Exercise Order: Does It Actually Matter?

Sometimes.

The most important thing is that you do your workout.

If your then looking to get the most out of your workouts, exercise order can play a role.

A general rule is compound movements before isolation exercises. Compound movements are where many joints are moving like a squat or bench press. Isolation movements are when only one or a couple joints are moving like a bicep curl.

Compounds before isolation ensures that you aren’t limiting yourself by pre-exhausting your muscles.  

An exception to this is if your trying to pre-exhaust a muscle. This should generally only be done if you’re already REALLY strong and have been training a long time. An example of this would be doing leg extensions before squatting so that you can get the same leg stimulus while using less weight during squats.

Power exercises first.

Jumps, Olympic lifts, anything with a speed component should be done either first after a warm up or very early on in the workout. These exercises are the most demanding of the nervous system because they require your brain and muscles to communicate with each other really quickly. Prioritizing them makes sure you’re not limited by fatigue from other exercises and you get the strongest stimulus.

Isolation exercises performed with the goal of strength or hypertrophy should generally be performed after your compounds.

If your doing rehab exercises, you may want to do them at the beginning or the end depending on the intensity. If you have rehab exercises that you are supposed to do daily, these should be designed at a light enough resistance to avoid fatigue accumulations. Doing these before your workout is a great way to warm up and get your rehab done for the day.

If your rehab exercises are high in intensity, meaning they are really challenging. These should probably be done as a separate session.

This is not medical or physical therapy advice. Talk to your provider before starting or changing any exercise/rehab program.

Lastly, endurance exercises should usually be done last. Since the goal is endurance, fatigue interference isn’t the biggest concern.

When should I do cardio?

If you're doing high intensity intervals or very challenging runs, hard weight training should probably be a separate session.

If you're walking on a treadmill, ellipticaling, or biking at low intensity, you can do this before or after so long as its not overly exhausting.

In general, jumps first, barbell and heavy movements second, smaller lifts third. Cardio later….