Summary
Pre-fatigue is a term that we frequently hear about without truly understanding what it means or, more importantly, whether we should be concerned about it.
It is standard procedure that enables us to adjust our training curriculum to better suit our actual requirements. In summary, applying this strategy can be helpful for both novices and seasoned bodybuilders.
Pre-fatigue: What is it?
When you begin your workout with an isolated exercise focused on a specific muscle before switching to a complex exercise, this is known as pre-fatigue. The purpose of an isolation exercise is to pre-fatigue a particular muscle, such as the pectoral muscles, by working it exclusively. The fundamental exercise that will strengthen the muscle to be worked—in this case, the pectoral muscles—is the compound exercise.
The first exercise just works one muscle and is meant to pre-strengthen it; on the other hand, the second exercise uses a variety of muscles while still working to strengthen the pre-strengthened muscle.
Using the pectoral muscles as an example, we would begin with split exercises, which are isolation exercises, and proceed to complex movements like bench presses.
Who is impacted by pre-fatigue?
You may be thinking when you might want to use pre-fatigue. Well, this method is mostly about finding weak spots. This piece will be very helpful for you if you have any.
Your weak spot is the muscle or muscles that need to catch up with the rest of your muscles. This wait could be because of how your body is built, how your muscles work, or something else. But they should not be confused with muscles that haven’t been worked out enough or haven’t been thought about properly in the training plan.
This is recognised by two points:
- The physical weak point or points are the areas of your body that have not progressed as much as the rest of you. In other words, your flaw(s) will stare back at you from the mirror:
- If we’re talking about feelings, the weak link is whatever muscle doesn’t contract hard enough or at all during compound movements. These muscles stand out since you won’t feel them engaging throughout your typical workout routine.
If we take the example of the pectoral muscles, then while doing a bench press, rather of training the triceps, shoulders, and pectoral muscles all at the same time, one will only be able to successfully fatigue and develop the first two of these muscle groups. The use of these three kinds of muscles is intended to be the focus of this particular workout. On the other hand, it will only employ the first two since they are the only ones that are capable of carrying out the exercise effectively. In a nutshell, the shoulders and triceps will have to put in twice as much effort to make up for the lack of contribution made by the pectorals.
If you start doing bench presses with the intention of exercising your pecs, you will feel discomfort in your triceps even if you don’t see any results or sensations in your pecs. This is because the triceps are working harder than the pecs.
Let’s go on to the real practice, also known as how to make up for your inadequacies caused by pre-fatigue, now that you have an idea of whether or not you are worried when we speak about pre-fatigue.
Pre-fatigue and its many forms
Pre-fatigue has been improved over time, just like any other technique. Even though the pre-fatigue approach is the gold standard, some practitioners choose to make little adjustments. Subsequent to the fundamental pre-fatigue approach, there are other variants.
The fundamental approach of pre-fatigue
First, the patient engages in a series of isolation exercises, and then they move on to polyarticular exercises. A characteristic of this method is that there is no recovery time between exercises.
The method used before tiredness in superset.
This method comes from a unique superset tool. When you do two strength-training exercises that work different muscles in the same set, this is called a superset. Then, the superset pre-fatigue method is to add solo workouts to the superset routine.
The changed method for predicting tiredness
The biggest thing that has changed about the pre-fatigue method is the break times. The workouts in the first two forms are done all at once, without any rest time. In this way, however, breaks are added. Instead of running through the exercises, this method tells you to give yourself a set amount of time to rest between each one.
Tips on how to add pre-fatigue to your workout routine
This method is not used in an arbitrary or random manner. There is a rationale behind why pre-fatigue is not considered a primary technique for a training program, but rather a supporting method that is used only to address areas of weakness; if there were no such rationale, there would be no sense in including this approach into your daily routine.
Here are some guidelines to consider while developing your training program:
- Make sure you recognize your weakness:
Occasionally, individuals may conflate their areas of weakness with inadequately exercised muscles.
- Avoid overdoing it during isolated exercises:
Pre-fatigue begins simply to congest the muscles to be exercised. This keeps muscles working like the weak spot in compound exercise from tiring soon.
- Favor occasional pre-fatigue sessions:
It’s better to limit pre-fatigue workouts to two weeks and restart them after four weeks. This approach compensates for a weak location without disregarding the body. A short, focused session shows improvement more clearly.