exercises effecient or inefficient ???

F

faz

Active Member
been thinking about this for a while are isos needed for hypertrophy???
for a begginer maybe not,but for a more conditioned athlete i think they are.
the more effecient the exercise the easier it is,so wouldnt making it more inefficient be better.

for hypertrophy we need to stimulate the muscle enough to engage all fibres,so you say compounds use more weight so they will stimulate more fibres,but is that true???

they say if you lift 80% of your 1rm (5rm)you engage all fibres,so lets say you do bench press and you use just over shoulder width press,your using 100k and that is your 5rm,is the chest lifting 100k or are the arms and shoulders contributing,if they are (which they are) then your chest isnt getting 80% so isnt infact engaging all fibres.

but if you do say cable crossovers or db-flys using your 5rm wouldnt the chest be getting 80% so therefore engaging more fibres even though using less weight.

i have been in many gyms and seen big guys doing isos all the time,also if you look at oly or power lifters they are not normaly as big as bbrs,because they need to get the weight up in the most effeicient way,so should bbrs be copying the styles of lifters or just put the muscle under more stress with less weight.
 
I tend to agree with you on this Faz. Your example is an excellent one with the cable crossover. I have no scientific proof but lots of real world experience. Another good example is the peck deck fly. That movement gives continuous tension over the entire range of movement. Now this is one movement that I have tried to use to increase the density of my chest in the center portions of the heads. I used these with a static contraction and followed up the set with partials pushing from the hands instead of the elbow. The mirror told me that it worked. If you read up on some of the old school BBers, they believed that by using isolation movements and partials could effect the appearance of the muscle head such as adding peaks using concentration curls with peak static holds and Scott Curls (Preacher Curls) for longer heads. I believe this is true. The why, IMO, is that these types of movements not only isolate the muscle but they also change the recruitment patterns of the fibers. I believe that different sections of the muscle fibers are activated at different points in the range of movements. By specifically focusing on these areas you can elicit hypertrophy in a region of the muscle head that is not normally activated at such a high degree when using a less specific movement. For gaining bulk over the entire muscle head there is nothing like moving heavy weights in the compounds for sure but the feeling in the muscle belly is not as intense as when an isolation exercise is performed. Even as a PLer I used many isolation exercises to assist my development for the big 3. We are the sum of our parts and I believe that our big compounds lifts are too. By using the isolation work to increase the strength in our individual muscle heads we can increase the sum.
 
my point wasnt to engage different fibres in a muscle "as far as i know that isnt possible",

it was to engage all fibres in specific muscles by isolating those areas.

wildman please leave gaps in your sentences your giving me migrane reading those big blocks
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I agree Faz, for hypertrophy its all about putting the targeted muscle under tension. It doesn't really matter how the weight is lifted, nor how much weight as long as the muscle is being stressed sufficiently. Iso's can be great for this. HST is 'size-oriented' not performance-oriented. The weight on the bar is only a means to an end.
 
Sorry for the gapless books guys. I just let word wrap have at it. I probably say more than I need to as well but I get excited.

I would really like to perform an experiment one of these days to prove or disprove for myself if it is possible to target a portion of a muscle head via partials and angle of tension type work.

My sense of feel tells me that the center of my chest is working more with a peck deck than what I feel in a bench press. My work to target this area of the chest appeared to produce the results I wanted in the mirror.

Perhaps it was just the extra attention that resulted in more overall hypertrophy in the region and one cannot target train in this way but I am skeptical at this point.

I will day dream about how I can develop an experiment and see. Those extra fibers that I am recruiting have to come from someplace in the muscle head and it makes sense to me that they could feasibly only be activated within certain ranges of motion.

Now I must know! Damn you faz and your thought provoking post!  
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(scientific muscle @ Sep. 02 2008,8:34)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I agree Faz, for hypertrophy its all about putting the targeted muscle under tension.  It doesn't really matter how the weight is lifted, nor how much weight as long as the muscle is being stressed sufficiently.  Iso's can be great for this.  HST is 'size-oriented' not performance-oriented.  The weight on the bar is only a means to an end.</div>
cheers mate and agree but maybe not with this point
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">It doesn't really matter how the weight is lifted</div>,
maybe it does lets stick with bench-press if you do this exercise the efficient way you are relying on other muscle groups to help,but lets say you widen the grip so more tension is on the chest,its less efficient but does that then cause more stimulus to the muscle you want to work&quot;which you want&quot;
also bb-curls or preacher curls etc.
 
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(faz @ Sep. 03 2008,10:36)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">sorry for your brain hurting wildman
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I like these kind of discussions as long as they stay civil, which they tend to stay civil on this board at least.

There are some very passionate people in this sport.

Was thinking about this an exercise is an exercise type of thinking and how to debunk it with a reasonable experiment.

Of course compounds wont work for such an experiment. But maybe an isolation movement could produce the results I seek.

Maybe I will try preacher dumbell curls for the left arm and preacher cable curls for the right arm next cycle. I will record the results seperately for both arms and monitor both strength gains and hypertrophy for each.

Both movements will provide good resistance in the lower 80% of the range but the cable work will elicit more resistance in the top 20% or so.

Not sure this would still be the end all test but we might be surprised. The body has a neato way of averaging out to maintain symmetry.

My hypothesis is that I will acquire a slightly higher peak in the arm trained with the cable movement compared to the one trained with the dumbell due to the increased resistance at the peak portion of the lift.
 
I agree with what you guys are saying.

However I would add that even when you are lifting your 80%RM (or whatever %) the muscle is in fact only &quot;feeling&quot; that 80% at one point not throughout it's range.

This is due to the the &quot;lever&quot; effect e.g. when doing bicep curls it is only when the elbow angle is at 90deg to the upper arm (and the forearm is parallel to the ground) that the muscle is hit with the full 80%, at all other times it is experiencing less than 80%. At the bottom the tendon is doing more of the work (tension) and at the top the bone is doing most of the work (compression).

You can of course adjust the point at which this 80% is applied to the muscle (either in a more contracted state e.g. high cable curls/bicept pose or a less contracted state e.g. Preacher curls). Cheating can also adjust the max load position.

I would therefore agree that the pecdec may likely put a more continuous type of tension on the chest muscle (depending on cam etc.) and certainly more tension in the contracted position than bench press.

Doing preacher curls with a dumbell or cable with different arms probably won't stress the muscle to exactly the same % on the different moves as there are so many variables e.g. the angle of cable to the preacher bench will affect the load felt by the muscle but so will the internal lever effect of the arm as it's mechanical advantage will be different at different forearm to upper arm angles.
 
So the million dollar question is, does the overall anabolic effect of a compound movement outweigh more direct stimulus of an isolation movement?

In my experience, my strong points (chest and quads) grow and look good no matter what techniques I implement.  My weak points (shoulders and bis) only grow when I do direct isolated movements.

So for me, isolation movements work well with lagging bodyparts. While, compound movements are my favorite choices for my personal strong points. This probably isn't the best strategy for everyone though, just my 2cents.
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">So the million dollar question is, does the overall anabolic effect of a compound movement outweigh more direct stimulus of an isolation movement?</div>
correct but not only doing isos to stimulate the area more,but doing compounds in an inefficient way rather than an efficient way to produce more stimulus,like widening the grip on bench to hit the chest more etc.
 
I think we'd all agree any muscle needs to be stimulated above a certain point for it to grow, here we're saying that is 80% (though I suspect this changes according to the muscle in question and it's degree of conditioning at that time).

At first compound exercises may only hit some of the muscles used with that +80% stimulus causing them to grow (or not) at different rates (depending on what we've been using those muscles for before that). However over time the muscles will balance out and they will all end up getting enough stimulus to grow at a similar rate. But most of us want those flashy muscles i.e. biceps to grow quicker so we concentrate on them with iso's which probably gets them ahead of the others.

Compounds (&amp; full body) seem to bring additional benefits e.g. increased GH release, greater stimulus etc. But iso's obviously also work well. So for best results you probably want a mixture. It's about choosing the right tool for the job!

I'd say always exercise &quot;inefficiently&quot; to get the most stimulus from your workout if hypertrophy is your aim. You can adjust your grip to target one muscle more than another e.g. when benching. But for the long term a neutral grip that stimulates all muscles in a compound movement would be best . . . . otherwise you could almost be turning into more of an iso as other muscles get less than that &quot;80%&quot;.

Of course doing exercises &quot;efficiently&quot; can also have it's uses e.g. getting past a sticking point. Efficiently should also be taken to mean common cheating practices like swinging to use momentum etc. not just different grips etc that change mechanical advantage. Again it's all about choosing the right tool and knowing when to use it so you get the best results . . . if only there was an easy way to know this!!
 
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(faz @ Sep. 02 2008,2:32)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">been thinking about this for a while are isos needed for hypertrophy???
for a begginer maybe not,but for a more conditioned athlete i think they are.
the more effecient the exercise the easier it is,so wouldnt making it more inefficient be better.

for hypertrophy we need to stimulate the muscle enough to engage all fibres,so you say compounds use more weight so they will stimulate more fibres,but is that true???

they say if you lift 80% of your 1rm (5rm)you engage all fibres,so lets say you do bench press and you use just over shoulder width press,your using 100k and that is your 5rm,is the chest lifting 100k or are the arms and shoulders contributing,if they are (which they are) then your chest isnt getting 80% so isnt infact engaging all fibres.

but if you do say cable crossovers or db-flys using your 5rm wouldnt the chest be getting 80% so therefore engaging more fibres even though using less weight.

i have been in many gyms and seen big guys doing isos all the time,also if you look at oly or power lifters they are not normaly as big as bbrs,because they need to get the weight up in the most effeicient way,so should bbrs be copying the styles of lifters or just put the muscle under more stress with less weight.</div>
inefficient i would say

this is the exact reason i change exercises every 6-8 weeks or so. the body becomes efficient at lifting a certain weight a certain way, it adapts.

so you swap the exercises your body has become efficient at and give it some new ones, where it wont be as efficient. thus the adaptation phase starts al lover again.

obviously the body becomes more efficient at lifting overall so the adaptation is quicker especially for a seasoned lifter.
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Compounds (&amp; full body) seem to bring additional benefits e.g. increased GH release, greater stimulus etc. But iso's obviously also work well. So for best results you probably want a mixture. It's about choosing the right tool for the job! </div>

agree,using compounds only is ok for begginers,but isos are needed the more advanced/conditioned you become.
 
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