More advanced does not automatically mean more effective. An exercise can look highly technical, athletic or impressive while delivering less useful training stress than a simpler alternative.
The question is whether the athlete can execute it well enough to produce the adaptation you are targeting. If the coordination demand prevents the required output, complexity has started competing with the purpose of the exercise.
Look at what the athlete can actually produce
An exercise name does not tell you how useful the set will be. Watch the execution. Does the athlete reproduce the intended range? Can they apply the required load? Is the intended muscle still the limiting factor, or does the set end because they cannot organise the movement?
When the exercise is beyond the athlete’s current proficiency, the load can drop, range of motion can become inconsistent and force production can fall. The athlete spends the set trying to solve the movement rather than producing the output you prescribed it for.
Difficulty alone is not enough to justify the selection. You need to explain what that difficulty is contributing to the training goal.
Match the exercise to the adaptation
Start with the quality you want to develop, then assess whether the exercise lets this athlete train it properly.
Hypertrophy
The exercise needs to let the athlete load the intended tissue through a repeatable range. If the movement changes from rep to rep, or another demand prevents that tissue from doing the intended work, review the selection.
A simpler movement that the athlete performs proficiently can be a more useful choice than an advanced variation they struggle to control.
Maximal strength
The exercise needs to permit high force production. A movement may be demanding because it is difficult to coordinate, but that does not establish that it allows the force output you are trying to train.
Judge the exercise against the athlete’s execution and the required output, rather than how advanced it appears.
Power
The athlete must be able to accelerate through the movement. If they are occupied with surviving its coordination demands, the exercise is not doing the job you selected it for.
For example, imagine an athlete who cannot reproduce the sequence of a technical power exercise. Before adding more complexity, ask whether they can accelerate through the current movement as intended. This is a selection decision based on the athlete’s present ability.
Use four questions before choosing the variation
- What adaptation am I targeting? Define what the exercise needs to develop.
- Where should the stress be distributed? Identify the intended contribution of the muscles and movement involved.
- What mobility, stability and technical qualities does the exercise require? Look at the demands the athlete must meet to perform it properly.
- Can this athlete execute it well enough to express the required output? Check their actual performance against the purpose of the exercise.
Only then should complexity enter the discussion. A movement’s technical demands need to fit the person performing it and the work you are asking them to produce.
Make complexity earn its place
The point is not to remove advanced exercises from your programs. It is to stop treating “advanced” as a sufficient reason to include them.
A simpler exercise performed with high proficiency can create substantially more useful training stress than an advanced exercise performed poorly. Choose the movement that allows the intended training variables to do their job.
For the broader selection process, see my systematic guide to exercise selection for coaches.
Adapted from my Instagram post on exercise complexity, published on 10 November 2026.
