Hey fellow T-maggers, I just wanted to get some personal experiences on the differences you guys have noticed between using compound/integrated movements (like clean and press, snatches) versus isolation movements (like cable laterals, leg curls). Sure there’s the obvious like the superiority of compound movements for functional strength and transferability to sports, but what about the appearance of the physique? For example, do isolation exercises turn one into a walking anatomy diagram with crisp San-Andreas-like muscle separation, while compound exercises make you a built like a brick shit-house with one continuous bundle of muscle from you’re neck to your ankles? O.k. I’m kind of kidding with this contrast of visuals but I hope you see what I’m getting at. Any thoughts, stories or opinions are much appreciated.
First, the obvious superiority of compound movements isn’t so obvious to many researchers. There is a lot of info that proves isolation movements are better because you build specific muscle movement strength that transfers to compound movement strength with out screwing up motor patterns, but we know if you do the study right, we can prove just about anything! The facts are that we need to do both to be functional for many reasons, one of which I will point out today. Training the neurologic system is a huge part of training. You have vast neurologic training (clean n press) and you have focused neurologic training (single leg curls). Your body will respond differently to both types. As far as getting ripped or getting big, that’s mostly genetics and diet, it has only a small percentage to do with how you train.
GH release is highest with heavy compound movements, and that contributes big time in bein leaner and chisled. Arnold defined his soft physique, after loosing to C. Norton (I think it was 1968) using heavy compound movements not isolation exercises.