[quote]flipcollar wrote:
It’s really a silly question to ask which one’s better if you plan on doing both anyway. There’s no real-world application here. Especially for a beginner.[/quote]
+1
This is like asking if eggs or beef is a better protein source. Well, just eat some of each. Both are good for you.
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
It’s really a silly question to ask which one’s better if you plan on doing both anyway. There’s no real-world application here. Especially for a beginner.[/quote]
+1
This is like asking if eggs or beef is a better protein source. Well, just eat some of each. Both are good for you.[/quote]
But what’s the optimum ratio of eggs to beef? I don’t want to shortchange my gains.
What if the beef I’m eating comes from the wrong part of the cow? How many yolks should there be per pound of beef? Should the whites and yolks be in equal ratio? Does it matter if I use Large or X-Large eggs?
There’s too much information, I don’t know what to do.
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
Realllllly…
Of course every individual’s ability to tap into the MMC / isolate a given muscle will be different, but Bret certainly seemed to find that chins and pull-ups stimulated the biceps more than lat pulldowns. Like, a lot more.
[/quote]
That’s interesting, but as Bret notes, he used more weight with the chin-ups vs the pulldowns. Although the body weight chin ups still had more biceps activation than the lat pulldown, they were both still behind most of the various curls when it came to biceps activation.
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
I do direct arm work, and I do compound back movements. I think both are effective at building arms.
When I was younger, I did much more isolation. I didn’t do heavy rows or tons of pullups. I grew significantly more, in all parts of my body, when I focused on the heavy compounds and limited my isolation work. Compound movements have always given me better results, but again, I think both have their place in training. It’s really a silly question to ask which one’s better if you plan on doing both anyway. There’s no real-world application here. Especially for a beginner.[/quote]
If compounds give you the same or better results, why do you still do isolation work? And the question I’ve been dancing around is, if you can achieve a better MMC with isolation work, why would you do compound work (other than training economy or necessity – tough to train certain bodyparts without compounds)?
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
It’s really a silly question to ask which one’s better if you plan on doing both anyway. There’s no real-world application here. Especially for a beginner.[/quote]
+1
This is like asking if eggs or beef is a better protein source. Well, just eat some of each. Both are good for you.[/quote]
I suppose I’m not making myself clear, which is my fault. I’m not asking which are better, compounds or isolation exercises. What I’m asking is IF you have a better MMC for a specific muscle with an isolation exercise, for purposes of increasing the size of THAT muscle, is there any reason to do compound exercises with which you have worse MMC? If yes, why?
For example, if a lifter hits his pectorals with variations of flyes with which he has excellent MMC, is there any reason to do various forms of chest presses for the purpose of pectoral hypertrophy?
[quote]Pantherhare wrote:
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
Realllllly…
Of course every individual’s ability to tap into the MMC / isolate a given muscle will be different, but Bret certainly seemed to find that chins and pull-ups stimulated the biceps more than lat pulldowns. Like, a lot more.
[/quote]
That’s interesting, but as Bret notes, he used more weight with the chin-ups vs the pulldowns. Although the body weight chin ups still had more biceps activation than the lat pulldown, they were both still behind most of the various curls when it came to biceps activation.
[/quote]
Huh?
Nowhere in that article does Bret note that he used more weight with the chin-ups vs the pulldowns. If he does, please point me to where he says that. (And what does that even mean, anyway? The “weight” on a lat pulldown is a plate-loaded stack, but how hard it is to lift depends on the pulley setup, the friction, whether the thing has been lubed recently, etc…every lat pulldown machine is different, so I don’t even see how one can make a very meaningful comparison of the “weight” in a lat pulldown machine vs. a bodyweight movement)
*Edited to add - upon rereading, I do see where he said that. But even if we ignore that and just use the bodyweight chin:
Body weight chinup had 43 mean, 100 peak for the biceps.
None of the lat pulldowns - of any variant (he was loading the lat PD to 240-280 pounds, mind you, I have a hard time seeing how anyone’s going to load it much more than that) - had more than 23 mean or 75 peak.
Seems like a pretty big difference.
As for pointing out that it’s behind the curls…well, now you’re shifting the goalposts. I referenced this article to refute the assertion that “they could do lat pulldowns, which shouldn’t be too much different than pullups with respect to impact to the arm flexors.”
[quote]Pantherhare wrote:
I suppose I’m not making myself clear, which is my fault. I’m not asking which are better, compounds or isolation exercises. What I’m asking is IF you have a better MMC for a specific muscle with an isolation exercise, for purposes of increasing the size of THAT muscle, is there any reason to do compound exercises with which you have worse MMC? If yes, why?
For example, if a lifter hits his pectorals with variations of flyes with which he has excellent MMC, is there any reason to do various forms of chest presses for the purpose of pectoral hypertrophy?
[/quote]
This is all hand-waving on my part, but, my understanding is that both the size and strength of a particular muscle can be limited by the size and the strength of the neighboring muscles. Basically that there are certain governing factors (neural or something else) that keeps muscles from getting too far out of line with their neighbors and antagonists.
As an example, let’s say you could theoretically completely isolate the clavicular head of the pecs. You may be able to take them from their current size and add another 30% or so, without training anything else in your body, but you’ll have a very hard time to grow it much more… unless you also train the sternal head of the pecs, and the pec minor, etc.
Or in even simpler terms, that you can grow your arms without training anything else, but after a point, they won’t get much/any bigger until you get bigger elsewhere.
So given that admittedly very speculative understanding, my thoughts are that unless you have a very well thought out and balanced set of isolation exercises, that keep everything growing in the “right” balance (for your body’s governing mechanisms), that you’re going to be better off with a base of compound exercises, with isolation for emphasis.
With a compound lift, you’re always going to be working with the motor patterns your body is comfortable with, and knows how to keep in balance. It also is limited by the weakest links, so if you bring those up, it will “allow” the other muscles to get bigger.
In short, I think the compound + isolation approach will be superior in most cases, all else being equal.
I personally feel for a beginner, and for those with limited training time, Doing compound movements should always trump isolation movements. For the more advanced lifter with time on his/her hands, a mix of the two should be incorporated.
In Nov 2013 was the first time I ever measured my arms, 14" cannons! At the time, I could hit around 325 on bench, but didn’t have much to show for it. I walked around at 148 lbs. I could do 37 neutral grip pullups, and a 1 arm with my left arm even. Not until I started adding in isolation (and committing to gaining some weight) did my arms grow much. Still only 15.5" but most say they look bigger than that.
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
*Edited to add - upon rereading, I do see where he said that. But even if we ignore that and just use the bodyweight chin:
Body weight chinup had 43 mean, 100 peak for the biceps.
None of the lat pulldowns - of any variant (he was loading the lat PD to 240-280 pounds, mind you, I have a hard time seeing how anyone’s going to load it much more than that) - had more than 23 mean or 75 peak.
Seems like a pretty big difference.
As for pointing out that it’s behind the curls…well, now you’re shifting the goalposts. I referenced this article to refute the assertion that “they could do lat pulldowns, which shouldn’t be too much different than pullups with respect to impact to the arm flexors.”
[/quote]
I acknowledged that the bodyweight chinups still had greater activation than the lat pulldown in my post. Also, it wasn’t my intent to shift goal posts, because my original question was compound upper back exercises vs isolation biceps exercises for biceps hypertrophy and whether a trainee was skinny or obese wouldn’t impact that answer (ie BW chins still lower biceps activation than curls).
[quote]LoRez wrote:
This is all hand-waving on my part, but, my understanding is that both the size and strength of a particular muscle can be limited by the size and the strength of the neighboring muscles. Basically that there are certain governing factors (neural or something else) that keeps muscles from getting too far out of line with their neighbors and antagonists.
As an example, let’s say you could theoretically completely isolate the clavicular head of the pecs. You may be able to take them from their current size and add another 30% or so, without training anything else in your body, but you’ll have a very hard time to grow it much more… unless you also train the sternal head of the pecs, and the pec minor, etc.
Or in even simpler terms, that you can grow your arms without training anything else, but after a point, they won’t get much/any bigger until you get bigger elsewhere.
So given that admittedly very speculative understanding, my thoughts are that unless you have a very well thought out and balanced set of isolation exercises, that keep everything growing in the “right” balance (for your body’s governing mechanisms), that you’re going to be better off with a base of compound exercises, with isolation for emphasis.
With a compound lift, you’re always going to be working with the motor patterns your body is comfortable with, and knows how to keep in balance. It also is limited by the weakest links, so if you bring those up, it will “allow” the other muscles to get bigger.
In short, I think the compound + isolation approach will be superior in most cases, all else being equal.[/quote]
I get what you’re saying, but in your example, the different portions of the pecs are still hit with isolation exercises like flyes. See Contreras’ experiments with EMG.
And presumably you’re doing a bodypart split, so that other parts of your body that might limit the size of the pectorals after a certain point, like the triceps (which get a decent amount of stimulation with a bench press but not much with flyes), would get its share of stimulation through triceps isolation exercises. So I’m not sure fear of other body parts holding back the targeted muscle is a reason to do compound exercises.
As I’ve posted earlier, there’s a clear training economy advantage with compound exercises and if, for example, you put chest and triceps on different days, it allows for more training frequency for the triceps.
Also, not that it matters, I use both like most people on here. I was just idly wondering about this.
Edited to add: Another important detail I forgot to add, it’s generally easier to progress on a compound exercise (eg adding 5 pounds to a bench press vs 5-10 pounds on flyes).
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
I personally feel for a beginner, and for those with limited training time, Doing compound movements should always trump isolation movements. [/quote]
I agree.
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
For the more advanced lifter with time on his/her hands, a mix of the two should be incorporated.
In Nov 2013 was the first time I ever measured my arms, 14" cannons! At the time, I could hit around 325 on bench, but didn’t have much to show for it. I walked around at 148 lbs. I could do 37 neutral grip pullups, and a 1 arm with my left arm even. Not until I started adding in isolation (and committing to gaining some weight) did my arms grow much. Still only 15.5" but most say they look bigger than that. [/quote]
I don’t necessarily disagree, but IF your goal was bigger arms, why, given your experience, would a lifter continue to include compound exercises when they didn’t do much to add size to your arms despite impressive strength levels? (I know your goals probably weren’t limited to bigger arms, I’m just saying if they were)
Panther you seem to believe pretty strongly that an impressive physique can be achieved with ONLY isolation movements. Can you point to a single athlete, bodybuilder, or any human who has attained an impressive physique in this manner? Surely at least 1 person would have done this by now if it was possible. You think there’s a single Olympia competitor in history who didn’t rely heavily on compound movements?
@pantherhare…
You should spend the next 6 months ONLY doing isolation exercises and see if you achieve your goals during that time.
The answer is, of course, me.
I will have the biggest biceps.
Me.
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
Panther you seem to believe pretty strongly that an impressive physique can be achieved with ONLY isolation movements. Can you point to a single athlete, bodybuilder, or any human who has attained an impressive physique in this manner? Surely at least 1 person would have done this by now if it was possible. You think there’s a single Olympia competitor in history who didn’t rely heavily on compound movements?[/quote]
I’m sorry that I gave you that impression, I actually don’t know if it can be done nor do I know of anyone who has done it. I’ve never made the assertion, but perhaps ActivitiesGuy can chime in because he claimed that it could be done. I’m just wondering why, given the reasons I’ve already listed, it cannot be done.
[quote]Bauber wrote:
Me.[/quote]
You win!
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
@pantherhare…
You should spend the next 6 months ONLY doing isolation exercises and see if you achieve your goals during that time. [/quote]
It’d be tough to do ONLY isolation exercises, especially for bodyparts like back (and thus biceps by association) and hamstrings. But I wonder if removing something like all chest compound exercises and replacing them with variations of flyes would be a worthwhile experiment for a couple of months. It seems like a lot of guys have said they improved their shoulders by ditching presses and sticking only to raises.
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
[quote]Bauber wrote:
Me.[/quote]
You win![/quote]
Yup
[quote]Pantherhare wrote: It seems like a lot of guys have said they improved their shoulders by ditching presses and sticking only to raises.
[/quote]
not really the same thing as replacing presses with flyes.
Guys who say that they’ve improved their shoulders by sticking to raises mean that they focussed on the lateral and rear heads of their delts (pretty much impossible to do with presses) instead of just trying to add poundages to shoulder pressing, which only ever targetted their anterior delts.
See what I mean?