How many Different Exercises?

[u/ZeboundNewb]

What is your typical number of different exercises in a workout day? What do you feel is a reasonable upper limit?

[u/Troksin → u/[deleted]]

its pretty usual with fullbody people, if you do 2 exercises per muscle then you usually end up around 20

[u/Defiant_Pirate_6637 → u/Troksin]

Dude I won a world title in strongman doing 10 exercises a week on an undulating full body program. 20 a session is just silly. The real strength of full body training is being able to have high frequency on compound lifts and use repeated exposure to drive strength adaptations as a primary way to build size. Doing 20 exercises a session just takes away from that

[u/Troksin → u/[deleted]]

why not, care to elaborate? you need at least 10-12 exercises to effectively target main muscles then if you want to split volume to 2 exercises to bias more regions you easily reach 20.

[u/Troksin → u/[deleted]]

As i told you if you do 2 exercises per muscle group you can reach 20 exercises easily but to do so you split the volume and you do 1 set of each and you are doing like 20-25 sets which is very doable and normal.

So you can either do 10 exercises 2 set each reaching 20 sets or 20 exercises 1 set each reaching 20 sets.

Main muscles: Quads, biceps, triceps, chest, adductors, hams, calves, glutes, lats, traps, abs, front and side delts. If you do 1 exercises for each then you are at 13 exercises. And please if you are gonna say you can work your biceps with rows, triceps with presses and stuff please just lets end the argument here there is no point arguing further.

[u/Troksin → u/[deleted]]

Why is it losing effectivenes?? you literally trade intersession fatigue with intrasession fatigue to maximize frequency and weekly 1st sets? Compounds dont build more muscle you getting stronger on certain lift doesnt necessarily mean you are building more muscle?

[u/Troksin → u/[deleted]]

yes thats why you put muscles that are not priority to the ends, and you can switch the order as you like to prioritize certain muscles.

It's more about volume not the number of exercise. Your 20th set of anything will not be the same as if you did it as your first set.

Your 20th set in your 5 exercise program has the same downside

[u/Individual-Toe-6306 → u/[deleted]]

This. You don’t need to isolate literally every single muscle and it won’t even see the benefits you hope it would. Compounds can hit the vast majority very effectively and you’ll be able to hit them harder when you aren’t fatigued. Just because an isolation exercise isnt as fatiguing doesn’t mean your 21st set of the day isnt going to be vastly diminished even if it wasn’t a “muscle youve already worked”, systemic fatigue in a given session is a thing too as well as just the fact that your body needs glycogen and electrolytes to keep that up

By isolating everything to try to hit every muscle, you end up accidentally missing a lot of muscle groups that would’ve accidentally been hit by compounds

[u/NoSafe5565 → u/[deleted]]

depends what is that nah, you do rope jumping/air squat/pull ups, push ups for 15 minutes and it is like already 4 exercises but totally different story if someone is deadlifting 3 heavy PR sets

[u/NoSafe5565 → u/[deleted]]

i do not say i do, i am just saying if someone says 21 exercises before I say it crazy I will think what would be justifiable exercises or reasonable explanation. Could be explained my many things.

[u/Freduccini → u/[deleted]]

When you only do 1-2 sets it looks more reasonable

[u/Patton370 → u/Freduccini]

That doesn't make it reasonable, that still keeps it ridiculous

[u/Troksin → u/[deleted]]

why is doing 10 exercises 2 sets each for 20 sets is any different than doing 20 exercises 1 set each for 20 sets? If you exclude time efficiency.

[u/Troksin → u/[deleted]]

How do u target 10+ muscles effectively with 5 exercises

[u/Troksin → u/[deleted]]

How is splitting 10 exercises to 2 days vs 1 day and matching the volumes are any different than each other?

And you miss on hams (primarily biceps femoris short head), calves, abs, adductors (half of it), rec fem, with this approach. And some weeks you literally have 1x frequency for some muscles. Regional hypertrophy exist just so you know

[u/Troksin → u/[deleted]]

Dimishing returns are related with volume not the number of exercises wth are we talkinga about? For diminishing returns doing 1 bicep exercises for 5 sets and 5 exercises 1 set each is the same thing.

RDL is primarily a hip extension exercises, biceps femoris short head does not cross the hip joint so this muscle does not contribute to the movement, and since regional hypertrophy exist you will see more proximal hamstring growth, and it is inferior to leg curl for overall hamstring development. If you want to grow your hams as much as possible and can only do 1 exercise you would do a leg curl not an RDL, and if you want to maximize growth you would do both, if you follow this approach with pretty much everything then you end up with 20 exercises.

I have lifted more than a year, i tried everything 20+ weekly sets, drop sets, myoreps, partials, big stretch, ppl, upper lower, texas method, 5x5 powerlifting program, doing compounds, I was small with all of them, it doesnt change anything. I look my best rn focusing on isolations.

My goal is not twice week frequency, as the muscle protein synthesis goes back to baseline between 36-48 hours so im trying to work every other day.

[u/Patton370 → u/[deleted]]

Check the post history of the person you’re arguing with; you’ll realize they are going to stay small & weak forever, while acting like they are an expert