Exercise Scientist Explains Why You Should Do Your Heavy Lifts First
When structuring your training sessions, the sequence in which you tackle heavy and light sets matters significantly. Start with your lighter sets, and you could set yourself up to pre-fatigue your muscles before your lifts, therefore hindering your performance. Starting with heavier lifts, therefore – when your muscles are fresh – is key to hitting higher strength numbers and potentially gaining more muscle.
Dr Mike Israetel's newest YouTube video explains the intricacies of why we should be lifting heavy first. MH breaks down the key takeaways from the exercise scientist's recommendations.
4 Reasons to Do Your Heavy Lifts First
1. Fatigue Management
'Your ability to lift maximum loads, which is to say to go heavy, is critically tied to your fatigue level. That's a sciencey way of saying if you go fresh you're stronger,' says Israetel. He explains:
Performing high-rep, light-weight sets first causes greater fatigue, which compromises performance and technique in heavier sets.
Starting with heavy sets keeps you fresh and maximises performance, reducing injury risks due to better athletic coordination.
2. Potentiation
Israetel recommends to start heavy to potentiate the muscles. He gives an example of doing a few sets of weighted pull-ups, pretty close to a 5-rep max before heading back to standard unweighted pull-ups. 'I promise you two things are going to happen,' he says. 'One: the shit is going to feel easy as fuck. And two: you're going to be able to connect with your technique and your muscles in a way that was just not likely if you hadn't done that heavy set first. Going heavy first potentiates the shit out of your ability to get a tonne out of the lighter sets afterwards.'
Heavy sets "wake up" your nervous system, improving mind-muscle connection and psychological readiness.
This potentiation often enables you to perform high-rep work afterward without significant performance decline.
3. Enhanced Volume and Growth Potential
Israetel explains that he has a hypothesis that 'You can get comparable high-rep performance after a few sets of low reps than you can fresh. So you get kind of free benefit, from a volume and performance perspective, from those heavy sets than if you didn't do them.'
Starting heavy allows you to accrue more high-tension reps, which are crucial for muscle growth.
As an example, heavy leg press sets early in the session add significant volume without impairing lighter sets later.
4. Injury Risk Reduction
'We know that people that carry high fatigue into training have a multiplied higher probability of injury. And one of the mechanisms is precisely because they're no longer as fluidly athletically coordinated,' says Israetel. He explains:
Heavy sets early reduce the risk of microtears escalating to larger injuries.
Lighter work later minimises strain on fatigued connective tissues.
Fatigue impairs coordination and makes heavy lifts riskier.
By scheduling heavy work earlier, you ensure optimal athletic performance when lifting heavier weights.
Weekly Programming Benefits
Israetel recommends: 'What I want you guys to consider doing is doing your heavy work first earlier in the week, lighter work later in the week, but ending that week a little soon to give an extra day or two of recovery before you start that next week. So, basically it's like heavy, then light, then a little extra rest and then you begin your next week. That's how I think programme design can work really really well.'
More rest days beforehand help you perform heavy lifts optimally.
Lighter work later in the week aids recovery without adding undue fatigue before the next heavy session.
Heavy-first strategy reduces cumulative fatigue, lowering injury risks over time.
The Bottom Line
Plan workouts with heavy sets at the start of your session and early in the week.
Follow heavy sets with lighter, higher-rep work for hypertrophy, performance and injury prevention.
Use extra rest days after lighter sessions to recover for the next heavy training block.
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