Exercise Selection That Works

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Welcome to There is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell, and I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I am the owner of Maxwell's Fitness Program, and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really worked and most importantly why things worked. Hence the name, there is a method to the magnet. Before I get started today, let me thank Jonathan and Lynn Gildan of the Gilding Group ELT Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412. Happy Fitness Tuesday to everybody out there. I don't know when you are listening to this, but it is Tuesday for me. I uh what did I do for my fitness today? I got up early per usual and I did some strength training. Today I focused mostly on my upper back and pulling muscles, and uh it felt good. As I say all the time, I always feel better after a workout. And uh I noticed on our board at the gym we had our Monday wins on the old dry erase board, and it was kind of fun yesterday. We asked everybody, you know, what's your win for the day? And uh we had quite a few wins, you know, it's pretty cool. We listed some of them on social media. Ellen did 120 pounds for eight reps on the chest press. That's a huge win. Casey came in and did 35-pound dumbbell presses, that is a huge win. But you know, I think this was the biggest win of the day. Jake came in per usual. He is a Monday and Wednesday or Monday and Friday, or sometimes Wednesday and Friday at 7 a.m. guy. That's his time. He uh got in and nailed one of those early times years ago. So he came in per usual. Why do I keep saying per usual? I don't know. And why are my two pets fighting outside the door? These are, I guess, unanswerable questions. So he's always at that time. But what made yesterday pretty unusual and a huge win is the fact that he had just landed at Orlando International Airport about three hours prior, or something to that effect, of him coming in. So, in other words, he came in on a late flight. He said he got maybe a couple hours' sleep. He made it to the gym, and then he was flying out in two hours from that point of leaving to gym the gym to go on another trip because he uh he's got a really busy summer with running for senator and doing some other things and doing some family things. But what makes it such a huge win is the fact, you know, he knew that he needed to get his workout in. I mean, he knew that like it was getting a little crazier with his campaign juicing up and him being out of town more and he had more travel this summer. He did not want to miss a workout. So to me, that's like a huge win. That's like commitment. I mean, a lot of people blow off their workouts for like way less reasons, you know. I'm sure he didn't get much sleep, and I'm sure he wasn't going to get much sleep. So that is a huge win for him. Anyway, it just got me thinking when I looked at the board. We had a lot of wins. And, you know, before I get into today's topic, I want you to think about some wins that you can do today because it does matter when we start to make deposits into that account as far as what we're doing, our accomplishments, what make us feel good about ourselves, whether it be checking off our list of the exercises we do, or doing some exercises we've never done before, or doing some kind of a task that we've never done before. I've got a couple people that are going into the Max Vic games this weekend, this year, that have never done it before, and they've been around the gym for a while and they've seen other people do it, and uh, you know, they really wanted to get involved and they're gonna do it. So that is a huge win taking a task on like that. So what are your wins? It's always important to think about that. And uh just to wrap that segment up, I put in the email of the day what is going to be your win today. I said, for me, I wanted to be able to just use a little bit more load or repetitions on all my exercises on Monday, and I can report back and say I was able to do that. Not because I'm special, but because I made it a goal and set out to do it and looked at it and said, okay, I can go up here, I can go up there. So that was my win that I hit. Now let's talk about the main subject of the day. Exercise selection. There's a lot around this topic, and I get a lot of questions regarding exercise selection. So I want to talk about how I choose exercises for the clients. There's there's a few areas we need to really tackle here first. Let me talk a little bit about why I designed my gym the way that I did. I designed my gym to have the tools that I particularly like. I mean, it's really that simple. I often tell people, yes, it's a gym, it's a place where we work out, but at the same time, it really is a place where I train my clients. Like that is the whole purpose of the gym. And from the time that I had my own gym, meaning that I was the person who selected all the equipment that we were going to purchase, and I was the person that was going to lay this equipment out and select how we're going to do that. From the time I started doing that, I've always made sure that I selected the tools that I need. Because really, that is what is most important with exercise selection. It's understanding that that piece of exercise is a tool to do the job that you want it to do. So I selected the tools that I think are the most efficient regarding time, regarding use, regarding multiple people that can use them. I always made sure that I selected the right tools. In other words, I didn't just go out and get things that were trendy, that were cool, that were the new thing, that maybe were the most fancy equipment. Like none of that ever mattered to me. I wanted to make sure that we had the tools that were going to do the job. And I will segue into what that really means here in a second. Okay. So when I was selecting these tools, it was very important to me that all of the major muscle groups of the body were represented. And a lot of times I take for granted how important that is and how little that that's known out there. I mean, I literally just think, well, everybody knows you're supposed to train all the major muscle groups in your body. But then, like, I learned that people really have no clue. And, you know, why would they? I mean, I've been doing this stuff since I was 17 years old, and I'm 60 now. I mean, I've been doing this a really, really long time. So gyms are like second nature to me. Like walking around a gym, I mean, it's like second nature. So, of course, I know this. So, I always have to remember and go back and explain that to people. So, if you walked into my studio now, you would see it being very similar to my uh other studio I had previous to this in the Spruce Creek Flying. You're going to see that there is a leg press, you're going to see that there's a leg extension, a leg curl, a pull-down row, a chest press, an overhead press, a seated dip, a bicep tricep machine, an abdominal machine, a low back machine. Then you're going to see a rack of dumbbells, some other props, some other tools, but like the layout of the full body circuit, the selectorized machines is very, very critical. The first thing we need to think about when we choose exercises is that we're choosing all of the major muscle groups for the body. In other words, when we choose exercises, we need to make sure that all of the major muscle groups are covered. You see a lot of fancy exercises on social media, whether it be TikTok or Instagram, and people are doing different types of like isolation exercises or really trendy types of things, really working on areas that they want to work on. That's never been my philosophy. I mean, yes, we do need to work on areas that are deficient compared to maybe some of our stronger areas. There's no question about it. But at the same time, the whole body needs to be represented. So it's very important that when you are choosing your exercises, that you are choosing the exercises that are working each of the major muscle groups. So I went in order a second ago when I talked about my selectorized machines. Leg press, the leg extension, the leg curl, the chest press, the pole rows, to overhead press, the bicep, tricep, abdominal, lower back. Those are all add into that CD calf, by the way. Those are all the major muscle groups of the body. So in choosing an exercise, what we need to do is we need to make sure that we're choosing the best exercise at our disposal for the muscle group that we're working. And as I said, we want to work the entire body. So we need to choose the best exercise at our disposal for the muscle group that we are working. In other words, there is not a perfect exercise for working the quads. What do we have at our disposal? If you're at my gym, which has all of the selectorized machines, or a big gym like LA Fitness or the YMCAs or whatever, they're gonna have a leg extension machine. That is a basically the only way to really, really isolate the quadriceps of the upper thighs. That's great. If you have access to that, that is a great tool to use. But if you don't have access to that, like you have a home gym, and at home you have dumbbells, you have maybe some free weights, and that's about it. It doesn't mean you can't work your quads. You're going to select the best exercise at your disposal. In that case, it would probably be a goblet squat. So the first thing we need to think about with exercise selection is what do we have? Because there isn't a best mode out there. There are pros and cons. When I'm talking about modes, I'm talking about free weights, dumbbells, selectorized machines, bands, tubing, body weight. Those are like the main modes. All of them are great tools. I have one client who I'm getting ready to work with when I finish this podcast. I train her remotely. Now, typically on Tuesdays, I train her at her office when she sees her last patient. So again, we do a FaceTime remote workout. Now, at her office, she's got two different offices. It really depends on uh which one she's at, but it's not a huge difference between the two. One, she has slight tiny little dumbbells and then the other one she doesn't. So I think she's at the one where she doesn't have any dumbbells today. So what are we gonna use? Her body weight. We're gonna do some push-ups, some squats, some exercises like that. When she's at her other office, she has light dumbbells. I throw in some of those. Now, is that ideal? No, but it works. We can train her whole body. Now, fortunately, she's agile and fit enough where she can use her body weight for resistance, basically. Like she can do full push-ups, she can do squats, and when we have a pull-up bar, she can do pull-ups. So she can do that. I mean, everybody can use their body weight for resistance, but I just caution people that think that it's easier because body weight training can be very, very hard. Let me give you an example. I don't mean to kind of go off the beaten path, but it is important to think about these things when we're selecting our modes for exercise. So a push-up, a standard push-up, is essentially doing 70% load. So, in other words, you're you're basically because of leverage and things like that, like you're not really pushing up, say, 180 pounds if you weigh 180 pounds, but you are pushing up about 70% of that or so. So, I mean, that's doable. It's not easy. Not everybody can do push-ups, but it is doable, right? But again, it's not easy. But then say you get on a chest breast machine, which is a selectorized machine. And by the way, when I say selectorize, what that means is you're simply selecting the plate by putting the pin into the weight stack. That's why it's called selectorize. You're selecting, let's say, 50 pounds. So if you're 180 pounds and you put on, you put it on 50 pounds, I mean, you're basically just doing 30% or so of your body weight. That's not 70%. So that is a lot easier. So a chest press at say 50 pounds for a 180-pound person is going to be a lot easier than a push-up. You get it? So bodyweight training isn't always easier for people. That is a big myth. It can often be harder if it is being done correctly. All right. But anyway, she is able to do body weight training. So that is the mode we have. That's what she has at her office. So the first rule we have to think about is yes, we have to cover our entire body, and we have to select the best mode at our availability. There are cases where you might have to go out and go shopping andor go to a gym because you have a special circumstance, but you always want to choose the best one at your disposal. So the first rule again: full body workouts. We want to make sure that we select the exercise that best represents that muscle group for your major muscle groups. The next thing we need to think about is human movement. Basically, humans move in the form of squat, push, pull. Hinge, lunge, that's what we do. Those are the basic movements of human mobility. Squat, push, pull, hinge, that's like bending over, doing a deadlift, lunge, that means that we're also oftentimes on one leg, one leg out in front of the other, or whatever, that's what we do. Those are the basis of human movement. And sometimes we will throw in rotation, but that's what humans do. So we have to select the best exercise for all the major muscle groups that we have at our disposal, and we have to think about those motions. That's what is most important. So let's take squat. We need to squat. Humans squat. When you think about it, squatting is nothing more than sitting down in a chair, right? And then getting up. So we have to be able to squat. Well, if we have a full gym, then we can choose between a leg press, we can choose between a hack squat, we could choose a free weight squat, we can choose a goblet squat. We have to choose the one that works best for us. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't choose multiple modes. In other words, there are multiple modes I like for me personally doing a squat. I love a goblet squat. I like leg presses. I don't love them as much, not because they're bad or anything. I mean, it's just a preference. I'll do them, and that is part of my training sometimes. But for the most part, I like a goblet squat better. I will also do bodyweight squats, especially when I'm traveling and I don't have different modes of resistance. But those are like the best types of squats that I like for me. What if you can't do a goblet squat? Let's go back to the example I gave you on the chest press and push-up. I have some clients that it's very difficult for them to squat down to 90 degrees. It might even be difficult for them to squat down to 45 degrees. So for them, doing a leg press might be the best squat for them, and then build up into being able to being able to do more of a loaded squat. All right. Then we have to think about a push. So what is the best push exercise at your disposal? Again, with my remote client, most of the time it is push-ups. At my gym, I can use a chess press machine. I can do dumbbell chest presses, I can do overhead presses. So really, this is like pressing and pushing is very similar when I'm talking about it in this way. What is the best mode for you? I'm at the end of this, I'm going to get into like why we have to be careful not following the basic fads or just being silly. But what is the best mode for you? I I often I really don't understand sometimes when I see people doing really, really, really heavy dumbbell presses when right next to them is a chest press machine. Like it doesn't make sense unless it does make sense. In other words, there are times that I've seen that situation. I'll say, Why aren't you using the chest press? And they'll say, Well, you know, every time I do that particular chest press, not mine, by the way, but every time I do that particular chest press, it really bothers my shoulder. And by the way, I'm kidding, sometimes that is mine. Like sometimes a certain machine will just tweak somebody where a slight difference in the range of motion, like in dumbbells, doesn't. Or sometimes it's the other way around. Sometimes the dumbbell tweaks somebody, put them on a machine, it doesn't. I mean, that's a big part of really selecting the right exercise. But anyway, I'll say, so, you know, why is somebody doing that? And and if it does tweak their shoulder, it makes a little bit of sense. But if it doesn't, I just shake my head because here's a machine with the big old weight stack, like the one at my gym goes up to 245 pounds. That's pretty good weight if you're doing repetitions. I mean, most people never even come close to the stack, of course. So that's more than enough weight, yet they're hauling up these heavy dumbbells, which they have to like use a really weird motion to get them up into place if you're going heavy, like heavy for the person, because I know it's subjective. And it just doesn't make a lot of sense. Not that the motion of pressing is any different, you know? Like it's not that now they're hauling up 75 pound dumbbells up over their chest and they're going into the pressing motion. I mean, that probably doesn't feel a lot different as far as weight goes, as 150 pounds on the machine, say, but getting them in position is what is risky. That's when you see people get hurt. Not always. I I love dumbbell presses. I'm not saying they're bad. I'm just saying when you see somebody going really heavy on them to the point where they're not controlling these weights very well, and then like afterwards, you'll see them like drop them, smash them down because essentially they can't control them on the way down. And I'm thinking. You got a chest press machine next to you that all you have to do is set the pin, sit down, and press up. Why aren't they doing that? Which is so much safer. You don't even need a spot. Like it makes no sense. But then it does make sense because the reality is they're not thinking. Their ego is thinking. They're thinking something silly, like, oh, that's a machine, or they're thinking my buddy does 75-pound dumbbell presses or whatever. I mean, 100 pounds. I mean, I've seen people use a ridiculous amount of weight, and I've seen people use a ridiculous amount of weight on chest presses that it's appropriate, meaning they can control them. I'm not knocking chest presses. I think dumbbell chest presses are great. I'm saying that's basically the whole point of this podcast that choose the best tool you have at your disposal. That if both of these exercises work perfectly fine for you. In other words, the path on the chest press works for your shoulders just as well as dumbbells do. And it's sitting next to you, and you don't need a spotter, and you don't need to haul these weights up into a weird position by using your knees to throw them up there. And then when you're done, you don't have to worry about how you're going to get them down without hurting yourself. I mean, why aren't you using the chest press? All right. So pick the best tool that works, not based on what other people are doing. I'm going to give you another example before I move on to the poll. We have people constantly telling us, I hate to say it, ladies, but it's mostly you. You know, I see so-and-so doing these glute kickback exercises with cables and bands and blah, blah, blah, and these heavy glute bridges. I mean, look, they have a they have a purpose in in some people's training plan. That is absolutely fine. And they'll say, I want to have a butt like theirs. Look at their butt. And I'm like, okay, number one, that's not why their butt looks like that. I mean, there's a lot of genetics involved, there's a lot of training, there's a lot of diet. So just don't assume because you see a physique and somebody doing an exercise that that's what's doing it. Could it help them? I mean, sure, but don't like overgeneralize your assumption on that. Secondly, the best way you could ever work on your glutes is to squat or leg press appropriately and do split squats and lunges appropriately. There's nothing better for the glutes than that. But, you know, it's not as fun, maybe. I don't know. I mean, those glute kickbacks and everything are certainly easier than doing correctly, doing squats correctly or doing split squats correctly. I mean, maybe that's part of it. But, and again, it's not that it's bad. It's that if you're doing lunges, split squats, squats appropriately, they're doing so much more for you in other ways. But, you know, people see different types of fancy exercises and they want to do them. All right. So that's like kind of another example when choosing exercises is we want to be careful to not like generalize and think because somebody's doing something that that's what's doing it for them. All right. Now, when we pull, I mean, what best pulling exercises do we have at our disposal? If you're really fit and agile with your body weight, you can do we can do pull-ups. I mean, pull-ups are absolutely great. But I'll tell you right now that 95% or higher of the population can't do pull-ups. Again, I get back to the example of body weight versus machines. But if you get on a pull-down machine, you can now do like 30% of your body weight and do pull-ups, right? But now it's called a pull-down. So what do you have at your disposal? Do you have selectorized machines where you can do appropriate pulls in good form, like seated row machine, a cable row machine, a pull-down machine? That's great. Do you have dumbbells where you can do dumbbell rows? Use the best tool you have at your disposal. Now I'm going to tell you a funny story about that. Years and years ago, I was leasing a gym from Dr. Michael Fulton. And uh, you know, he's a great mentor of mine. He was one of the uh medical directors from Nautilus. So he was a big time person in the exercise industry, and he has a fantastic reputation as an orthopedic doctor. So I was renting space from him, and he and I used to kick around exercises and stuff and talk all the time. Like I said, he was a he was a great mentor. He wasn't only leasing me space, but he was a mentor of mine, and along with a lot of people on his staff. And I was doing something stupid one day. I got a bar out and I put some plates on it and I started doing bent over rows. Nothing wrong with bent over rows, people. There's nothing wrong with it at all. But I had a seated rope with chest support right in my gym, right? So I was doing bent rows. I tweaked my back, nothing major, just a slight muscle pull. I went up to him after he got off work and I said, Hey, doc, you know, I did this, you know, I might need a prescription. Can you uh check me out? Blah, blah, blah. He says, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come in tomorrow, I'll check you out. And he he looks at me, he says, Rob, what were you doing? I said, I was doing bent rows. And he and he just gave me this look and he pointed at the row. He goes, There's a perfectly fine seated row machine right there where you don't have to bend over and hurt your back. And I was like, I know. So I mean, we make these silly mistakes, even us experts. Now, I must say I've really gotten away from those types of mistakes, but we do it right. And it was just so silly because why was I doing a bent row when I had access to a great machine that can do it? Now, if I didn't, and that's kind of the whole point of the podcast, if I didn't, I would have to select the best mode that I had. And maybe I have dumbbells and maybe I'm using a supported bench. Whatever. Bent rows can be done with free weights safely. I'm not saying they can't, but if you have a seated row machine, why not use it? When it comes to lunges and split squats, what are the best ways that you can work that motion for you? Can you do step ups? Can you do body weight split squats? In other words, we do have to find a way to train our legs isolaterally, which means one leg at a time, because we are often in positions where we are in a position where we are one leg at a time. So it's important to make sure that we're able to strengthen that motion. I mean, what do you have at your disposal? I mean, like I said, if you have different steps, you can do different step-ups. If you're able to do different types of split squats, you can do that. Some people will do single leg leg presses, that's fine too. What do you have at your disposal? All right. So I kind of want to wrap this up by just making the main point with exercise selection. I'm going to give you three key takeaways right now. The first key takeaway is don't choose your strength exercises from what you see other people doing online or at the gym or what your friends tell you they do. Don't do that. That's a losing proposition. That does not work. Number two, make sure that you are training all of the major muscle groups on a weekly basis. Meaning that if you're doing a split routine because you enjoy breaking up your muscle groups and all that, that's fine. It doesn't matter. Just make sure you are covering all the muscle groups. Or if you're doing full body routines, make sure that you're covering all of your muscle groups. The point is don't just leave things out in your exercise selections. Like don't leave out your legs because you don't like to work them. Make sure you're choosing exercises for all of your 10 major muscle groups. Then make sure you're matching the best exercise at your disposal for the major movements of the human body. Again, squat, push, pull, lunge, hinge, rotate. What do you have at your resources? What kind of equipment do you have? Choose the best one to do that. Not the one that looks the coolest, not the one that everybody's doing. What do you have at your resources? If you think about that with exercise selection, it'll go a long way into helping you make sure that you're training your body for what you want it to do and that you are doing the exercises that will help you reach your goals. Thanks everybody for listening to today's show. I want to ask you to please hit automatic download from wherever you get your podcast from. It really helps me and it really helps the show. Now I'd like to take a second to thank our sponsors. Without them, we would not be able to have the podcast. 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