Analysis Version
v1
History
Back to Study: Varying the Order of Combinations of Single- and M...
causal
Analysis v1
Strong Support

If you're a guy new to lifting and you start your workout with big compound moves like the bench press instead of isolation exercises, your chest muscles grow more—probably because you're not too tired when you do the main exercise.

47
Pro
0
Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

47

Community contributions welcome

47

Varying the Order of Combinations of Single- and Multi-Joint Exercises Differentially Affects Resistance Training Adaptations.

Randomized Controlled Trial
Human
2020 May

The study found that doing bench presses (a big chest exercise) at any point in the workout helped the chest grow more than doing only arm isolation exercises — but doing the isolation exercises first didn’t hurt chest growth, which contradicts the claim that bench presses must come first.

Contradicting (0)

0

Community contributions welcome

No contradicting evidence found

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Varying the Order of Combinations of Single- and Multi-Joint Exercises Differentially Affects Resistance Training Adaptations.

Score: 47
DOI: 10.1519/jsc.0000000000003550

Similar Assertions

Pushing a heavy leg press machine makes the outer part of your thigh muscle grow more than doing leg extensions, because it puts more overall stress on that part of the muscle.

61
0
78%

If you're a guy who's new to lifting and you do both big compound moves and isolated triceps exercises, your triceps will grow more than if you only do one type — not because the exercises add up, but because they hit different parts of the muscle in different ways.

47
0
73%

If you want to grow the outer part of your thigh (vastus lateralis), leg presses might be more effective than leg extensions.

61
0
73%

Doing leg extensions (kicking your leg out while sitting) makes the front thigh muscle right above your knee grow more than doing leg presses (pushing a heavy platform with both legs).

61
0
72%