Isolation exercises

[Neal Winkler]

On the face of things, I thought that if one used compound movements only, such that you work all muscles evenly with them, that you could not achieve imbalances as you would be working the muscles to the degree for which they have been designed. The thing is, I assumed that degree was one that conferred optimal performance of the organism.

Was this a false assumption? If so, is the implication that isolation will sometimes be necessary?

[Greg Everett]

off the top of my head - consider the push press. it's a compound movement, but it's requires the torso remain completely vertical and is through a limited ROM (for the hips/legs), placing the vast majority of the demand on the quads and very little on the glutes and hamstrings. so it would not naturally prevent imbalances.

i think that to a point, the idea that functional movement will prevent imblanaces is true--but "functional" must be defined very specifically, which greatly limits the movements it can describe.

[Robb Wolf]

Craig-
I think much of the problem lies in the cluelessnes of PT's. We worked with a clinic here in chico and eventually they sold their universal and hammer strength equipment and instead used mop buckets filled with weights for sled work (most of their patients are 60+ years old...they had a ball dragging buckets of weight around the parking lot). They started using the parallel bars for assisted dips and punch ups instead of just gait training.

The only movement these folks are exposed to is bodybuilding as part of their Ther-x (therapeutic exercise). Once they see functional movements and more importantly see the results of functional movements when combined with smart manual therapy, ultrasound stim etc. they are sold. There are still some instances in which thera-band and dumbells are useful for the rotator cuf, although the muscle snatch is my fave in this regard.

Originally Posted by Craig Cooper

This again leads back to the original question: does this really work? In my experience, anytime I send someone off to Physical Therapy to "correct any muscular deficiencies" they only see improvements when not using the muscle(s) in question. As soon as they return to regular activity, the problem returns. Correcting deficiencies through isolation work seems to defy the notion that our body is a system working in integration, not isolation. Can't you prehab/correct deficiencies with well executed compound functional movements?

[Yael Grauer]

Okay, so to ask a dumb question probably everyone here but me knows the answer to... what I'd heard from everywhere before CF is that the point of doing isolation exercises is so that you can lift heavier more days in a row (2/3/4 day split workouts instead of full body workouts) so that one part of your body can recover while you abuse another part of your body. Of course you can still do this with compound exercises if you mix 'em up, but what if one area the compound exercise would be targetting is still sore/beat up and another isn't? Also general popular opinion (again non-CF) seems to be that working an area that is already really sore is a bad idea.

I guess this question goes beyond isolation vs. compound and towards working different body parts--it just seems to make more sense to divide exercises into areas they work so you can work f'in HARD two days in a row
instead of having to take a break every other day (I've been doing this with core and leg workouts so I can do 2-on 1-off instead of just every other day, since I can't do upper body or weights right now)...

And then this would tie in the question of how sore do you need to be to feel like you got a good workout. I was talking to a Thai boxer the other day, a very good one, who told me he never gets sore anymore...I have seen him train and he definitely works his tail off... If I wasn't getting sore anymore, I'd probably want to work in some new moves or something, but I guess there are other ways to gauge improvement...

[Robb Wolf]

This may work to sell Weider mags...and it likely works in drugged up bodybuilders but training Nadds-to-the-windshield too frequently is not a recipe for success.

[Yael Grauer]

Wow. Why the heck am I timing everything then?

[Robb Wolf]

Timing and tracking things is great, not having down time and training with some eye towards loading and unloading weeks is vital lest one find themselves sleep disturbed with a bum elbow...

[Yael Grauer]

And all this time I thought it was from working out at 1 in the morning and my archaic refusal to use ice!

[Robb Wolf]

That is a confounding factor...