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7 Principles of Exercise Selection

Categories: Training

To paraphrase a wise man, “Small, weak, and injured is no way to go through life.” But if you design your workouts around the wrong exercises, that’s exactly how you’ll end up; dreadfully unmuscular, embarrassingly weak, and prone to chronic injuries.

Proper exercise selection can be tough. There are countless lifts to choose from and most of them have several similar-but-different variations. Fortunately, there’s a set of objective criteria to qualitatively rate exercises, which allows you to make the most effective choice between any group of exercises with the same purpose – like figuring out why an overhead extension is a better choice for triceps than a pressdown.

Admittedly, this is only a partial list of criteria, but they do apply to the vast majority of exercises. Let’s take a look at exactly what these principles cover and learn how to apply them to several basic exercises.

Read the updated article on SimplyShredded.

Read the original on T-Nation.


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About the author

Menno Henselmans

Formerly a business consultant, I've traded my company car to follow my passion in strength training. I'm now an online physique coach, scientist and international public speaker with the mission to help serious trainees master their physique.

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