Ryan Humiston picks exercises by feel, not by name. Here's how to turn that into a repeatable way to build client hypertrophy blocks.
"Which split" is not what decides whether a client grows once they're past the beginner phase - exercise selection is. Humiston's whole method is choosing movements for the best stretch and tension on the target muscle and genuinely isolating it, rather than ego-loading big compounds. This breakdown covers his argument in our own words, adds our honest take for a coaching roster, and gives you a scorecard to pick exercises the same way every time.
By Markus Evers · September 2026 · a Coachway video breakdown
the short version
Humiston's video argues that as a lifter advances, exercise selection becomes the main lever for growth: keep the movements that load a muscle in a deep stretch and let you actually feel and fatigue it, and drop the ones you can only ego-lift. The one thing a coach should do about it: stop picking exercises by tradition and start scoring every candidate on loaded stretch and target-muscle tension, then lock the winners into a reusable block per client.
Ryan Humiston - How I Workout Now (After 20 Years of Training!)
Source: Ryan Humiston on YouTube - "How I Workout Now (After 20 Years of Training!)". Watch on YouTube. We embed the public video and summarise it in our own words; the video, title and channel belong to Ryan Humiston, and nothing here implies his endorsement of Coachway.
Who is Ryan Humiston, and why coaches watch
Ryan Humiston is one of the largest and fastest-growing hypertrophy creators on YouTube, known for a blunt, isolation-first style that leans hard on stretch, tension and the mind-muscle connection over classic big-compound programming. His method is polarising on purpose, which is exactly why it lands on coaches' desks so often: clients watch it, feel called out by the "you can't even feel your back working" energy, and bring it to their coach to react to. That is the lens this page is written for - not "should I copy Humiston's exact routine," but "what does his exercise-selection principle mean for how I build a hypertrophy block for a whole roster of clients."
What Humiston actually argues (our summary)
This is our summary of the ideas in the video, in our own words - not a transcript. Watch the original for his exact examples and demonstrations.
- 1
Exercise selection is the advanced lifter's main lever. Early on, almost anything works. The further along a trainee is, the more growth comes down to which movements you pick and how well they hit the target muscle - not just adding weight to the bar.
- 2
Pick for the stretch. He favours movements that load a muscle in its lengthened, stretched position - that's where an exercise earns its keep, versus one that only loads the easy shortened range.
- 3
Keep tension on the target muscle. The point of a set is to fatigue the muscle you're training, so he chooses exercises where the resistance stays on that muscle rather than leaking into momentum, other muscles or joints.
- 4
Isolate and genuinely destroy the muscle. His bias is toward isolation and mind-muscle work - actually feeling the target muscle do the job - over ego-loading big compounds you can't feel in the muscle you're trying to grow.
- 5
Load matters less than what you feel. The number on the weight isn't the goal - the quality of the contraction is. If you can't feel the muscle working, the exercise (or the execution) is wrong, however heavy it looks.
Coachway's take
We're on board with the core principle, and it's a genuinely useful reframe for coaches: once a client is past the beginner phase, exercise selection is where the growth is won or lost. Two clients running the "same" back day grow very differently depending on whether they picked a row they can actually feel in their lats or one they heave with their whole body. Choosing for loaded stretch and target-muscle tension is a cleaner filter than picking exercises by habit.
Where we'd add nuance for a coaching business: the isolation-first framing is easy to over-read as "compounds don't matter." They still do - they're time-efficient, they build the base of strength that makes the isolations productive, and for a general client with two or three hours a week, you can't fill a program with twelve feel-focused isolations. Our version is compounds as the base, isolations as the precision tools that patch the gaps a big lift leaves behind. That's the same conclusion our compound vs isolation guide lands on.
The other coaching-specific point he doesn't have to solve: he's programming for himself, where "does it feel right" is instant feedback. You're programming for clients you see once a week. "Pick what you feel" is a great cue in the room and a vague one over an app - so the coach's job is to translate it into a fixed, well-chosen list the client executes, plus a way to check the client is actually feeling the target muscle rather than just moving the weight. Selection has to survive being handed off asynchronously.
So our version of his advice is: for each muscle a client wants to grow, deliberately pick one movement that loads it in a stretch and one where tension stays on it, confirm they can feel both, then lock those into a reusable block instead of re-deciding exercises every week. Novelty for its own sake is the enemy of tracking progress - swap an exercise when the client can't feel it or can't perform it, not because it's Monday.
Choose the exercises once, reuse the block across the roster
An exercise-selection principle is only useful if you can deliver a client the exact movements you chose - and check they're feeling them. That's what Coachway's workout builder is for: pull your best-stretch and best-tension picks from a large exercise library with demo videos, build them into a reusable hypertrophy block per muscle, set rep ranges, tempos, supersets and drop sets, then assign it and tweak from there instead of starting blank. Because the exercise is standardised, the client sees the same movement with the same cue every session - which is what makes "pick what you feel" survive an asynchronous handoff.
The check on the other side runs through client progress tracking: clients log each set and can flag exercises they can't feel or can't perform, so you swap for a reason instead of for novelty. For the strategy underneath the selection, our hypertrophy training guide and the companion breakdown on how many sets per muscle per week cover the volume you're pouring into the exercises you pick here.
Hypertrophy exercise-selection scorecard
A quick filter you can run on any candidate exercise before it goes in a client's block. Score each movement 0-2 on three things; keep the movements that score high on stretch and tension, and confirm the client can actually feel the target muscle. Then use the per-muscle sheet to lock in one stretch-biased pick and one tension-biased pick per muscle. The example picks below are our coaching defaults to show the format, not exercises named in the video.
Exercise-selection scorecard
Score each candidate (0-2 each)
| Criterion | Score 2 if... | Score 0 if... |
|---|---|---|
| Loaded stretch | Resistance is highest when the muscle is fully lengthened | Only loads the easy, shortened range |
| Tension on target | Tension stays on the target muscle the whole set | Load leaks into momentum, joints or other muscles |
| Can the client feel it | Client reliably feels and can fatigue the target muscle | Client only feels it elsewhere or not at all |
Per-muscle picks (example format)
| Muscle | Stretch-biased pick | Tension-biased pick | Client feels it? (y/n) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chest | Deep-stretch fly / deficit press | Cable press / pec deck | — |
| Back (lats) | Overhead-stretch pulldown / pullover | Cable row / lat-focus row | — |
| Quads | Deep-range squat / hack squat | Leg extension | — |
| Hamstrings | Stiff-leg / RDL variation | Seated / lying leg curl | — |
| Biceps | Incline / behind-body curl | Cable / preacher curl | — |
| Triceps | Overhead extension | Cable pushdown | — |
How to use it: run any candidate through the scorecard first - keep the movements that score high on stretch and tension. Then, per muscle, lock one stretch-biased and one tension-biased pick, confirm the client can feel both, and standardise them into a reusable block. Swap an exercise only when the "feels it?" answer is no or the client can't perform it - not for variety.
HYPERTROPHY EXERCISE-SELECTION SCORECARD (via Coachway) - pick movements by loaded stretch + target-muscle tension SCORE EACH CANDIDATE (0-2 each) Criterion Score 2 if Score 0 if Loaded stretch Resistance is highest when the muscle is fully lengthened Only loads the easy, shortened range Tension on target Tension stays on the target muscle the whole set Load leaks into momentum, joints or other muscles Can the client feel it Client reliably feels and can fatigue the target muscle Client only feels it elsewhere or not at all PER-MUSCLE PICKS (example format - our coaching defaults, not exercises named in the video) Muscle Stretch-biased pick Tension-biased pick Client feels it? (y/n) Chest Deep-stretch fly / deficit press Cable press / pec deck Back (lats) Overhead-stretch pulldown / pullover Cable row / lat-focus row Quads Deep-range squat / hack squat Leg extension Hamstrings Stiff-leg / RDL variation Seated / lying leg curl Biceps Incline / behind-body curl Cable / preacher curl Triceps Overhead extension Cable pushdown HOW TO USE: Run any candidate through the scorecard first; keep movements that score high on stretch + tension. Per muscle, lock one stretch-biased and one tension-biased pick, confirm the client feels both, and standardise into a reusable block. Swap only when the client can't feel it or can't perform it - not for variety.
Exercise selection for hypertrophy - FAQ
How do you choose the best exercise for muscle growth?
Ryan Humiston's whole selection logic comes down to two questions: does the movement load the target muscle in a deep stretch, and can you actually feel that muscle doing the work through the full range? If an exercise passes both, it earns a spot; if you only feel it in your joints or your ego-lifting momentum, it doesn't - no matter how 'big' or foundational the lift is. For a coach, that's a cleaner default than picking exercises by name or tradition: score each candidate on loaded stretch and target-muscle tension first, then decide.
Is isolation training better than compound lifts for hypertrophy?
Humiston leans isolation-heavy, but the honest framing is that it is not isolation versus compounds - it is choosing whatever movement puts the most quality tension on the muscle you are trying to grow. Compounds are still efficient and effective; his point is that as a lifter advances, exercise selection becomes the lever that matters, and a well-chosen isolation often beats a compound the client can no longer feel in the target muscle. For clients, we treat compounds as the base and isolations as the precision tools that fill the gaps a big lift leaves behind.
What is the mind-muscle connection and does it matter?
Mind-muscle connection is simply the ability to feel and drive a specific muscle through a movement instead of just moving the weight from A to B. In Humiston's approach it is central: the exercises worth keeping are the ones where you can genuinely target and fatigue the muscle. The research nuance we add is that intentionally focusing on a muscle can increase its activation on isolation work, but it matters far less on heavy compounds where the priority is moving load safely. As a coach, cue mind-muscle focus on isolations, and cue clean, hard technique on the big lifts.
How should a coach pick exercises for a client hypertrophy program?
Start from the muscles the client wants to grow, not from a split template. For each target muscle, pick one movement that loads it in a stretch and one where the resistance profile keeps tension on it through the top, then confirm the client can actually feel the muscle working on both. Keep the list short, standardise it into a reusable block, and only swap an exercise when a client genuinely can't feel or can't perform it - not for novelty. That gives you Humiston's exercise-quality principle in a form you can assign across a whole roster instead of re-deciding every week.
More training-science breakdowns
- · Eugene Teo on minimalist hypertrophy - the same feel-the-muscle bias, applied to trimming a program down.
- · Dr. Mike Israetel on how many sets per muscle - the weekly volume you pour into the exercises you pick here.
- · The full roundup: fitness YouTubers coaches should study.
Keep dialing in programming
all guidesCompound vs Isolation Exercises: The Difference
Compound exercises move multiple joints and train several muscles at once; isolation exercises move a single joint to target one muscle. The difference, examples, pros and cons, and how to order them.
Read the guideHypertrophy Training: What It Is and How to Program It
What hypertrophy training is and how to program it for online clients: the three drivers (mechanical tension, training volume, progressive overload), the best rep ranges, and a reusable hypertrophy block.
Read the guideProgressive Overload: What It Is & How to Apply It
Progressive overload is gradually increasing the demands on a muscle over time so it keeps adapting. The six methods, how coaches apply them across a program, and how to break plateaus.
Read the guideFree tools for this: Deadlift Calculator · RIR Calculator · Strength Standards Calculator
Choose the exercises once, reuse the block across every client
An exercise-selection principle only pays off if you can deliver the exact movements you chose and check clients are feeling them. Coachway's workout builder lets you template your best-stretch and best-tension picks from a full exercise library, assign the block in seconds, and swap a movement only when a client logs that they can't feel or can't perform it. Start your 14-day free trial and build your first hypertrophy block from one screen.
