exercise selection – Beary Strong

About Exercise Variety

Why exercise variation isn’t always optimal.

During our long flight from Vienna to Tokyo I’ve got a bunch of downloadable magazines for free. Of course I’ve taken some of the fitness related ones even if they are often full of bro-science, but they are a good inspiration for writing blog posts though. One of them was looking really nice: it had a really strong looking woman on the cover, instead of just one of the pretty & skinny girls. I started reading the training and coaching philosophy of this apparently “evidence-based” lady and my jaw dropped as the words “muscle confusion” (=constantly changing the exercises in your training plan) as driver for muscle growth were used. Well -spoiler alert- the opposite of muscle confusion is rather a driver for hypertrophy. Let’s see why and where variation may or may not make sense.

What Makes A Good Exercise?

Don’t get lost in the exercise jungle, make an informed decision.

If you step into a good gym, it is quite possible to get overwhelmed by countless possibilities to train. Different machines, barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, bodyweight exercises, there is much to choose from and you have to select an exercise for your training program. What makes a good exercise? What is “the best” exercise to grow your chest/booty/biceps? Read on to make an informed decision the next time you hit the gym!

Exercise Selection and Repetition Ranges

What exercises should you do and how many reps should you aim for?

Some of the most basic questions in training are: what exercise should I do? And for how many reps should I go? At first glance they have little in common, but if you take a closer look, they are tightly related to eachother. What exercise do you choose, and does it even matter?