Order of gymnastics exercises matters

It's workout time. We head to our favorite spot and dive in on that dynamic warm-up routine - starting to get a good sweat going in the process.

What's next for the workout? Do we start with the little muscle groups and build up to the big ones? Or do we start with the big ones and work our way down to the small ones? Or, if we're in a gym, do we just head to whatever piece of equipment is open?

Order is as important to getting in a great workout as the types of exercises. It's not going to kill us - in most cases - if we fail to exercise in the right order, but there is a most efficient order: Explosive - Power - Core - Assistance.

· Explosive exercises involve our more intense plyometric movements - box jumps, depth jumps, repeated bounding, etc. These movements typically involve a springlike muscle-tendon action known as the stretch shortening cycle (SSC). In the SSC there is a quick countermovement that lengthens or "stretches" the muscles. Then the opposite happens, hopefully, with a bit more force. For instance, when we jump we do a short and quick squat before exploding up or out. That squat is the stretching part of the SSC. The exploding up is the muscle-shortening part of the SSC.

· Power exercises involve multijoint movements with external resistance. Explosive movements can be done with resistance, too. But 99 percent of us don't need to attempt explosive movements with resistance. Power pulls, power cleans, hang cleans, snatches, jerks and push jerks are all examples of power exercises.

· When talking about core exercises, we're talking about those exercise that use a massive amount of muscle - squat, dead lift, chest press, pull-up. Each of these requires more than a couple of muscle groups to be done correctly.

· Assistance exercises are the fine tuning - the shoulder shrugs, toe raises, seated rows, curls, extensions, crunches, etc. These exercises typically involve small muscles or smaller muscle groups. For instance, shoulder shrugs hit our trapezius and rhomboid muscles. Pull-ups hit our latissimus, teres, rhomboids, biceps brachii, brachialis, brachioradialis, infraspinatus and trapezius.

Our order should go from the most difficult movements to the easiest. Safety is the foremost reason for this. After that comes our exercise form. Unless we're extremely well trained, we don't want to do assistance exercises first and exhaust the muscles needed to do the heavier lifting.

For instance, doing leg curls, leg extensions, calf raises, abduction and adduction work before doing squats taxes the leg muscles in a way that makes squats dangerous - again, if we're not well trained.

Squats incorporate the muscles required to do those exercises. Typically, we'll use more weight doing squats. So when we get to the leg curls the lower weight will be welcomed but still challenging.

And safely and efficiently challenging our bodies is the whole idea behind exercise order.