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Can You Do Back After Shoulder Day? (Solved!)

There are many factors which affect the effectiveness of your workouts. One of the lesser known ones is the order in which you train different muscle groups.

For example, training quads the day after hamstrings may lead to a less effective workout, as your quads will be involved in many hamstring exercises.

This means they won’t be as fresh the next day when you target them.

In this article, we look at whether you can train back after shoulder day.

We look at the pros and cons of doing so, as well as whether it’s the optimum order for your fitness goals.

Ready?

Let’s go.

Can You Do Back After Shoulder Day?

You can do back after shoulder day although it may not be the most effective workout ordering for some people.

This is because many back exercises rely on your rear delts as secondary muscles. 

If these have been worked hard during shoulder day, they may be fatigued when it comes to training back, which may result in you having to lift less weight.

This can reduce the effectiveness of your workout.

If you want to train back after shoulder day, you ideally want to minimize rear delt exercises on shoulder day and focus on your front and lateral delts.

Benefits of Doing Back After Shoulder Day

It Works Well With A Push/Pull Training Plan

Many people use a PPL (push, pull, legs) training plan.

This involves a push day, pull day, and leg day in a training week and is repeated for several weeks.

If this is you, then training back after shoulders can keep you in this plan.

Why?

Well, your shoulders are “pushing” muscles and your back is a “pulling” muscle.

They Don’t Work Together Too Much

With the exception of standing barbell presses, very few shoulder exercises involve your back muscles.

This means that your back muscles will be fresh even after an intense shoulder day.

As a result, you can push them to their limit and get the most out of your workout.

That being said, you should limit rear delt exercises on shoulder day if you were to train this way since some back exercises require rear delt activation.

Drawbacks of Doing Back After Shoulder Day

Fatigue

While your back will still be fresh after an intense shoulder workout, your body as a whole won’t be as fresh as if you had a rest day.

On back day, you’ll be lifting a lot of weight using various compound movements which requires a ton of energy and work from your body.

So if your body is even just a little bit tired (from training shoulders), then it may reduce the effectiveness of your back workout.

Should You Do Back After Shoulder Day?

You can do back after shoulder day but it may not be the most effective workout ordering for you.

If you decide to train back after shoulders, you’ll need to go easy on rear delts exercises in your shoulder workout.

This will help keep them fresh for when they’re required as stabilizing muscles during various back exercises.

Is It Better To Do Shoulders After Back Day?

As a general rule, you should always train larger muscle groups before smaller muscle groups.

This is because the smaller muscle groups often help in exercises that target the larger muscles.

As your smaller muscle groups will tire quicker than the larger ones, it then makes sense that larger muscle groups should be trained first.

For this reason, it’s better to do shoulders after back day.

Is It Safe To Do Back After Shoulder Day?

Assuming you’re in good health and free from injury, it’s typically safe to train your back the day after shoulders.

The risk of injury is small given that you use a suitable weight and the correct technique.

Conclusion

In summary, it’s fine to do back after shoulder day although you should minimize rear delt exercises when training shoulders as these are used in many back exercises.

That’s all for this article, but what about chest after back day? Or can you do legs after back day?

Hope this helped!

Sources

https://www.myprotein.com/thezone/training/push-pull-legs-routine-best-mass-building-workout-split/