Confused, Compound & Isolation

Training Bodybuilding
1

Barbell Bent-over Row is a great exercise as it involves a lot of muscels. A lot of muscles involved => a lot of muscels grow.

Barbell Bent-over Row isn’t realy a good exercise as it involves a lot of muscels. You can’t realy focus on your upper back, which leads to worse muscle gains.

The shoulders are involved in almoast all uperbody exercises. So you don’t need to do a lot of direct shoulder work, if any, as it already gets a lot of stimulation.

The shoulders are involved in almoast all uperbody exercises. So shoulder training will increase your performance in most upper body exercises.

2

[quote]mabe wrote:
Barbell Bent-over Row is a great exercise as it involves a lot of muscels. A lot of muscles involved => a lot of muscels grow.

Barbell Bent-over Row isn’t realy a good exercise as it involves a lot of muscels. You can’t realy focus on your upper back, which leads to worse muscle gains.

The shoulders are involved in almoast all uperbody exercises. So you don’t need to do a lot of direct shoulder work, if any, as it already gets a lot of stimulation.

The shoulders are involved in almoast all uperbody exercises. So shoulder training will increase your performance in most upper body exercises.
[/quote]

I hate this arguement… because I don’t think there is one.

Compound or Isolation… which one is better? Both and neither. I don’t think it will make fuck all difference what exercise you use when it comes to hypertrophy especially. It is the execution of the exercise and how its used in conjunction with TUT/Stress and frequency that makes the difference.

You could set up a better hypertrophy training for someone training biceps using the crappyest isolation movement there is and still get better results than the one using the best compound movement. How? The way those exercises are performed and the stress/tension relation.

3

[quote]mabe wrote:
Barbell Bent-over Row is a great exercise as it involves a lot of muscels. A lot of muscles involved => a lot of muscels grow.

Barbell Bent-over Row isn’t realy a good exercise as it involves a lot of muscels. You can’t realy focus on your upper back, which leads to worse muscle gains.

The shoulders are involved in almoast all uperbody exercises. So you don’t need to do a lot of direct shoulder work, if any, as it already gets a lot of stimulation.

The shoulders are involved in almoast all uperbody exercises. So shoulder training will increase your performance in most upper body exercises.
[/quote]

You are confused because of too many trainers trying to make money off of flipping around basic info that was the backbone of building muscle for years. they have to make their program flashy and standout, thus why you have many throwing around terms like “functional training”. It is why Kettleballs actually made a comeback for a while and why bosu balls are used to sell personal training sessions.

Compound movements, as you seem to understand, involve many muscle groups to move a weight. Obviously, more muscles are involved doing that bent over barbell row than are being used sitting on a machine with a pad in front of you and pulling a weight stack towards you.

Isolation movements attempt to take multiple muscles groups out of the equation to allow you focus on one muscle group at a time. Preacher curls are a prime example of this.

Only recently has their been any sort of push to AVOID either one of these. Most bodybuilders for the past 40-50 years would do ALL of it. That is how they got huge all over and didn’t develop overly weak or lagging body parts.

It makes no sense to avoid preacher curls simply because you did bent over rows. While bent overrows involved the biceps, they didn’t allow complete and total mental focus on the development of that one muscle group.

That IS needed if the goal is a balanced physique.

One of the posters in the Physique picture forum is a very good example of this and I will try to find his thread. He had recently lost a ton of body fat but had avoided ANY direct shoulder work. As a result, his front delts are hugely overdeveloped compared to his lateral and rear delts. You don’t get big lateral delt heads by ignoring them. You end up with a lump on the front of your shoulders and no width. Therefore, he NOW has to bring up his lateral delts to match all of the progress he made by focusing on more compound movements.

A trainer more versed in what has worked for bodybuilders for the past half century would have known to avoid that from the start.

4

This is the thread I was referring to. The guy has made a ton of progress. But perhaps he could have done even better and balanced out his physique had he kept some isolation movements in his program.

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1192941

5

Good and angry thoughts here.

It sounds like you are just beginning at this weight training game. When it comes to compounded movements verse isolation. Compound will win every time. You can not isolate any muscle in your body. You can put more emphasis on one muscle but never isolate it. It is very true the shoulder joint is used A LOT. The shoulder joint (glenohumeral joint) is by far the joint with the most independent range of motion in the body.
If you are new to this you might want to go with these recommendations:

  • learn the basic movements and leave isolation alone (squat,deads,pushup,dips,pullups) and make sure to learn them correctly. I believe it was Waterbury that said practice doesn’t make perfect…PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT…a good clitia to keep you on the right track
  • move in a planes of motion. This is where GPP comes in handy. Also, there are some great articles on exercises for shoulder joints (I recommend NOT to do the movements with heavy weight until you get it down)

Goodluck to you mabe…your at the right site to get some great article info

6

[quote]gustojack wrote:
Good and angry thoughts here.

It sounds like you are just beginning at this weight training game. When it comes to compounded movements verse isolation. Compound will win every time. You can not isolate any muscle in your body. You can put more emphasis on one muscle but never isolate it. It is very true the shoulder joint is used A LOT. The shoulder joint (glenohumeral joint) is by far the joint with the most independent range of motion in the body.
If you are new to this you might want to go with these recommendations:

  • learn the basic movements and leave isolation alone (squat,deads,pushup,dips,pullups) and make sure to learn them correctly. I believe it was Waterbury that said practice doesn’t make perfect…PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT…a good clitia to keep you on the right track
  • move in a planes of motion. This is where GPP comes in handy. Also, there are some great articles on exercises for shoulder joints (I recommend NOT to do the movements with heavy weight until you get it down)

Goodluck to you mabe…your at the right site to get some great article info[/quote]

Sorta agree and disagree here. If you’re saying that compounds are better, you are right and you are wrong. Compounds are better if you’re trying to use less exercises and stress more muscle groups. Now a deadlift is a great exercise stressing almost the entire body, and using nearly every muscle in it… my pecs are even activated in deadlifts sometimes. Now when it comes to specific stress and taking stress off of certain muscles and putting the emphasis on other muscle groups… then there is nothing better than an isolation movement to perform that function. I believe trainers should learn how to do it all. One isn’t better than the other, your goals will determine that. One is great for overall strength and getting the most bang for your buck, while the other is better for detail and specificly targeting weak areas and trying to bring them up. If your biceps are a weak area, you not going to get Arnold size proportions and detail without learning how to do a few pussy isolation exercises… I don’t give a fuck who you are. I get bicep stress in deadlifts, barbell curls and dumbbell curls. The best developer for the biceps I ever used was a single arm preacher curl done in dropsets. Now the barell curl can also be done in dropsets but you wont be able to angle that barbell as well as a dumbbell and stress certain areas.

Don’t be a dumb idiot prick asshole with a closed mind. Learn to do it all. I would recommend deadlifts, heavy barbell curls, and dumbbell isolation curls for full biceps developement. All will work and serve a specific purpose… the main beneficial factor will always be the routine and the execution of the said exercises in conjunction with the TUT/stress relation to the muscle being exercised.

7

[quote]Go heavy fool wrote:
gustojack wrote:
Good and angry thoughts here.

It sounds like you are just beginning at this weight training game. When it comes to compounded movements verse isolation. Compound will win every time. You can not isolate any muscle in your body. You can put more emphasis on one muscle but never isolate it. It is very true the shoulder joint is used A LOT. The shoulder joint (glenohumeral joint) is by far the joint with the most independent range of motion in the body.
If you are new to this you might want to go with these recommendations:

  • learn the basic movements and leave isolation alone (squat,deads,pushup,dips,pullups) and make sure to learn them correctly. I believe it was Waterbury that said practice doesn’t make perfect…PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT…a good clitia to keep you on the right track
  • move in a planes of motion. This is where GPP comes in handy. Also, there are some great articles on exercises for shoulder joints (I recommend NOT to do the movements with heavy weight until you get it down)

Goodluck to you mabe…your at the right site to get some great article info

Sorta agree and disagree here. If you’re saying that compounds are better, you are right and you are wrong. Compounds are better if you’re trying to use less exercises and stress more muscle groups. Now a deadlift is a great exercise stressing almost the entire body, and using nearly every muscle in it… my pecs are even activated in deadlifts sometimes. Now when it comes to specific stress and taking stress off of certain muscles and putting the emphasis on other muscle groups… then there is nothing better than an isolation movement to perform that function. I believe trainers should learn how to do it all. One isn’t better than the other, your goals will determine that. One is great for overall strength and getting the most bang for your buck, while the other is better for detail and specificly targeting weak areas and trying to bring them up. If your biceps are a weak area, you not going to get Arnold size proportions and detail without learning how to do a few pussy isolation exercises… I don’t give a fuck who you are. I get bicep stress in deadlifts, barbell curls and dumbbell curls. The best developer for the biceps I ever used was a single arm preacher curl done in dropsets. Now the barell curl can also be done in dropsets but you wont be able to angle that barbell as well as a dumbbell and stress certain areas.

Don’t be a dumb idiot prick asshole with a closed mind. Learn to do it all. I would recommend deadlifts, heavy barbell curls, and dumbbell isolation curls for full biceps developement. All will work and serve a specific purpose… the main beneficial factor will always be the routine and the execution of the said exercises in conjunction with the TUT/stress relation to the muscle being exercised.

[/quote]

Not to be a dumb idiot prick, BUT, if you know it all, why ask. Were you just waiting for someone to answer in a certain way so you could espouse your wisdom.

TUT is bullshit.

8

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
Go heavy fool wrote:
gustojack wrote:
Good and angry thoughts here.

It sounds like you are just beginning at this weight training game. When it comes to compounded movements verse isolation. Compound will win every time. You can not isolate any muscle in your body. You can put more emphasis on one muscle but never isolate it. It is very true the shoulder joint is used A LOT. The shoulder joint (glenohumeral joint) is by far the joint with the most independent range of motion in the body.
If you are new to this you might want to go with these recommendations:

  • learn the basic movements and leave isolation alone (squat,deads,pushup,dips,pullups) and make sure to learn them correctly. I believe it was Waterbury that said practice doesn’t make perfect…PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT…a good clitia to keep you on the right track
  • move in a planes of motion. This is where GPP comes in handy. Also, there are some great articles on exercises for shoulder joints (I recommend NOT to do the movements with heavy weight until you get it down)

Goodluck to you mabe…your at the right site to get some great article info

Sorta agree and disagree here. If you’re saying that compounds are better, you are right and you are wrong. Compounds are better if you’re trying to use less exercises and stress more muscle groups. Now a deadlift is a great exercise stressing almost the entire body, and using nearly every muscle in it… my pecs are even activated in deadlifts sometimes. Now when it comes to specific stress and taking stress off of certain muscles and putting the emphasis on other muscle groups… then there is nothing better than an isolation movement to perform that function. I believe trainers should learn how to do it all. One isn’t better than the other, your goals will determine that. One is great for overall strength and getting the most bang for your buck, while the other is better for detail and specificly targeting weak areas and trying to bring them up. If your biceps are a weak area, you not going to get Arnold size proportions and detail without learning how to do a few pussy isolation exercises… I don’t give a fuck who you are. I get bicep stress in deadlifts, barbell curls and dumbbell curls. The best developer for the biceps I ever used was a single arm preacher curl done in dropsets. Now the barell curl can also be done in dropsets but you wont be able to angle that barbell as well as a dumbbell and stress certain areas.

Don’t be a dumb idiot prick asshole with a closed mind. Learn to do it all. I would recommend deadlifts, heavy barbell curls, and dumbbell isolation curls for full biceps developement. All will work and serve a specific purpose… the main beneficial factor will always be the routine and the execution of the said exercises in conjunction with the TUT/stress relation to the muscle being exercised.

Not to be a dumb idiot prick, BUT, if you know it all, why ask. Were you just waiting for someone to answer in a certain way so you could espouse your wisdom.

TUT is bullshit.

[/quote]

Irony… “Were you just waiting for someone to answer in a certain way so you could espouse your wisdom.” No.
I believe that was you. “TUT is bullshit”… wooh that’s deep. Want to explain furthur there… Merlin?

“if you know it all, why ask.” Who’s asking…

9

WTF.

After the interesting question and well-thought and balanced replies, I was thinking to myself that this could become a very good read for newbies like myself.

Please don’t let this thread turn into a clash of egos.

10

[quote]lawrence wrote:
WTF.

After the interesting question and well-thought and balanced replies, I was thinking to myself that this could become a very good read for newbies like myself.

Please don’t let this thread turn into a clash of egos.
[/quote]

O.K. here’s some information on the subject.

Professor X already tackled shoulders… so i’m going with biceps & triceps.

Bicep training… This is my routine I used to build mine. I don’t use this routine anymore but I would if I was trying to build up arms. I am simply relying on deadlifts at this point to maintain my arms.

Anyways. I used deadlifts once a weak to put maximum indirect stress on the biceps hitting the thickest fibers and the ones that are activated in the heavyest of lifts. Approx- 30 total reps. I used a heavy barbell curl dropset method for 4 sets of 5 drops, totaling around 200 reps. And finally single arm isolations with a medium to light weight once a week for 4 sets of rest-pause sets for another 200 total reps.

Triceps generally the same principle… add in the Bench Press, Military Press, dips, skull crushers, single arm dumbbell extensions.

There are more ways than one to skin a cat… depending on how you want that skin to come off will determine your plan of attack.