HST and iso's

[Joe.Muscle]

Guys I have never really added any iso to my routine.

Always compound b/c of the obvious benefits.

However I know fausto and a couple of others have done them on off days.

I am not a fan of that..b/c I feel like off days should be for straight recovery.

However I was wondering what everyone opinion was say if I did say iso's for just my chest one day out of the 3 i workout.

So monday would be bench or dips

Wednesday would be flys

Friday repeat monday.

My question is if I increased the weight every week for flys just like regular hst...would this be effective?

Now I know its as effective for overall growth as a compound would be but for one single muscle group would this be efficient?

Thanks

 

[Old and Grey]

4 of my 13 exercises this cycle would be considered isolations or single joint exercises. They are done along with the 9 compounds and are used to hit a specific muscle more directly than a compound can. I would not do them on off days unless I adjusted my volume to accommodate the extra frequency.

 

[scientific muscle]

Nothing wrong with isolations. Do them the same way as compounds with progression and frequency. I recently added some iso's: incline DB curls, DB triceps extensions, and flyes. I added these to get extra stretch for the arms and pecs...I ended up dropping the flyes as it was too much, dips are already stretching my pectoral fibers to the max! I am so far loving the incline curls and incline overhead extensions...my arms have been lagging as I have done no direct arm work since starting in May!

 

[Joe.Muscle]

Scientific.

In your opinion...how should I add say flys to my routine.

For example if I am doing 3 sets of 10 rep for 10 degree dumbell press.

Do I do only 1 set of them and then 2 sets of flys?

Arm isos are a no brainer...but for say chest...I am not sure what is the best way to set this up and not do to much?

Thanks

 

[scientific muscle]

one set of each should be fine.  The more exercises per bodypart, the less sets you want to do per exercise.

 

[Cova]

I feel isolations are better utilized for the super elite BBs or people that have a lagging body part. The only exception that I would add to this is bicep isos.

Because the Bicep plays a huge role in the way you wrist turns, it should be common sense to do curls that apply a wrist turning fuction.

 

[Fausto]

Joe

In my opinion doing iso's on off days goes a long way towards:

1 - Speeding up lagging body parts

2 - Adding iso's to one's routine without interfering with performance for the compounds, thus the off days thing.

Stands to reason that you think your chest is a lagging body part and therefore you wish to bring up to speed.

What you doing is substituting one day compounds (for chest) for one isolation as part of your normal routine.

IMHO, you loosing out one day p/week on progression for a particular compound to include an isolation instead. I feel you would be better off either doing the iso on days off (although this may mean going to the gym just for that (not so cool

).

On the other hand as it is and to avoid visiting the gym just for that compound, I'd rather include the iso (fly in this case) as an add on to the compound and maintain progression for both.

Try using it say 2 sets bench or dips folowed by one set flys, or even supersetting both one bench, one fly (no rest) and doing three sets of this, I feel the benefits would be greatly enhanced...but the again that is my opinion...and I am one of those lab coat people

 

[Bryan Haycock]

Nothing wrong with isolation movements. I use them on arms and shoulders.

They really come in handy to work around injuries as well. Not that its a good idea to train with injuries...I'm just sayin'.

 

[quadancer]

<div>
(Old and Grey @ Nov. 26 2006,19:17)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">4 of my 13 exercises this cycle would be considered isolations or single joint exercises. They are done along with the 9 compounds and are used to hit a specific muscle more directly than a compound can. I would not do them on off days unless I adjusted my volume to accommodate the extra frequency.</div>
That was exactly my workout, until I dropped arm iso's every other workout. I haven't lost any arm size, and put extra effort into the squats in the meantime.

I feel (IMO, anecdotal, personal experience, gut feeling) that doing them a couple times a week helps eliminate wasting, for me.
Now, when you do arms on offdays, you are working a muscle that is supposed to be resting and repairing and IMO you will more than likely shrink rather than hypertrophy. That's working it every day!

 

[style]

I like the idea of doing a chest iso. Like sci said Id keep the volume low since your already working that b-part.

My arms are growing nicely without isos

 

[Cova]

Speaking of recovery...is it ok to pump out some pushups and stuff on recovery days even though you did a full body workout the day before? I mean, my triceps are just growing and growing with each workout, but is it possibly too hard on other muscles.

 

I know that since I am a teenager, my test levels are going to be similar to a 35yo on roids.  

Oh btw......what are some good forearm isos that will make them explode? It seems I have hit the plataeu in growth from doing bicep curls with barbell.

 

[scientific muscle]

I haven't done almost any isolations at all and I have 13&quot; forearms, how much can you dead-lift Cova? If you can dead-lift 400 lb.s for reps and you still aren't happy with your forearms, then you could consider iso's, like wrist curls, etc.

I also have 15&quot; upper arms, built from doing nothing but compounds...chins, rows, presses, etc. I am still relatively weak....I recently added dips to my routine which will probably bring up the triceps. Isolations have their place, but the big compounds will bring the arms and delts, etc, to a decent size. I am shooting for 17&quot; upper arms and 14&quot; forearms, should be no problem using only compounds, but I sometimes do arm and deltoid iso's for fun.

 

[Joe.Muscle]

Doing pushups...should not be a problem.

However...if you are growing...and it sounds like you are...then don't change a thing.

Trust me on this...if its not broke dont fix it.

If you are in your teens concentrate on a couple of things only.

Keep it simple.

My main concern would be the following.

Increase load as often as possible i.e. (get stronger)

Make sure you are eating enough.

And maybe throw in some creatine...its seems to work wonders on teenagers!

Just don't do too much...you have the TEST advantage right now...make sure you use it properly.

May the force be with you!

 

[vagrant]

I don't know brother. I'll let you know in about 8 weeks how it went. We know what I did my first 8 weeks on HST doing 13 different exercises each workout. Squat, dead, bench, row, OHP, shrug, calf raise, skull crusher, BB curl, cable crunch, pullups, leg extensions, and good mornings for 2x15, 3x10, 5x5, 5x5.

Now I'm just going to do 8 weeks of 5's with a little different progression and no iso's at all. Just squat, dead, bench, row, OHP, chinup, cable crunch. I'll let you know how it turns out when I'm done. Some of my experiments go well. Others just don't go.