Order of Exercises Does not Matter if you Train Upper Body & Lower Body in One Session - Testosterone & Cortisol Response Identical
You will probably remember my post on the effect of leg training on biceps size!? Well, although it is necessary that you train your legs, if you want to grow, a recent study by Jason D. Miller (Miller. 2011) indicates that hormonally it does not make a difference which part of your body you train first; or, in other words, you will get the same hormonal response (measured as testosterone (T) to cortisol (C) ratio) if you bench press (BP) first and do leg presses (LP) as your second exercise (both at 73.5% of 1RM for 4 sets), as you will get if you start with the leg press and finish your workout on the bench.
There does not appear to be an affect of resistance the exercise order of LP [leg press] and BP [bench press] on T [testosterone] and C [cortisol]. The exercise orders resulted in the same exercise volume and lactate responses which in turn resulted in no interaction in T and C between the UB-LB and LB-UB exercise orders.Miller does yet speculate that a higher volume and or other/supplemental exercises may have changed the picture. But let's be honest: Do you really think it would be wise to do squats, leg presses and deadlifts, followed by bench presses, dips and flys? Probably not.