Starting your workout with big lifts like squats and bench presses doesn’t make you stronger or change your body differently than starting with small lifts like leg extensions — as long as you train hard for 12 weeks.

The study found that whether you do big lifts first or exhaust a muscle with a small exercise first, you end up just as strong and with the same body changes after 12 weeks — so doing compound exercises first isn’t worse than the other methods.