Does doing isolation exercises first make you stronger?
The effects of pre-exhaustion, exercise order, and rest intervals in a full-body resistance training intervention.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Three groups of trained people lifted weights in different orders for 12 weeks. One group did isolation moves first, another rested between moves, and the third did big lifts first.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
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Max 72Case-Control Studies
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Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
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Evidence Score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. Considered the gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Three groups of trained people lifted weights in different orders for 12 weeks. One group did isolation moves first, another rested between moves, and the third did big lifts first.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 540 / 90
Evidence Score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. Considered the gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Publication
Authors
Fisher JP, Carlson L, Steele J, Smith D
Related Content
Claims (5)
Two different ways of lifting weights—pre-exhaustion and traditional—both help you get stronger and last longer during exercise about the same amount.
No matter the order of exercises, people who were already trained got much stronger after 12 weeks of lifting — all groups improved a lot.
Doing isolation exercises before compound lifts (like leg extensions before squats) doesn’t make you stronger or change your body more than doing the lifts in a different order, as long as you’re already trained.
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.
Doing a single-muscle exercise before a bigger workout makes your muscle work harder and grow more because it gets tired first.