cuff muscles are still fatigued from Wednesday they would be much more
likely to let you down on Friday than on the following Monday. Better to do
your shoulder rotator work after your benches rather than shortly before.. While there is much in common between the bent-legged and stiff-legged
versions of the deadlift, because of the overlap, there are considerable dif-
ferences. Because you are used to one of them does not mean you can train
the other heavily without easing into it over at least several weeks. If you do
not get adjusted like this you could be in for debilitating soreness and pos-
sible injury. Similar comments can be made for other groups of overlapping
exercises.. Another aspect of exercise overlap concerns safety. Suppose you perform
the stiff-legged deadlift quite soon after the squat or leg press in the same
routine. As you deadlift, your legs may tremble to such a degree that you
cannot control them adequately. is can lead to back injury.. A similar comment can be made for other pairings, e.g., side bend and stiff-
legged deadlift, shrug and deadlift, shrug and pulldown, pulldown and par-
allel bar dip. But avoid intensive stiff-legged deadlifting immediately before
the squat. at is not recommended because fatigue in your glutes and
lower back could expose you to an increased risk of injury from the squat.. Whenever you find that safety is compromised in one exercise because of it
following closely behind a specific other exercise, rearrange your exercises.Avoid excessive duplication
. While some overlap between exercises is fine and even desirable, getting car-
ried away can be destructive. If you are bent-leg deadlifting in a cycle, do not
stiff-leg deadlift heavily as well. You could perform some light stiff-legged
deadlifts to maintain flexibility, but do not push the exercise hard as well as
the regular deadlift. An exception to this may be during deadlift specializa-
tion.. If you are bench pressing on a regular horizontal bench, do not go adding
decline and incline benches. If you do not overdo the volume and frequency
of each, you may be able to gain on two chest-shoulder-triceps exercises—
e.g., the bench press and the parallel bar dip—but add a third one and you
are likely to halt progress in them all. e exception to this generalization is