Using Pre-Fatigue

[bigla2004]

All- I come from a powerlifting background, but now focusing on hypertrophy using FT for a number of months now. During some of my MR's with multiple sets, I've been using isolation exercises prior to compounds (pre-fatigue if you will). I wanted to get your take on the following:

Anyone have any experience using isolation moves first before compounds in their loading zig-zags? I know Scott mentions you can do this to change the stimulus and active the target muscle a bit better. I was wondering everyone's thoughts on doing iso's first on loading programatically throughout a blast to help activate the target muscle and really fatigue what you're trying to train.

Matt

[Altamir]

I just stumbled onto this post, so sorry for the delay on the reply.

I am currently in love with pre-fatigue. and have been doing it for quite sometime with tremendous results. This worked extremely well for me for a number of reasons. Firstly, I have a bad left shoulder. This made compound pressing movements for chest and shoulder difficult to add weight. My rotator would fatigue before my chest and shoulder would. Also, I had a poor mind muscle connection with my chest. I am shoulder pressing dominate, and a lot of my chest compound movements would be overtaken by my shoulders. I say had because since really focusing on pre-fatigue I've really connected with my chest and gotten it to grow. Lastly, I don't want to say that the pre-fatigue was sort of a "warm" up for the compound lift. But I think anyone would say that a pec deck is not as intense as say incline bench. It just helped me get my whole upper body warmed up, get my muscles firing, I would feel much more confidant moving into my compound movements. Also there is less weight on the bar. Mentally it's easier to lift off say 225, instead of 255. Again, it feeling lighter in my hands leads to more confidence.

I certainly think it's worth a go. I certainly cannot see myself going back, and even if I moved from FT to something else I would still pre-fatigue. I also think it's a great idea if you have maybe some weak spots in your physique. Again, maybe being shoulder dominate versus chest dominate. Which, if I believe is the case for a lot of powerlifters.

Edit: Also John Meadows is a big fan of it. He calls it "pre-pump" which is slightly different that pre-fatigue, but follows the same principals of making a lift easier on your joints, is sort of uncomplicated so it warms you up mentally and physically, and allows you to feel the muscle you want to target. Any anything JM is a fan of, I pretty much am too.

[bigla2004]

Excellent reply and I thank you for that. The reasons you describe below, mainly to connect better with the muscle and need to use less weight interest me.

On the JM note, one of my best friends was his training partner heading into the Arnold and they lift at my gym sometimes. John said something very profound too him along the lines of, why use more weight if you can get the same growth response or better from less. The context of that was in a conversation about pre-pump/fatigue where all these guys could flat press 405 for reps but only worked up to about 120 lbs dbs because of pre-pump and fatigue. John & Scott are probably my two fav's in the business.

Matt

I just stumbled onto this post, so sorry for the delay on the reply.

I am currently in love with pre-fatigue. and have been doing it for quite sometime with tremendous results. This worked extremely well for me for a number of reasons. Firstly, I have a bad left shoulder. This made compound pressing movements for chest and shoulder difficult to add weight. My rotator would fatigue before my chest and shoulder would. Also, I had a poor mind muscle connection with my chest. I am shoulder pressing dominate, and a lot of my chest compound movements would be overtaken by my shoulders. I say had because since really focusing on pre-fatigue I've really connected with my chest and gotten it to grow. Lastly, I don't want to say that the pre-fatigue was sort of a "warm" up for the compound lift. But I think anyone would say that a pec deck is not as intense as say incline bench. It just helped me get my whole upper body warmed up, get my muscles firing, I would feel much more confidant moving into my compound movements. Also there is less weight on the bar. Mentally it's easier to lift off say 225, instead of 255. Again, it feeling lighter in my hands leads to more confidence.

I certainly think it's worth a go. I certainly cannot see myself going back, and even if I moved from FT to something else I would still pre-fatigue. I also think it's a great idea if you have maybe some weak spots in your physique. Again, maybe being shoulder dominate versus chest dominate. Which, if I believe is the case for a lot of powerlifters.

Edit: Also John Meadows is a big fan of it. He calls it "pre-pump" which is slightly different that pre-fatigue, but follows the same principals of making a lift easier on your joints, is sort of uncomplicated so it warms you up mentally and physically, and allows you to feel the muscle you want to target. Any anything JM is a fan of, I pretty much am too.

[Altamir]

Very welcome, hope you have success with it! I am still a firm believer in "heavy slag iron", and Dante's statements like "show me a guy who can squat 500 for reps and I'll show you a guy with huge legs". But that doesn't always work for everyone. I'd probably have a torn rotator cuff and still have a underwhelming chest if I chased 405 bench for reps. IMO, It's a tool like any other technique in the gym, and applied intelligently can produce great results.