STOP making this Mistake when choosing EXERCISES!

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When it comes to choosing exercises in a routine, you always want to avoid redundancy by only choosing the ones that work different movement patterns. For example, if you are programming a chest day, and you want to give a little bit more emphasis to your upper chest, you might start with an incline dumbbell press, then move onto a seated press, and then finish off with whatever other movements you have planned. However, if you look at those 2 exercises, you’d notice that they are doing the exact same thing. You’re just pressing your arms upwards at a 30 degree angle with your back supported using a semi pronated grip. Sure, there might be slightly more tension at the end of that seated press, but at the end of the day it’s the same exact exercise, just performed with different equipment. It’s like doing a barbell squat, and then going to use a hack squat. There’s just no reason to do both. Instead, choose something that trains the muscle differently, either with a new movement pattern, or a different resistance profile, like a leg extension instead of another squat, or a cross body cable fly as opposed to another press. And if you don’t really like those options, or there just aren’t many things different, then that probably tells you you’re fine with just doing that one movement. Right the only trainable function of your upper chest is to horizontally adduct your arms at around that 30 degree angle, so once you do that you’re pretty much done. Yes, you can get slightly different ranges of motion and tension curves like with the 2 exercises I showed, but doing the same press over and over again with 3 or 4 different exercises, for a muscle with only really 1 function, isn’t adding anything new. So if you wanna do 2 upper chest presses, or 2 squat variations, or 2 bicep curl movements, or whatever it is just put them on different days, so that your workouts aren’t redundant.

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About Me: I started lifting at 17 years old in 2019, the summer before I entered my freshman year of college. I was a mere 120 pounds at 5'8, and my only goal was to gain weight. Since then I've bulked 5 times, reaching my heaviest at 206 pounds, and cut 4 times to a lowest of around 10% bodyfat. In 2025 I plan to compete in my first natural bodubuilding show. Using the knowledge I have acquired and continue to learn, my goal is to help all of you achieve your fitness goals and prove that no matter what stands in your way, hard work and consistency will always prevail! (main character anime moment)

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[rspct]

Max I’ve been using your PPL routine for a couple of months now and have seen ridiculous gains. Also following your 2 set low reps and pushing to failure, this helped me break a plateau after 5 years of working out

[yuh]

Awesome meeting you at the gym Max your a super humble and down to earth guy appreciate you making the content you do to help people like me and so many others

[Oneofthemones]

You see people doing this type of shit everyday lol thanks for pointing it out

[ExqMed]

For barbell squats and hack squats specifically, I think they are sufficiently different movements so as to making including them both on the same day a viable option. I think of barbell squats as an excellent strength builder that has carryover to a lot of day-to-day activities (with a lot of quad growth too), whereas hack squats are fantastic for quad hypertrophy, where you can push your sets much closer to failure.

[sly]

I hate to say this, but I have a back and biceps day, leg day, then chest and tricep day, and none of the workouts change 😳

[marzoval]

I'd also add to make sure at least one of those exercises fully stretches the target muscle at the bottom, lengthened position with active tension.

[NeilMansouri]

Or continue with your 2 upper chest focused exercises because you actually need the volume to grow this part and they still hit your middle and lower chest to a certain degree. Volume is important for muscle growth.

[RoganGoneRogue]

machine exercises needs less stabilisation thus its less tiring overall which might allow you to do more reps, especially after you've already done one or two exercises. So thats why I dont see it as redundent even if the movement patterns are similar.

[TheFlamingGamerYT]

I’ve been watching your videos lately as I’m trying to do better at the gym with what I can do. Same with trying to increase the weights of whatever exercises I can do, and increase the sets I do. For the chest presses, I can say that I am somewhat guilty of this. There’s 2 chest presses I do on some days. One that’s the main pectoral muscles, and then one that does the upper portion, with the bars extending higher when you’re doing said workout. Of course I do other exercises before or after those, so it’s not necessarily just that one workout I do. Just really trying to do certain workouts a bit more over others at times

[TJ-fukr]

The only exception imo is if you simply just want to do a different exercise. I'll do different machines that work the same movement pattern but it's because I get easily bored doing the same exercise for too long and need to switch it up.

[MrMonny]

bro's biceps at the start




im jealous

[bobithpopit]

bro lowkey turning that incline db into a flat press with that arch

[Keny]

How can I train biceps without doing the same exact movement in different exercise? Like biceps only function when curling... What else can I do?

[VauxBat]

How much volume should you be doing for legs? I train them ~2x/week and my session goes like this:
Hamstring curl, 3 sets + dropset
Squats, 3 sets
Rdls, 2 sets
Bulgarians, 2 sets
Calf raises, 3 sets
Sometimes abs for 2-3 sets
All sets are pushed close to failure. Is this too little? You see so many guys doing like 4-5 movements for quads alone

[SuperDeathbody]

There in reason why you can do 2 similar exercises like squats and hacksquats. For example your quads need 6 sets but you can only do 5 beacuse your joints or supporting muscles fail first.
When you do 3 and 3 everything is fine. There is psychological aspect too 6 set of same exercise are hard, boring and existing.

[michaelscott]

How much weight do you use on your dumbbells?

[moses]

If you're doing progressive overload, it shouldn't matter if it's redundant

[wesleyritchie]

Why are taking your shoes off for leg extensions?

[MikeDunn]

I agree with what is being said, but it seems like Hacks and Barbell Squats are different enough that they are both worth doing, even on the same day.

[jarredpickle]

I say this all the time there are dudes at my gym who do 6 different exercises for chest