Yes! Exercise selection is the most important training variable. Imagine if you're a patient at the doctor's office and the conversation went like this...
It doesn't make sense, right? Well it's the same with training. Think of sets, reps, and training methods as the dosage and exercises as the medicine.
While everybody will improve their body and performance by gradually becoming stronger on the big basics, simply doing those and nothing else will emphasize certain muscles over others, and might not end up giving you the result you're looking for.
Some people will get great pec development from the bench press while others will only grow their triceps and delts. Some will build tremendous quads from back squatting and others will build bigger glutes.
Limb length relative to torso length helps determine which muscles receive the most stimulation.
Here's a general overview:
All of this is true most of the time, but there will be some exceptions. (Arnold, for example, is long limbed and had huge biceps.)
That info allows you to better select the assistance work you're doing in a program by telling you which muscles will need added direct work. For example, I have short legs, so I don't need any direct assistance work for the quads. They grow just fine by doing squats exclusively and I prefer to invest my training time on exercises that are actually needed to fix a weakness. However, I do need direct glute and hamstring work.
You don't need as much (if any) direct work for the muscles that are the easiest to develop, but you'll need a lot more for those that are the hardest.
Knowing this also helps us better select the big lift variations for our workouts. If I have long legs, the front squat will be better than the back squat for overall development. Why? Because with the back squat I'll get mostly glutes and some hamstrings while with the front squat I'd stimulate the quads. A heels-elevated back squats would also do the trick.
While there's nothing wrong with good, smart programs you find on the internet, you should still give yourself some leeway in exercise selection: you can respect the spirit of a program while choosing better movements.
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