For Your Health: Ask BeWell!
The BeWell Tanger Center for Health Management, BIDMC's onsite wellness and exercise resource center, answers your questions in this ongoing column in BIDMCtoday.
BeWell will offer a FREE 2-week pass to any BIDMC staff member whose question is published in this column -- so e-mail your health- or fitness- related question today to the BeWell staff at makenned@bidmc.harvard.edu.
Q. Is there a particular order I should follow when doing my strength training exercises?
A. In general, you should start with the bigger muscle groups (i.e. back, chest, legs) and finish with the smaller muscle groups (i.e. biceps, triceps, shoulders) because you need your small muscles to help complete an exercise for your big muscles.
Take a chest press, for example. You use your triceps to complete a chest press. If your triceps are already fatigued when you perform a chest press, then you will likely not be able to lift enough weight to challenge your chest (pectoral) muscles. However, if you do your chest press before you work your triceps, then you will be giving your triceps a double workout without sacrificing any other muscle groups.