Find out what are the most effective single joint exercises for sculpting and muscle separation. Every athlete hears the term "isolated bodybuilding exercises" a lot. However, not everyone understands what exactly the conversation is about. Now we will try to fill this knowledge gap, since this is a fairly important topic.
What is Isolated Bodybuilding Exercise?
Isolated exercises are movements that allow you to work out a specific group of muscles. Let's say, while lifting the barbell for biceps, you load only this muscle. A second example is a seated leg straightening machine that only works the quadriceps.
A similar situation is with, say, the French press, when only triceps are worked out. To determine to which group a particular movement belongs (basic or isolated), you need to find out the number of working joints. When only one is involved, then you are doing an isolated bodybuilding exercise.
If you go back to lifting the bar for biceps, then only the elbow joint works. For this reason, isolated movements are very often also called single-joint movements. And now we need to find out when these exercises should be used, and at what moments they will be ineffective.
When is isolation exercise used in bodybuilding?
It should be said right away that most often these movements are not effective for athletes of any level of training. At the same time, they are very popular and you can often see beginners actively working with single-joint movements and not getting the desired result.
To gain mass, you need to use only basic movements and this fact is not in doubt. These exercises owe their popularity to competing bodybuilders. During the off-season, they try to gain the maximum amount of mass, which is often not of the highest quality and fat accumulates in the body of athletes.
To have a chance to win in any tournament, you need to get rid of fat and give your muscles a relief. For this, so-called drying cycles are used with the use of various pharmacological drugs, for example, diuretics and fat burners. At the same time, builders begin to actively use cardio workout. But aerobic training can quickly destroy muscle tissue, which should not be allowed. And here they come to the rescue of isolated bodybuilding exercises that support the gained mass. In this regard, someone may have a fair question - why not continue to use the base during drying?
The answer is very simple, like everything genius in our life. To obtain a high-quality relief, it is necessary to use rather strict dietary nutrition programs and in the absence of a sufficient amount of energy, the body is significantly weakened. It is also not a secret for anyone that the majority of competing bodybuilders actively use steroids, which must be discarded in preparation for competitions in order to pass doping tests.
In such a situation, it is simply impossible to perform heavy movements, and these are the basic ones. So we have to switch to isolation. For example, to maintain leg muscles, squats should be replaced with leg extension while sitting on the machine. The athlete simply cannot physically perform squats.
It is with this that the opinion is connected that isolated exercises in bodybuilding can improve relief, which is a misconception. Again, you may ask a question about "finishing off" the muscles with the help of isolation. In many training programs, it is recommended to perform an isolated movement after the base, for example, after the press, you can do the dumbbell spread and the French press.
These recommendations apply to "steroid" athletes, whose recovery processes are several times faster than natural athletes. If you are not using AAS, then you should not bring your muscles to complete depletion. However, do not think that isolation can only be effective when using AAS. This is a great way to strengthen your ligaments, which is of great importance in various sports disciplines. For example, thanks to the French press, you can significantly strengthen the ligaments of the elbow joint. Also, isolated bodybuilding exercises can be used when it is necessary to eliminate the lag of any muscle.
Girls often use isolation to train the gluteal muscles. The best movement for the glutes is by far the squat. However, they also pump the quadriceps, which is not very good for a girl, as this can reduce the slenderness of the legs. Try to use basic movements and apply insulation as needed.
Comparison of isolated and basic exercises in this video:
