Exercise selection for Beginners

For those of you trying to figure out splits and routines in the early stage it's easy to get bogged down by the shear variety of advice, choice and goals.

I get it, you want to see results but more is not always more (except for reverse hypers). I'm going to explain how to select exercises for your goals.

Before we get to the main point, your choice of split DOES NOT MATTER. Pick a split that works for you and that you enjoy. If you like hitting the same workouts on the same day every week then find a split that fits your weekly schedule. Obviously if you want bigger legs, then choosing PPL ain't the best because you're only getting in once weekly leg workout unless you hybridise, but it really doesn't matter.

Exercise selection:

There are only 2 exercises: compounds and isolations. These are a spectrum, not discreet.

A compound exercise aims to mobilise 2 or more joints. Bench press moves the shoulder abduction and flexion, and elbow extension. A deadlift mostly trains knee extension, hip extension, with a lot of isometric work in other joints like finger flexion, spinal extension, ankle plantarflexion etc etc

There are 6 main movement patterns that most of you should be hitting at least weekly. Obviously if you have specific goals for sports then maybe not, but MOST of you will want: squat, hinge, vertical push, vertical pull, horizontal push horizontal pull.

Other compounds arguably include, lunges, crunches, running, jumping, cleans, snatches but it's unlikely you'll need to train most of these. For mass and aesthetics I would say lunges and crunches are essential.

Let's take squats as an example. You can achieve similar effects in the beginner stage of lifting with any squat pattern. Barbell squats, front squats, goblet squats, Bulgarian split squats, Smith machine squats, hack squats, Pistol squats, leg press. They're not interchangeable but they're all PROGRESSABLE. If you're adding reps and weight while improving or maintaining good technique, you will grow.

Now isolations are a bit of a misnomer because very few muscle groups work in true isolation. Flies are supposed to target the pecs but will still involve the anterior deltoid and long head of biceps. That's just anatomy.

You only need to add isolations for areas that aren't effectively hit with compounds (especially arms), and areas that you want to focus on. For a lot of you this will include isolated arm, lateral delt, calf and ab training. Isolations are also good for hitting specific parts of specific muscles. I don't mean inner or outer chest that's mostly nonsense, but bi-articular heads of specific muscles like the long head of triceps, biceps and rectus femoris of the quads. I do little to no isolated back work because I get all the volume I need from compounds. I hit lateral raises on every day I'm not hitting OHP because lateral delts aren't hit great by pressing alone and I want huge shoulders.