Does your strength training routine consist of mainly
exercises that make you to do the following movements: curl, extend, raise, fly etc.
If so, it's a big mistake. These are the actions that
isolates the muscles from the rest of the body BUT in real life they all act in concert
with other muscles to get job done. Your body is made to: lift, push, squat, pull and
other complex actions. It is designed to do big, important things like doing compound
exercises like squats and our powerful natural kinetic exercises.
Working the muscles independently, as in doing isolation
exercises like lateral raises, leg extension, triceps pushdowns etc., has many drawbacks.
One, you are wasting a lot of time. Can you imagine trying to
work all your three heads of your shoulders (yes each have three muscles actually) for 3
sets of 10 reps, plus other shoulder exercises? It'll probably take more than half an hour
just to train the shoulders! With a simple exercise like clean and press, it can not only
train all three heads but also your entire
back and leg muscles etc. - all in about 5 mins!
Two, you cannot load the muscles well. Unless you are very
strong, you cannot do lateral raises with 4kg dumbbells for females and 8kg for males. But
you can do them with ease if you do shoulder presses. Loading muscles is one of the key
components in strength training.
Three, the 'burn' you get in the muscles (which is due to
lactic acid buildup and is not an indicator of burning fat which you may have been told by
some smart experts) severely restrict your ability to train harder. To matter worst, such
'burn' is actually very unbearable for some exercisers.
Four, you will get a unbalanced body at the end. Take a close
look at the body of professional bodybuilders who love isolation movements. Why train like
them if you don't want to end up like them?
Five, there is no carry-over effect from these exercises to
your daily activities (what's the closest activity you do that is similar to lateral
shoulder raises exercise?).
Six, you are not burning many calories. A properly designed
workout with mainly compound exercises can easily burn many times more calories than one
with mainly isolation exercises.
The list can go on some more.
Without a doubt, isolation exercises have their place in a
program such as in a rehab program and bringing up a really lagging muscle. Beyond that,
there is little value to using a lot these exercises. So, if more than 1/3 of your program
consists of such exercises, it's time to redesign it unless of course you don't mind the
drawbacks listed above. Do some pulling tomorrow my friend!
