IF YOU DO IT
CORRECTLY, YOU’LL
LIKELY GET AN
INTENSE PUMP
BEFORE YOU EVEN
TOUCH A WEIGHT.
Pre-Exhaust
Pumping
As I mentioned, it’s rare to find
someone who says they don’t have
a strong connection with a muscle
group that develops quickly. The
muscles that get the most intense
pumps during workouts, and are
consistently sore in the day or two
after workouts, are the ones that
progress the fastest.
Another great method for
helping lifters better feel the
muscle they’re targeting is
pre-exhaust. This simply means
doing an isolation exercise (or
exercises) before compound
movements so the target muscle
gets a direct (i.e., more isolated)
hit before allowing supporting
muscles to assist. By doing so,
one normally finds that multijoint
exercises provide a greater pump,
better emphasize the targeted
muscle, and allow all involved
muscles to fail in concert (rather
than have the assisting muscles
exhaust before the target muscle).
Here are two examples of how
you might train a lagging muscle
group using the pre-exhaust
method.
LAGGING
PECS 1
EXERCISE
Cable Crossover
SETS REPS
3 13–15
3
Flat Bench
Dumbbell Press
3
6–8
3
LAGGING
PECS 2
EXERCISE
SETS
REPS
2
2
2
2
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