Isolation Movements Worth the Pain?

When i was broswing over a few things, i came across the old arguement of compound VS isolation.

The body is designed to work as one unit, therefore its natrually designed to adapt to full compound movements, as they use more than one muscle group at a single time.

Whilst on the other hand we have isolation movements which focus in on one muscle (not including stabalizers) group throughout the movement, which goes against the natrual design of the human body, and because of this some of the stress of the weight gets put directly onto the joint, and correct me if i am wrong here, but this is not a good scenario.

So what am asking is, is it wise to incorporate iso movements, as it is inevtiable that this will cause joint problems, tendon problems etc. And i certinally dont wont to stop lifting because i got injured doing 10k flyes or some shit like that.

There are of course benefits to doing iso movements, cures muscle imbalance, strengh and it focuses in on the msucle you want to train etc.

So what do you guys think, is the best way around it is to limit the use of iso movements, or not to bother with them at all if you feel your body is in harmony allready.

Some feedback please :).

Your feedback is going to be a mixed bag, so be prepared to DUCK…

It seems like you’ve already made up your mind about this, but I’ll toss my 2cents in anyway.

Think about all the things you do through the course of a day. How often is it just a single muscle group doing all of the work (or rather, most of the work) It’s virtually all day long. Picking up small articles, scratching your head, putting on sunglasses…all of these things the body is perfectly capable of doing, and it only involves ONE muscle group directly.

The argument that the body is designed to work as a unit is sort of silly within the context of bodybuilding. In power lifting, sure, maybe direct isolation work is kind of waste of time, but if you’re looking for maximum development of any muscle group, it needs to be worked on it’s own. The reality is, every muscle and joint in your body is perfectly capable of working as a unit, and on it’s own (You don’t need to lift your arm at the shoulder to curl unless you’re going heavier than good form will allow).

Some muscle groups/joints are less stable than others (shoulders most notably) and require more careful work than say, hip movements which tend to lack mobility. Working with about 80% compound/complex and 20% isolation will provide a nice mix of exercises that will allow for both strength and growth gains.

As far as injuries being inevitable doing isolation movements…I’ve never had a problem in 6 years lifting. It’s a matter of keeping good form.

My assumptions about you:

A. You are a beginner
B. You don’t have a 400lbs deadlift
C. Your BF is over 10%
D. You might know what a powerclean is and the only snatch you are interested in is south of the border.

Which means:

NO Isolate for you!

Use compounds, gain strength and then maybe consider isolates.

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Thy. wrote:
CT,

In your last articles you greatly explained why isolastion is important (everybody has their dominant and weaker parts).

But would you recommend even bother with isolation until the strength level of at least 1.5xbw bench, 2xbw dl and squat is reached doing simple routines with only compound lifts ?

Yes. Muscle imbalances don’t wait strength development. True, a beginner will have problems evaluating which muscles are underdeveloped compared to others, however the biomechanics of the individual (body type) can still give us some ideas of muscles that will potentially be lagging or harder to develop.

I find it idiotic to wait for muscle imbalances to show up before correcting them. Why? Because once the imbalances are there it will be much harder to correct them. That is because the body will have developed neural patterns that de-emphasize these weaker muscles.

Correcting an imbalance problem is MUCH harder and longer than preventing such problems by including some isolation work right from the start.[/quote]

There you go, a top coach has said it and Prof X has been saying it for years. Start smart from the start and include some isolation from the beginning instead of correcting imbalances later. Unless you only care about numbers and poundages, balance is key.

[quote]echelon101 wrote:
My assumptions about you:

A. You are a beginner
B. You don’t have a 400lbs deadlift
C. Your BF is over 10%
D. You might know what a powerclean is and the only snatch you are interested in is south of the border.

Which means:

NO Isolate for you!

Use compounds, gain strength and then maybe consider isolates.[/quote]

You were on the right track until you suggested that someone build up their body to be a wacky disproportionate creature with glaring imbalances, and be able to deadlift 400lbs before they ever do a calf raise or a barbell curl.

This philosophy that is so popular on these forums has never worked for ANYONE. I have yet to see a single person come out and give their results and actually impress people because they “built up a base” by only doing a handful of arbitrary exercises and avoiding isolation exercises.

What I have seen is people believe in this philosophy, train for a while and build a body that has painful imbalances that they need to put a lot of time and energy into correcting, and these people usually become the most hardcore pro-isolation crowd in response. haha

Are isolation exercises worth the pain?

ignoring the fact that they cause a hell of a lot less “joint pain” than compound exercises…

the people who actually want a perfect body see exercises as a means to an end. If they are a “pain” to you then I don’t think bodybuilding is for you.

[quote]Jeffe wrote:
It seems like you’ve already made up your mind about this, but I’ll toss my 2cents in anyway.

Think about all the things you do through the course of a day. How often is it just a single muscle group doing all of the work (or rather, most of the work) It’s virtually all day long. Picking up small articles, scratching your head, putting on sunglasses…all of these things the body is perfectly capable of doing, and it only involves ONE muscle group directly.

The argument that the body is designed to work as a unit is sort of silly within the context of bodybuilding. [/quote]

Uhhh… If I reach up to scratch my head, my shoulder helps to raise my arm, my bicep moves my hand toward my head, and then I use my forearms to help move the fingers and scratch.

Most of life’s tasks are “compound.” However, for actually building muscle, there is no reason not to do “isolation” exercises. Despite what anybody may argue, I don’t believe that chinups will cause more growth in your biceps than curls.

What is your goal?

You can certainly get really strong and be in excellent shape by doing compound movements only.

If you want to look like these dudes in the sidebar, I assume you’ve already cleared 20 hours a week for training and have a perfect diet. Then maybe isolation exercises are useful.

The body is designed to perform tasks and adapt to a stimulus. I honestly don’t see how it matters to your body whether that is an ‘isolation’ or a ‘compound’ movement. If you put stress on your lateral head of your deltoid, its going to adapt and grow. It doesn’t mysteriously need you to squat 400lb for it to do so.

I, personally, from a bodybuilding stand point, think its is sometimes more useful to forget these terms and just think about what you want to train and why. If “I want to get bigger biceps”, I am going to train them. This does not mean that I will put my squat on hold and not do any compound movements. It means, that no muscle that I want to grow will be neglected. Why is it so hard to do bicep curls on one day, and then squats on the other?

My goal is to be big and strong, to put it bluntly :slight_smile:

and ive come to the decision to introduce some iso work and unilatreal work into workouts, ty for the feedback it helped.

[quote]echelon101 wrote:
My assumptions about you:

A. You are a beginner
B. You don’t have a 400lbs deadlift
C. Your BF is over 10%
D. You might know what a powerclean is and the only snatch you are interested in is south of the border.

Which means:

NO Isolate for you!

Use compounds, gain strength and then maybe consider isolates.[/quote]

what woudl be the harm for a noob to do BOTH? hit the big compounds 3x, FUll body…then hit the iso towards the end of the workout

[quote]GettingBigNow wrote:

what woudl be the harm for a noob to do BOTH? hit the big compounds 3x, FUll body…then hit the iso towards the end of the workout[/quote]

Actually, that’s pretty much the way it should go. The main focus should be on the compounds, and then you can do the beach work.

As long as you’re hitting all your big compounds first, there’s no reason not to do isolation accsesory work afterwards. The whole “isolation sucks!” movement is just close minded bullshit.

LOL at “beach work”

[quote]Tube wrote:
As long as you’re hitting all your big compounds first, there’s no reason not to do isolation accsesory work afterwards. The whole “isolation sucks!” movement is just close minded bullshit.[/quote]

i’ve actually seen beach boys avoid the deads and squats and the only compound i see them do are bench and lat pull downs. they train their arms HARD and they look halfway decent. i believe the whole squat to get big arms thing is BS. take a look at how many lightbulbs there are at the gym

Imagine if someone used common sense and always worked ALL of their muscle groups? They would look like neither a lightbulb nor a big spider.

What a concept!

[quote]mr popular wrote:
Imagine if someone used common sense and always worked ALL of their muscle groups? They would look like neither a lightbulb nor a big spider.

What a concept![/quote]

the voice of reason