Organize your Workouts
How to organize your workouts for maximum efficiency
Don’t be repetitive, don’t be redundant. Be efficient. That’s the foundation of a well-structured workout. Too many people walk into the gym and stack multiple exercises that all do the exact same thing, thinking they’re covering more ground. In reality, they’re just repeating the same stimulus over and over. The smarter approach is to understand each muscle’s function, then choose one exercise per function, execute it well, and progressively overload it over time. You don’t need perfection, you need consistency.
Chest
The chest is divided into two main parts: the sternal (lower) head and the clavicular (upper) head. The lower chest’s primary function is to bring the arms across and into the body. This happens in both pressing and fly movements. That means a bench press and a cable fly are not “different enough” to justify doing both in the same workout, they train the same function. If you choose to do both, make sure to divide sets between both, in order to not have excess volume.
The upper chest presses the arms upward and forward. To bias this properly, your elbows should be more tucked rather than flared. If your elbows flare out too much, you shift tension away from the upper chest and into the lower chest and shoulders.
The takeaway: one movement for lower chest function, one for upper chest function. Anything more is often redundant.
Lower chest (arms moving across body):
Barbell bench press
Flat dumbbell press
Machine chest press
Cable chest fly
Pec deck
Push-ups
Upper chest (pressing up and forward):
Incline barbell bench press
Incline dumbbell press
Incline Smith machine press
Any incline press variation
Shoulders
The shoulders consist of three heads: front delts, side delts, and rear delts, each with a distinct function.
The front delts are responsible for pressing overhead. For maximum tension, your elbows should be flared out (not necessarily perfectly horizontal, but not tucked either), and you should press to full extension overhead. On the way down, your hands shouldn’t drop much lower than nose or ear level, as going too low reduces tension on the front delts and shifts it to the side delts.
It’s also important to note that any pressing movement (like chest presses) will involve the front delts, but for maximum bias, an overhead press is best.
The side delts raise the arms out to the side. The key here is control and positioning: arms extended, elbows slightly bent, and shoulders kept down. If your shoulders shrug up, your traps take over and defeat the purpose.
Rear delts function to move the arms back horizontally. A proper rear delt fly keeps the arms straight and moving outward until they’re in line with the body (forming roughly a 180-degree line). Going past that shifts tension into the upper back.
Front delts (overhead pressing):
Barbell overhead press
Seated dumbbell shoulder press
Smith machine shoulder press
Machine shoulder press
Side delts (lateral raise):
Dumbbell lateral raise
Seated dumbbell lateral raise
Cable lateral raise
Machine lateral raise
Rear delts (horizontal abduction):
Reverse pec deck fly
Cable rear delt fly
Biceps
The biceps are often overtrained with unnecessary variation. The prefix “bi” tells you everything, you only need to cover two functions, for 2 parts.
The first is elbow flexion with a neutral or pronated grip, which heavily involves the brachialis. This is trained with hammer or reverse curls.
The second is supination, rotating the wrist while curling. This is what most traditional curls train.
Instead of doing five curl variations, pick one from each category and focus on progressing them.
Biceps:
Hammer curl (dumbbell or cable)
Reverse curl
Preacher curl
Dumbbell curl (supinated)
Cable curl (supinated)
Triceps
The triceps have two key functions based on arm position: extending the elbow with your arms at your sides, and extending when your arms are overhead or in front of your body.
To fully train all heads of the triceps, you need one exercise for each function. Doing multiple pushdowns, for example, is redundant, as they all train the same pattern.
Also remember: the triceps make up about two-thirds of your arm size. If you want bigger arms, this is where more of your focus should go.
Elbows at sides (standard extension):
Cable pushdowns (rope or bar)
Single-arm cable extensions
Straight bar pushdowns
Overhead/forward extension:
Skull crushers
Overhead tricep extensions (dumbbell or cable)
JM press (especially effective on a Smith machine)
Close-grip bench press
Back
The back is more complex, but still follows the same principle: train functions, not just muscles.
The lats have two primary functions. The first is pulling in the sagittal plane (in front of you), which is done with rows where the elbows stay tucked to the sides. The second is pulling in the frontal plane (overhead down toward your body), which is done with pulldowns or pull-ups.
You need one of each to fully train the lats.
The upper back is trained through scapular retraction and flared-elbow rows. In many cases, one well-executed row can cover both retraction and upper back engagement. If needed, Kelso shrugs can add extra retraction work.
The lower back (erectors) extends the spine. Many people accidentally turn this into a glute or hamstring movement. To bias the erectors, maintain a controlled, straight back rather than rounding excessively.
Lats:
Row variation (cable, machine, dumbbell)
Lat pulldown (bar, MAG grip, etc.)
Pull-ups or chin-ups
Upper back:
Flared-elbow row
Machine high row
Kelso shrug variation
Lower back (erectors):
Back extension
Hyperextension
Deadlifts / RDLs (secondary emphasis)
Abs
The abs have one primary function: spinal flexion. This means bringing your ribcage toward your pelvis, essentially rounding your torso forward. Despite common myths, you cannot isolate upper vs lower abs, they all contract together to perform this movement.
Because of this, doing multiple “different” ab exercises often just repeats the same function. Instead, pick one movement and focus on loading it over time.
Abs are muscles like any other—they need resistance and progression to grow.
Abs (spinal flexion):
Cable crunch
Machine crunch
Weighted crunch
Decline sit-up
Legs
Leg training can seem complicated, but it breaks down into a few simple functions.
The quads press, this includes squats, leg presses, and split squats. They also extend the knee, which is best trained with leg extensions, especially for the rectus femoris, which isn’t fully targeted in pressing movements.
The hamstrings function through hip hinging and knee flexion (curling). You need one of each to train them completely. These movements will also involve the glutes due to their shared role.
Calves are straightforward: they raise the heel. That’s it. Any calf raise variation will do the job if performed through a full range of motion.
Quads (pressing):
Barbell squat
Leg press
Bulgarian split squat
Hack squat
Quads (knee extension):
Leg extension (machine or plate-loaded)
Hamstrings:
Romanian deadlift (RDL)
Stiff-leg deadlift (SLDL)
Hamstring curl (seated, lying, or standing)
Hamstring-biased hyperextension
Calves:
Standing calf raise
Seated calf raise
Machine or barbell calf raise
At the end of the day, the goal isn’t to find the “perfect” exercise, but it’s rather about finding one that feels good, matches the function, and that you can stick with long term. Progression beats variation. If you’re constantly switching exercises every two weeks, you’re restarting instead of improving. Pick your movements, master them, and let consistency do the work.