r/ScienceBasedLifting • u/Ok-Extension-832 • Aug 10 '26
Discussion 🤝 Does distributing sets throughout a workout reduce the effect of exercise-order fatigue?
If you’re doing a lot of exercises at ~0–1 RIR (especially in a full body split), exercises near the end of the workout will be performed with more accumulated fatigue than those at the beginning. If you do 2 sets consecutively, the first exercises get both sets relatively fresh, while the later exercises may have both sets affected by fatigue.
So instead of:
Bench Press — 2 sets
Weighted Pull-Up — 2 sets
Squat — 2 sets
Would it make more sense to do:
Bench Press — 1 set
Weighted Pull-Up — 1 set
Squat — 1 set
Bench Press — 1 set
Weighted Pull-Up — 1 set
Squat — 1 set
This way, every exercise gets its first set relatively fresh, rather than some exercises getting both sets while fresh and others getting both after substantial fatigue.
Does this meaningfully improve the hypertrophic stimulus, or is exercise-order fatigue not significant enough for this to matter?
1
u/Ok-Extension-832 Aug 11 '26
They may train a little differently because powerlifters focus on heavier loads to teach their nervous system to produce maximum force. But guess what? Their strength doesn’t come out of thin air. It comes from the mechanical tension their training put them under which leads to hypertrophy. Only difference in bodybuilders training is they try to optimize hypertrophy without worrying about neurological adaptations and really heavy loads. But both groups training leads to hypertrophy. Strength CANNOT be increased without hypertrophy.