due to staleness alone.

As you train a movement longer and longer, it yields less and less effect on
muscle growth, and eventually, it should be deleted for a while from the program and replaced
with another, related
related movement. How often should this be done?
done? For muscle growth purposes,
beginners can delete and replace
replace every 6 months or so while highly advanced should
should do this
maybe every month, and with the rest somewhere in between.

c.) Body Design

If you’re really lanky, you might get the fullest of the full ranges of motion from something like
regular barbell rows. But if you’re short-limbed, you might prefer cambered bar rows that let you
get the same relative ROM that the lankier person can get with a regular bar. In addition, some
muscle insertion and origin differences and even fiber angle and architecture differences mean
that some folks will just get better results from some exercises than others.

d.) Program Context

When you do an exercise in relationship

relationship to the other exercises
exercises in your program can be a factor. If
you’re looking for the best
best quad blaster, maybe
maybe squats are it. But if you’ve done
done deadlifts already
in that workout or in a workout earlier in the week, your back might now be a limiting factor in
squats (instead of your quads) and your
y our quads are better worked with leg pressing. The other way
around, upright rows might be awesome for side delts but if you’ve gotta work biceps hard later
or the next day, doing lateral raises and thus sparing the forearm flexors might be a better call.

e.) Mind-Muscle Connection

Some exercises just plain old feel better, and you can better contract the muscles you’re actually
trying to train. The thing is, every individual has their preferred exercises on this criterion. While
I actually get a crazy connection to my quads by squatting and hardly at all with leg extensions,
many people are quite the other way around.

f.) Axial and Systemic Disruption vs. Peripheral and Local Disruption

All exercises for a certain bodypart

bodypart can be ranked on a scale of how much
much they tax the axial
(spinal support) muscles and joints vs. the peripheral (targeted) muscles and joints, and how
much they create systemic fatigue (that feeling you have the day after a heavy deadlift workout
where you seem to to have ½ normal energy levels)
levels) vs. local fatigue (soreness
(soreness and depletion in the
the
actual trained muscles). In general, the average exercise will tend to have a pretty even balance of
both. For example,
example, while squats hit the
the quads generally harder
harder than leg presses,
presses, they also hit the
back and posterior chain harder
harder and leave more systemic
systemic fatigue. On the other
other hand, leg presses
presses
don’t quite hit the quads as hard, but do contribute to axial and systemic disruption much less.

If you can spare the disruption and have plenty of axial and systemic MRV to burn, the more
taxing exercises are generally better. But if you’re short on recovery resources, perhaps the more
peripheral exercises are best. What you should want to avoid most times are exercises that have
disproportionate fatigue effects or disproportionately low stimulus effects. Partial low bar squats
or one-leg extensions for quads probably err too far in their respective directions and should
largely be avoided if quad hypertrophy is the goal.