Feeder Workouts – UPDATED 2022 – Do Feeder Workouts Work?

One of the golden rules with working out in 2022 is that you should focus on quality over quantity. It’s better to do 10 push-ups right than do 50 wrong…but, sometimes there are challenges to this belief.

Feeder workouts ask you to do the opposite and are high-intensity, fast-paced ‘mini workouts’ that have you doing hundreds of reps as fast as you possibly can. People have reported great success with these types of workouts, but how? What are they, why are they so popular and do they work?

We set out to investigate, and we’ve come back with our report. This updated guide will answer all your questions about feeder workouts and give you examples of how you can add them to your routine.

Feeder Workouts – A Complete Guide

Ever heard of feeder workouts before? They’ve been popularized online and are gradually gaining notoriety as they work their way around the fitness space.

That being said, they’re still pretty new and pretty different…so a lot of people have been wary of them, and slow to trust that they’re effective.

Feeder workouts were popularized by late bodybuilding superstar, and YouTube fitness guru Rich Piana.

Piana was popular for his immense success in competitions, and the motivational ideology of “the 5%”, being that only 5% of people are motivated to do what it takes to achieve their goals.

So, what are feeder workouts? Basically, during a feeder workout, you do hundreds of reps of two unique exercises, back-to-back as fast as you can. They’re designed to be done in conjunction with other workouts, as an addition to another routine or WOD.

Something important about these types of workouts; they’re not designed for developing a toned physique, or even really for losing weight.

The idea behind a feeder workout is that they “prep” your muscles for further exercise, by quickly providing them with blood and other essentials. This then makes it easier to build this muscle.

What feeder workouts will help you do, is build muscle and keep it, as well as build good habits by conditioning your body to provide your muscles with enough oxygen as and when they need them.

What Are Feeder Sets?

Feeder workouts are separated into small ‘sets’, which are a certain number of reps of a particular exercise in the feeder workout.

These types of workouts usually have 6 sets per workout, and if you’re doing 2 different exercises then this is 3 sets of each. Ideally, you want to flip-flop which exercise you’re doing.

So, let’s say your two exercises are squats and sit-ups. You would do 1 set of squats, then 1 set of sit-ups, then back to a set of squats…

What makes a set though? A set is a group of reps, and each set should have between 50-100 reps. You can go above or below this, but the idea of a feeder workout is that it’s a lot of fast exercises that get your blood pumping.
As a final tip, when choosing your exercises for the sets you should work opposite muscles in the muscle group you’ve chosen.

Say you’re doing a feeder exercise for your hips, 1 of your exercises should work the glutes and the other should be the hip flexors. This way, the muscle is built evenly and in the long run, you’re at less risk of injury.

 

Do Feeder Workouts Work?

Now that you know what a feeder workout is, and how to do them, the most important question is…Do feeder workouts work? Is there evidence?

There actually is science behind feeder workouts – they don’t magically make you huge overnight. The idea of a feeder workout is to enable your body to start processes that are essential to building muscle.

The first of these is called extended protein synthesis. Protein synthesis is the process by which your body creates natural proteins that are essential for staying healthy.

Feeder workouts can put your body into a much longer cycle of protein synthesis, meaning it can make even more protein.

These types of workouts will also train your muscles to respond better to more intensive workouts. Usually, going all in on an intense lifting WOD would make you feel sore at best, and cause you to tear a muscle at worst.
With regular and effective feeder workouts, your muscles are prepared for anything you throw at them.

Chest Feeder Workouts

Generally, there are 6 main muscle groups. These are the arms, shoulders, thighs, calves, back, and chest.
The most difficult of these to build is usually the chest, and it’s usually done in conjunction with other areas.

With chest feeder workouts, however, it becomes a lot easier to build muscle in your chest area.

This example chest feeder workouts will focus on the pecs and the trapezius muscles, but you can adapt the workout to focus on other areas if that’s what you need.

For a chest feeder exercise, you can do the following workouts:

100 Barbell Presses
50 Pec Fly’s

These do require equipment, but they’re some of the easiest exercises to do a high number of reps of in a short amount of time.

Arm Feeder Workouts

On the other hand, arms are the most common area that people want to work out and build muscle in, as they’re easy and show visual results quickly. Arm feeder workouts will put you a step above everyone else and help you build muscle more quickly in the arms.

It’s recommended that arm feeder workouts focus on the bicep muscle and the triceps muscle, as this is a pair that are essential to build at the same time.

Again, this is just an example of an arm feeder workout. You should base your arm feeder workouts on the equipment available to you.

A good arm feeder workout would be:

100 Bicep Curls
50 Tricep Kickbacks

 

Feeder Workouts – Closing Thoughts

So, now you know everything there is to know about feeder workouts. There are also a ton of great YouTube videos that you can watch which will show more detailed comparisons of before and after pictures of feeder workouts, to help you decide if they’re right for you.

Looking for more ways to level up your muscle gain in 2022? Check out our other guides, tips, WOD, diets, and more!