the 20lb dumbbells as opposed to the 15 pound dumbbells for lateral raises.

Right.

But that's not. Again, that's not of a huge concern because we know that you could just keep doing reps with those lighter dumbbells for lateral raises, and you can just keep adding weight potentially to the bench press or reps if you prefer. But some exercises, some do make it difficult to do either, like the first one that comes to my mind. And maybe you can come up with more common examples. Daniel is, I think that's the first time I've ever called you Daniel on this podcast. But the like pistol squat, for instance, let's say you're able to get one. Let's say you're able to get like five pistol squats with both legs for whatever reason. And let's say that you're choosing to do this exercise for muscle growth.

Weird.

No, it's really hard to progress that exercise either with reps or with load adding Weight to a pistol squat is obviously very difficult. And then each additional replacement, because the baseline is so difficult of a pistol squat, adding an additional rep is a really, really difficult thing to do. But maybe, like I said, maybe you can come up with a more common example or just other reasons why progress ability is something to be of concern when choosing exercises.

Yeah, so I think the pistol example is an okay one. I think you could probably set it up in a way that you hold on to something and you have a step that you're less limited by mobility, all that kind of stuff. You can actually hold a dumbbell in your hand while you do it. But I think the most common example is that a lot of exercise setups are going to be not strapped down. So because a lot of people have specific setups for whether they want to target a specific region of their lats and so on. So the thing that I, or the one that pops up into my head the most is a single arm lap pull down where you're trying to pull a bit more vertically. And many times you'll run into the fact that you're just getting pulled into the weight stack. So could you theoretically just keep increasing reps? Yes, but it goes back to the practical standpoint where for the vast majority of people, they probably want to stick to 5 to 15 or so. So if you end up getting so strong that you're leaving that rep range, then you might just want to choose a different exercise or find a setup like in actual lat pull down setup where the pads are over your thighs, then problem solved. But sometimes people don't have that equipment availability. So just realizing that the progressability of some exercises might run their course because of just the logistics of the exercise itself. But yeah, like you said, it's probably not super high up on things that you need to consider because of the fact that you can just increase your reps in a lot of cases.

And to be clear, this, this is not in order. So the most important things we named first, like specificity to the muscle, you're actually doing that action. And then the limiting factor of the exercise should involve at least somewhat that exercise. These, the, the things following are not in order of the most important. The least important, for instance, our next example is safety. That should be, as always, one of the most important things to consider when choosing an exercise basically just is the exercise safe and safe in the context of pushing pretty close to failure. And pretty obviously the bench press is like the most common example here. And the bench press is totally safe to push to failure, assuming you have spotter arms or someone there spotting you while you're doing the exercise. Same with like squats and deadlifts. You probably just don't want to be pushing these super, super duper close to failure or to failure literally at risk of crushing yourself and, or just having form completely break down during the exercise in general. Not sure if you want to say anything in regards to safety.

Yeah, I just want to point out that obviously like my big pet peeve of mine is people, you know, making it seem like exercise is not safe. So I think all exercise is inherently safe, even the compound exercise and so on. But there are obviously you can go too far in the other direction and similar to sort of like how people conceptualize airplane travel, the likelihood that something will go wrong is not very high, but when it does go wrong it can be or it will be casual.

Consequences are so. Yeah, the consequences.

Yeah, exactly. Versus in a car. The consequences are very dire, but not necessarily the probability out of the sky. Exactly. Yeah. So same thing here. Like if you're pushing every single set of bench press or squat to failure and you're, and you're not using safeties and you don't know how to safely fail, then they could be very dire. So you could be the one individual in a hundred thousand that actually, you know, severs their spine because they decided to not practice, you know, common sense safety type tenants. But it's really not something that the vast majority of individuals need to worry about if they just do the bare minimum. But the safeties down don't go too close to failure if you don't have the safeties and, or have a spotter and so on.

Yeah, you look, you wanted to say one more thing. Okay, cool, cool. Yeah, safety. Like I said, it's pretty self explanatory and use your common sense to know whether or not something is super safe to push close to failure, as most things tend to be. But it does take some consideration.

Right.

And then lastly here is that the exercise itself is not overly fatiguing. This one is a bit more conceptual obviously and a bit, again, we're kind of relying on conjecture here more than anything else. But some exercises likely bring a greater degree of fatigue with no added stimulus to the muscle you're trying to target. So for instance, I think the, the best example here, at least that I can think of is something like a rack pull for your traps as opposed to just doing shrugs for your traps.

Right.

Outside of the very obvious just practical standpoint of it's really Annoying to load up like 405 and bang that around on a rack in the middle of the gym as opposed to just grabbing some heavy dumbbells and doing shrugs with them. The there is at least a somewhat logical consideration for the fact that that's going to bring with it extra fatigue with no extra trap growth that might leak its way into other exercises that you're going to do in that session or in that week. Right. So maybe don't choose something that is leaves you feeling pretty beat up. You don't have at least a strong rationale for why you're choosing that over another exercise that doesn't leave you feeling nearly as beat up. Right. So probably leave rack pulls behind and maybe stick to things like shrugs for your traps as opposed TO loading up 585 on the bar and screaming in the gym. Not sure if you want to do anything to that day.

Boy.

Yeah, I think that's covers it. Well, there's obviously other exercises that fall into the category, so just to mention them, probably Farmers Walks is a good one. Deadlifts, traditional deadlifts might be a good one in terms of. You could just get, I think, just understanding that this tenant falls into the others as well. So when you look at a deadlift, yeah, you're going to get a whole lot of good stimulus for a bunch of muscles. But if you could cover some of these other categories, like getting a more lengthened position, like having a muscle group be the limiting factor and so on, you could do an rdl and you're covering a lot of those bases and making that exercise that much better. So it's basically the fatigue thing always plays into a lot of these other categories and obviously none of these can really be viewed in isolation. So. But I think that's probably the best example of, yeah, I'll tolerate a certain amount of fatigue if it's allowing all of these other categories to have checks next to them. But if those don't, then I'm definitely not going to tolerate that amount of fatigue.

I mean.

Yeah, very well said.

Okay.

That covers our principles for exercise selection, kind of generalized principles for exercise selection for everyone. On average. Those being that we're actually doing the action of the muscle, that that muscle is going to be at least one of the limiting factors of the exercise, that there's hopefully some sort of length and challenge or decent stretch placed on the muscle. It's stable, it's progressible, it's safe, and it's not overly fatiguing. Right now we're going to Talk about what makes an exercise good for you specifically. And obviously Danny, Danny boy, and I can't tell you directly listener, what's good for you, but we can give some general guidelines to help you decide what is actually good for you as far as exercise selection is concerned.

Right.

So first and foremost, all of the same principles that we just laid out, those are far and away the most important thing. And then the things that we're about to discuss are more, you know, kind of based on like psychological factors more than anything else. Like mainly motivation for instance. Like if you just absolutely hate doing rdls for your hamstrings and you, you're just probably going to skip it more often than not. Obviously that's not a great exercise for you or you're just less likely to push yourself closer to failure on that exercise than you would, let's say, on a seated hamstring curl. It's probably just better for you to do the seated hamstring curl. Obviously, to quote basically Stan efforting here, the best exercise is the one you'll do. It's a very cliche, but it's actually a pretty good piece of advice in my personal opinion. Anything you want to add to, to that particular factor?

Yeah, no, I think that's a good one. I think two things I'll add. One is that you're a good example of this, or at least, I don't know, used to be. Now that your new gym situation is straining that. But being on the floor, I know previously you really, really did not enjoy being on the floor. So even, even a good push up setup with some elevation and so on might be a great exercise. But if you're just less likely to do it because you don't want to freaking set things up and be on the floor, then obviously that's not a good option for you. And I think one that falls into the motivation category that people I think intuitively sort of internalize but don't necessarily put out into the world is that there's certain compound exercises that people just like to do and are more likely to push hard and more likely to brag about and therefore will never skip, and so on. So things like the bench, things like any deadlift variation, squat variation, so on, where as long as you're not getting yourself into trouble because it could, could actually end up on the other side of the category where you have so much motivation for it and it's actually hindering your progress on other things because you're just going too crazy on it or leaving yourself more vulnerable to injury and so on. But for the vast majority of cases, when you're motivated to do an exercise and you really enjoy it, it's probably going to be a better choice. So sometimes people like to crap on like the main exercises, but it's harder. Even though people say this, it's harder to treat those isolation exercises as meat and potatoes in terms of just psychologically attacking that exercise in the same way, while it's not hard at all to do that, whether it's cultural, whether it's because it feels cool in terms of viscerality with heavier loads and so on, I don't know. But it's hard to ignore, at least from my experience, my experience with clients and so on, that there is that psychological attachment to certain lifts.

This is perfect because this, this is a great highlight of the difference between Danny Boy and me, which is if you're like Danny Boy, gruff exterior, hardcore lifter, bro type. He's right. Those movements, the squat, the bench, the dead and their variations, it's easier to kind of attack. And I'm not saying this that Danny Boy does this by any means, but it is easier to attach them to a certain extent to your identity as a lifter.

Right.

And if you're like a pretty boy with his ears pierce and long hair, such as myself, not a gruff exterior by any means, and you just hate hard work and effort, it's way easier to bias and push harder on those exercises that are, for a lack of a better term, just easier to do psychologically than the big. So like for instance, making a incline dumbbell bench press, kind of like your, one of your core chest movements is to, as opposed to like a flat barbell movement or something like that. And it's not a great example by any means, but you get my point. Or like, for instance, let's just use a better one, like a straight arm pull down or a dumbbell pullover as opposed to something like a heavy lad pull down or a bent over row or something like that.

Right.

It's easier for you if you're more like me. And those is to push those closer to failure and to never skip those exercises.

Right.

Just, just as a pure counter to what you were just saying. But I think they're both examples, both great examples depending on which camp you tend to fall into.

Yeah. And I think that underlining that is important because all this is saying is lean, don't lean away from your nature is basically what I'm trying to say. If you, no matter how much be yourself. Exactly. So I think no matter how much you try to convince yourself that you're going to treat the pec deck like the bench press, you know, there's certain individuals that just are not going to do that from a practical standpoint, where that pec deck is later on in the session, and they're just gonna do a hard set, but just not worry about beating their numbers every single time or ascribing as much, you know, significance to the exercise. So I would say, especially if you fall into that camp, try your best to. To beat your numbers and try to get away from that to some extent, but at the same time, including include those exercises that you know that you're gonna push and continue to try to progress on, because there's just not enough of a reason not to. That makes sense.

Yeah, that's a great. It's a great point, dude. Okay, next thing is just access in the gym and things in general, as well as time, right? This is kind of. Remember, these are all just a general kind of like, what makes an exercise a good choice for you, and they kind of really all fall under. Are you actually going to continue to do it, and are you going to be motivated to do exercise? So, for instance, I currently work in a gym. Their kind of aesthetic is all, like, functional fitness type of thing, right? Where it's basically CrossFit equipment. So, like, we are very limited on. We have no machines or anything like that. It's basically all free weights. And obviously, I would love to be able to do a leg press or something of the like, but that's just not a choice for me with my current setup, right. And I. I have access to barbells and dumbbells and stuff like that. So talking about, like, access in general, I could theoretically do a barbell squat or a walking lunge for my quads, right? But when you take into things like time, right? The amount of time that it takes to set up an exercise, the amount of time that it takes to warm up for an exercise, and then the amount of time it takes to, like, actually do that exercise. If you compare something like a barbell squat to walking lunges or reverse lunges or something like that, I'd have to walk up to a bar. I have to set the height. The rack to the height that I want. I have to get, like a. I use a wedge when I squat, so I have to set the wedge up. I have to warm up with 135, 225, 315, 405 before I get to my working set. At 495, it's a joke. And basically only Danny Boyd is that's a joke. I have to work all the way up to 135 for my top set and that takes a long time, obviously, as opposed to just grabbing some dumbbells, maybe the 20s, doing a couple reverse lunges, and then grabbing the 40s and doing my actual set of reverse lunges.

Right.

So you take all into the, all of that into account. I'm going to be far more motivated to do the exercise that I can wrap up in 10 minutes versus the exercise that I'm going to have to take closer to 20 minutes to get like three good functional sets in.

Right.

And that's just as a really important thing to consider with respect to time because unfortunately not everyone is. Has access to like four or five gyms like Danny boy does and can just take as long as he wants because he's not doing a PhD or anything and take as long as he wants to work out.

Right.

Um, so things like what you have access to and what you're willing to do, setup wise, as far as workouts are going, is something to consider when talking about choosing exercises for you. What else?

I think you covered that one. Well, I don't. I don't think I have anything to add.

Cool.

Well then one that we can talk about that I think you do have a lot to add to is does the exercise itself actually work with your particular anatomy? Is there anything you want to say about that?

Yeah, I think there's obviously a ton of factors here. So there's certain archetypal exercises that people sort of worship. Like we were talking about squat, deadlift, bench. So on certain people, for whatever reason, it's not too many once you start getting a few things right, but elbow pain from bench, shoulder pain from bench, so on. So if you happen to be one of those people and you've tried everything and you've looked at all the forums, YouTube videos, got an expert, and so on, and it's just not agreeing with you. There's no must do exercises. There's always variations that you can get that might honestly be even better in terms of a hypertrophy stimulus. So that's one category where depending on how your acromion is sitting and depending on the limb lengths, you could have a harder arbitrary threshold of hitting your chest during a bench press or hitting squat depth. So I had an individual in my squat versus hip thrust study that was literally, I want to say 6, 7, and just could not hit depth. Could we make Modifications and so on, not within the study setting in terms of adding wedges and so on, because you want to standardize things. But even with those modifications, somebody who has extremely long femurs is probably never going to get your archetypal ass to grass squat that people sort of put on a really high pedestal. So there's obviously certain exercises that are just going to agree better with your specific anthropometrics. So I don't think that any exercise is a must do. But while I don't think every exercise is a must do, I think that as long as you forget about those arbitrary thresholds, I think that there's many exercises that you can make agree with you as long as you're not trying to fit the mold of what people would consider to be that perfect form for whatever the exercise that they're currently worshiping. So I wouldn't necessarily. I don't want to make it seem like, don't do the exercise if it doesn't perfectly agree with you in the picturesque way. There's tons of ways to make modifications or just allow a lesser range of motion and still give you a great stimulus and still be an exercise that could be sort of meat and potatoes. So definitely don't try to put yourself into a position that just doesn't agree with you. But by the same token, there's a lot of times decent modifications that can be made as long as those modifications are not cumbersome, like we talked about in those other categories.

Yeah, I think that was really, really well said there. I think the biggest takeaway from that particular point is that, look, look, at the end of the. At the end of the day, the list of exercises necessary for muscle growth doesn't exist. There are no exercises that you must do in order to maximize muscle growth at all. There are always different choices that you can make. And I make this very clear to all of my clients when we're working together. It's like, look, if there's an exercise that you hate, let's just change it. Because there, There's. There's no magical exercise. We can always change it for something that you hopefully enjoy a little more, as long as you're following certain principles that we've already outlined.

Okay?

The last thing that we'll talk about after that is relying less on evidence, but more so things like just does. Do you actually like the exercise from a sensation standpoint? Does it give you a good pump? Do you get good soreness from that exercise? Do you want to touch on that a little bit, Danny?

Boy, yeah, sure. So I think this is one of those where you get a whole lot of strong opinions. And I think the funniest part about categories where people have the strongest opinions is usually that's because there's a vacuum to fill in terms of a lack of evidence or a lack of rigor when it comes to logic being applied to how to use them in a very systematic way. And my answer to this is to just throw a rigor out the window and say, meh. I think you can consider them, not throw them out completely. But where they fit into the puzzle is not clear to any stretch of the imagination. So how I sort of conceptualize it is I'm going to at least think about them and integrate them into how I think about the exercise to some extent. But to what extent I do that is whether it's an add on to a bunch of the other tenants that we talked about. So if we're checking all the boxes and I can get a pretty sweet pump from that exercise, I'm probably going to include it in the program. I do love the pump. I actually have a day that is still covering all of those other boxes, but is a bit more pumpy in execution in terms of the exercises chosen. What personally gives me a better pump during the session and leaving the session like, holy crap, while the other session, I'm not as worried about it. So that's sort of how I think about the pump. And then in terms of soreness, I think a little bit less about soreness other than I want to be sore sometimes. It's sort of like that hand wavy, you know, if you're never sore kind of thing, versus if you're sore sometimes, but not all the time. It's probably a good sign. I think I sort of fall into that camp where that makes a whole lot of sense to me. But something that I integrated as well is if the muscle does the action, it's harder in a stretch position, all those kind of things. Plus, if it's a novel stimulus, and I can be pretty sure that that muscle is super sore or that region of the muscle is super sore, then I at least have some indication that the structures around that muscle are being disrupted. And that makes it probably slightly more likely that that muscle itself was also disrupted. You can get into hot water with any of this sort of line of logic, but I think it's definitely a piece of the puzzle that is a little bit hard to ignore, especially in some cases where, like, I mean, it just has to be this muscle getting super Sore. So the, the example that comes to mind is the seated abductions. For, for whatever reason, there is an argument about whether that muscle was being, whether the glute was being targeted by seated abductions. And I was like, I haven't done these in a while. It's in my gym. I'm going to do 10 sets and see where I feel sore. And I felt absolutely nothing in my lower region. I could flex the lower region of the glute and feel absolutely nothing. But when you sort of slightly abduct and you create that contraction at the upper region, it's just a gnarly, painful sensation. So I, because it sort of aligns with all of the anatomy and so on, I'm pretty confident that you're probably hitting your upper glute fairly hard from seated abduction. So it's just something where I don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater and say it's never useful to think about soreness. It's never useful to think about sensation or the pump. But just realize that you're using something that is fairly limited for a bunch of reasons. One is that the sensation itself is not necessarily correlated with what's going on tension wise because just two different pathways. Then you have the issue of multiple muscles being in the same region. You can't be sure which muscles are the ones that are actually experiencing that sensation. You could be more sure in some cases than others because it's just obvious that there's only like one muscle or really one muscle doing it like a lateral race is probably a really good example of that. Where, yeah, there's other muscles that do the action, but there's no muscle like right there. People can't see where I'm pointing.

But you, you get the point where.

The lateral belts are exactly where the lateral delts are. So all that to say it's something that I consider, but I don't have any systematic way to consider it. And I think, and maybe this is. I don't know if it's a hot take, but I think the people that try to make the claim that they're being systematic about how they're integrating these variables are probably lying to themselves to some extent. You just can't be systematic with something that we don't know where it fits into the puzzle.

Yeah, I think the, the biggest thing to point out here is that soreness and the pump are, they're not to be disregarded entirely. However, the option you choose based on soreness or pump better also comport with all of the other principles that we've discussed. And then as a last determining factor, it's basically like the old inner. The old resume question.

Right.

If all things are created equal, person, blah blah blah, versus this person, blah blah blah, you're going to choose the person. Right. So if all. If both exercises allow for a deep stretch, they've got a favorable force curve. We're pretty sure that the muscle that's working is the actual muscle that we're trying to target with that exercise. And one gives you a better pump and leaves you more sore than the other. Yeah. Probably choose that one if for nothing else, that if you're a meathead and a lizard brain like Danny boy and myself, you like being sore and you like getting a bump in the gym.

Right.

So it just kind of falls into that motivation category as well.

Right. Cool.

Anything else you want to say about pumps or soreness or anything?

Yeah, I think the only thing that I would add to that, because I think that was a really good summary, is that again, we're not choosing one exercise a lot of stimuli together. So the fact that we can cover our bases with some more lumpy, slash soreness inducing exercises is in my estimation, kind of like a cherry on top as opposed to it being meat and potatoes type. Deal.

Absolutely.

Okay.

The last thing was. We're running a little long here. But the last thing that we'll touch on is situations where you start out liking an exercise, but then it start. You find that it starts violating those principles that we outlined. Not necessarily the basic principles, but the principles of what makes an exercise good for you. Right. So ultimately, how often should you vary exercises as one?

Right.

And I think there's not a lot of evidence on this by any means. Mostly because training studies just are rarely ever going to be long enough to where you get to a point where you need to vary exercises.

Right.

However, I think that there are a couple of reasons why you would want to change exercises. One is it grows stale for you and you just stop liking the exercise.

Right.

That's what that in of itself is not a bad reason to swap that exercise out for something else. Two is that you find that your progress is staling with that exercise or that the exercise that you once liked and was once really good for targeting the muscle you cared about, started hurting the joints and structures around that muscle. And maybe it's time to pick a slightly different pattern that doesn't bother your joints and surrounding structures nearly as much.

Right.

Is there any other thing you want to add to how often and when you should vary those exercises. And note, I want to make a note that I did not give a timescale there. So like for instance, if incline dumbbell bench press, you're just grooving that for a full year and you're adding weight or reps consistently and it's feeling good for an entire year. I don't see a really strong reason why you need to vary that exercise by any means. And then eventually that might start bothering you, you switch it right. Or you get bored of it, you switch it right. That could happen on a one year timescale, that could happen on a two week timescale or a one month timescale. For instance.

Sorry. Okay.

Now, is there anything you want to add to that particular.

Yeah, I think it's becoming pretty clear now that for reasons known and unknown variations in terms of position or where an exercise is difficult changes the stimulus. So which muscles grow, where muscles grow, distal, proximal, mid, so on. So because of the fact that there's so much uncertainty around there, I think that it makes sense to do a variety of exercises not necessarily within the same program, but across programs for reasons that you mentioned in terms of stale pain, so on, plus a bunch of known and unknown reasons. So you can't cover every region of every muscle and give it the most attention that you could in one program because you just don't have the time or, you know, allowable fatigue or recovery capacity in terms of hitting every muscle in the exact way you want or including every exercise that you really like. So I think the variety is sort of going to be baked into the cake because you just can't cover all your bases with one program. But by the same token, I do like to keep some exercises around because they allow me to be a bit more certain that I'm actually progressing in that given muscle group. I think sometimes this is overstated where they. It's not a one to one relationship. So it's, it's not at all clear necessarily that it's the best indicator, but it's a, it's a pretty good indicator and there's not a big downside to doing it. So my middle ground is basically include the variation that's needed in order to get all your theoretical and non theoretical boxes checked, plus have some mainstay exercises that you happen to really like and also give you an indication of progression. So I think it's hard to argue that that would be a horrible way to go about doing things.

Yeah, I think that's really well said and the last thing here we'll say before closing out is just the converse of that, which is some exercises you, they take a little bit of work before you kind of find what works for you and your groove with that particular exercise. So like maybe you, you try bent over rows in week one of your new program and they feel kind of weird. You don't really enjoy them. Like they, they're, they're not hitting, they're not giving a good mind muscle connection, blah blah, blah. Don't throw that out immediately, right? Maybe give it one to two more weeks. And if on week three of your new program you're finding that this exercise is still just not grooving well with you or you don't enjoy it, certainly if it's causing you pain at all, just throw it out. Because why even risk it, right? But try sticking with a movement for a little while, at least two to three sessions of that movement before you disregard it as an exercise not being.

Good for you, right?

So for instance, Romanian deadlifts or stiff legged deadlifts for me used to be something that really bothered my back. I rarely ever felt my hamstrings. But then if I, I noticed that if I kind of stuck with it and kind of tried to grease the groove a little bit with it for a couple of sessions in a row, I was able to kind of perform it in a way that actually worked for me and I ended up enjoying and it stopped bothering my lower back and it started feeling better in my hamstrings. So basically that is all to say don't just write off an exercise because you try it one time and you, and you don't like it necessarily.

Right. Okay.

Anything else you want to add to that before, before we close out?

No, I think you stated it well. I think the one thing that I'd add is just don't underestimate small tweaks in form because they could actually make a diff. Make a big difference in you. I wouldn't broad brush. You see a lot of people that you have to do this this way for other people, but I think you could turn the dial all the way in the wrong direction. Say form doesn't matter which a lot I, you see a lot more nowadays. But if you can make a small tweak in your own training and everything just feels better, freaking do that. You know, like don't throw out your brain when thinking about sort of all of those things, stimulus, injury, risk, all that kind of stuff, just for lack of a better term, when all else is equal. Listen to your body, you know, so.

That'S really well said, man. All right, I'm not going to go through it because I've, like, recapitulated each section a couple of times. So I'm just going to say our usual. Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to the Built With Science podcast. If there's anything that you want us to cover that we have yet to discuss, please feel free to reach out to us at Built With Science on Instagram. And as always, thank you for listening. Peace.