So I am hitting the gym for about 1 month now and recently got accompanied by a friend who does fitness for more a less 10 years. Since I am following reddits /Fitness Basic Beginner Routine, he asked me why I did deadlifts and squats at the end of each workout and not in the beginning. A quick google search said that doing the biggest lifts at the beginning of a workout makes sense. So why does the reddit basic beginner routine puts these two lifts at the end of each workout?
@chery49 They're at the end because they're the most fatiguing. Some beginners, if they're gassed from squats, wouldn't want to go do rows or bench afterward.
@chery49 With that particular routine and things like the Starting Strength program, the order doesn't matter that much as all of the lifts are big lifts (compounds). It matters more when you get into a more intermediate or advanced routine that has higher volume, more accessory work, etc...
I'm currently doing GZCLP with my almost 14 yo...lifts are arranged in tiers where tier 1 is your heavy (low rep) compound and tier 1 alternates between squat, OHP, bench, and deadlifts. Tier 2 is also a compound movement, but with less weight and more reps...so my tier 1 might be squats and tier 2 might be bench or vice versa, but the tier 1 heavy movement always comes first. Tier 3 is then accessory work.
@chery49 Right now we're usually done in about 45 minutes or so but we're starting off very conservative with our weights since my boy has never lifted, and I've been out of the weight room for about 4 years save for here and there. We want to maximize the linear progression and also make sure our smaller helper muscles and tendons and ligaments are well conditioned before things start to really get heavy.
I figure once things get heavier the workout will take a bit longer as we will both require more rest between sets. I'm also using an app called "Boostcamp" that has that program on it and for tier 3 work there is one "mandatory" movement (usually a lat pull or row of some kind) and 2 more "optional" tier 3 accessory movements. We do all of the movements on Friday evenings and Sunday mornings, but usually skip the 2 "optional" tier 3 movements on our Wednesday morning workout to save some time as I need to get him to school and me to work.
@chery49 With these workouts the order won't matter much because you're really only using your lower body for the final movement and not the first two.
If you were doing a leg day only involving leg exercises then it would make more sense to do the big compound lifts first before moving onto smaller isolation work.
@chery49 Technically all the exercises in the program are the biggest lift as they are all compound exercises. The leg exercises are probably last as they can be quite energy draining and usually takes longer to do than the upper body movements.
@chery49 You have the most energy at the beginning of a workout so most people will say to do these lifst in the beginning. Mostly because you do these excersizes with your whole body. At the end it's what you prefer.
@chery49 You’re probably not going to be so taxed from bench press and barbell rows to do squats. However, you might be too taxed from squats to do bench press and barbell rows. If you want to do squats first though, that’s totally fine.
