Please explain pre-exhaustion.

[Michael D]

I read something about this in HCM but it didn't go into detail. For example, it said to do dumbell flyes to work the chest and then move to bench. If flyes work the chest better than the bench, why not just do them in a workout? It also seems that once you work the chest, moving to a compound lift such as the bench would place more emphasis on the tris to get the weight up.

Please help.

 

[Flex]

you have it semi-right.

take bench pressing for example...............

when you bench, most of the time your tri's and delts fail before your chest does cuz they are smaller/weaker muscles...therefore your chest doesnt get worked to the "fullest" and still has unused muscle fibers.

when you do fly first, (which strictly works the pecs), you fatigue them. then you move onto bench, and the pecs (being already fatigued) will fail at about the same time as the other, smaller muscles.

this applies for all your bigger muscles......an isolation movement followed by the compound movement........

flys-bench
leg extension-squat/leg press
db laterals-should presses

its a nice method (to be used once in a while) to shock the muscles into new growth....