Compound/Iso tweak

Q

quadancer

New Member
Regarding our love for compounds as our main movements or only movements, I just thought of this:
Since a compound usually hits a muscle GROUP, and works it pretty well, but most of us have a set or pair of muscles we'd like to see pop out more or faster; what if we did merely one set of an iso after a compound? I mean, would this be enough to increase hypertrophy in a particular part?
I.E. - say you are doing deads...this warms up and exersizes your traps...but as in my case, doesn't really "hit" them. So I would add one set of shrugs to this warmed and exersized muscle set to take advantage of the pre-exhaustion...but I wouldn't be beating them to death by overreaching. So I'm done and out of my gym.
For Dips: a tricep set afterward.
For Rows: reverse flyes (for rear delts) or curls for bi's...and so forth.
 
Yes it would increase hypertrophy.

Overreaching - relative to individual, so trial and error

Anecdote - Earlier this year I did a 12 week maxstim program. End of cycle found I gained a few inches everywhere, except for my arms which only grew half an inch. Being the big arm wannabe that I am, next cycle used more iso's for arms (curls, pushdowns etc). 12 weeks later measured arms, only half an inch still. Same gains as previous cycle. So my n=1 conclusion was only a certain amount of hypertrophy can be stimulated per week.(obviously relative to individual)

Conclusion - trial and error
 
this is similar to super setting or pre-exhaust(as you mentioned).i do this sometimes for chest,do a set of b/p then drop some weight off and go into cgb,job done out the door.although those are two compounds,ive used it also for biceps,i hit a set of seated rows(close grip)then into a set of biceps,ouch its a killer.

as regards to additional hypertrophy,its difficult to tell as growth is usually so slow,especially the more advanced you get.although i think its an efficient way of hitting lagging muscles or muscles of particular interest.

im fussy when it comes to training all body parts and this is why i had to change my hst routine.it just wasnt enough to hit basic compounds,i have to hit most muscle groups,which gave me too many exercises to do.

but this type of training allowed me to sneak in several extra exercises without warming up.thus cutting down time in the gym.
 
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(quadancer @ Jul. 14 2007,22:39)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I.E. - say you are doing deads...this warms up and exersizes your traps...but as in my case, doesn't really &quot;hit&quot; them. So I would add one set of shrugs to this warmed and exersized muscle set to take advantage of the pre-exhaustion...but I wouldn't be beating them to death by overreaching.</div>
I've been doing shrugs after my deads. I don't do it so much for the pre-exhaustion, as that -- what the heck -- I've already got the bar loaded!

Be careful with shrugs on top of deads, though. I've only been doing that for a coupla cycles and I'm starting to get little bumps on my shoulders next to my neck -- they almost look like muscles...
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I do calf Isos after squats. It's just easy to keep the weight on the bar, move my little home-made platform under my feet and do calf raises. I just let the bar slide up and down the wooden structure I use for squats. I seem to be able to do 5 or 6 more reps with the weight on the calves than I did for squats. I just do one set.

I do one set each of preacher curls, skull crushers and sit-ups after each workout too. I figure that since I'm on just my second year of lifting, I may certainly benefit from a little more arm work. I might benefit from a lot more arm work too, but with three full body workouts per week, I don't need to fry my arms and maybe screw up the next workout's compound performance.
 
Customizing HST, known as the guide for advanced HST'ers, advises people to perform their isolations after their compounds. It's more of an exhaustion technique than anything, so focus isn't stolen away from the heavy compound work.
 
If you are going to do an iso then it's a good idea to use a movement which allows you to increase strain and/or stretch on a muscle over and above what you can accomplish with a compound.
 
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(Lol @ Jul. 16 2007,07:49)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">If you are going to do an iso then it's a good idea to use a movement which allows you to increase strain and/or stretch on a muscle over and above what you can accomplish with a compound.</div>
Best advice yet!

Quad you were not around with Vicious was posting here...he was one of the few guys who was with Bryan and HST from the beginning.

Anyway...he wrote PIMP my HST and he was a big believer in STRETCH POINT training.

For chest he recommened I do Benchpress in Giant set fashion with Flys to spark growth!

Long story short give it a try...I think ISO are great just for muscle growth!
 
I agree with everyone that an iso set after compound workout is beneficial, especially for advanced trainees.

Although I don't do many iso's, I will probably add some in my next bulking cycle as I am sort of getting to an 'advanced' point.
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My favorite iso's
biceps: dumbell hammer curls
triceps: skullcrushers
lats: DB rows (ok, not an iso, but destroys the lats primarily)
pecs:flyes
quads: leg extensions (I miss not having a leg ext. machine, people make fun of them, but they are great for directly stimulating the quads)
traps: power shrugs
deltoids: laterals (light weights apply alot of tension, because of the physics of leverage, arms are very long levers!)
 
Joe: was Vicious recommending full sets alternating, or just a single set after the compounds, as in the flavor of this thread?
I'd done alternating sets of bench and flyes a long time ago, and I don't remember it working, but I know a lot more now, so I may have done it wrong. (no progression or something.)
 
Quad I believe it went like this:

We will us a set of 10 reps for example.

1 set of 10 rep set

Rest 2 mins

2 set...followed immediatyl buy dumbell flys with a deep stretch. (stop 2 rep shy of failure or so)

then another set of flys with less weight.

I believe it is correct...???....I will see if I can dig it up for you!
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">triceps: skullcrushers</div>

I miss these!

Calf Raises are considered an isolation exercise too!
 
Joe; that's pretty much the same, except just using two sets of the iso's instead of one. I'm still wondering about the effectiveness of just one set though, considering that we were previously only doing compounds for the muscle and most of us maintaining or even growing that way.
 
From what I understand...if you are going to play around with failure and really pushing the muscles...ISO's are the way to go at least from a CNS standpoint!

I will tell you the biggest difference I see in 2 to 3 sets vs mutiple is the following.

I think multiple sets &quot;could&quot; give you better hypertrophy...but the reason they don't and HST works so good...IMO is b/c of the calorie depletion.

When I do a cycle of HIGH reps of 40 ish range...it feels awesome...but over the course of a year or so of doing this I just can't keep up the calories to grow!

So thats were the 20 to 30 reps works better for me.

IN a controlled enviroment given adequate calories for both rep ranges I think the more would be better though.

Long story short (or longer..hehe).

The one extra set of ISO shouldn't hurt you at all!
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<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">If you are going to do an iso then it's a good idea to use a movement which allows you to increase strain and/or stretch on a muscle over and above what you can accomplish with a compound.</div>

This is exactly what I am doing currently, check out my training log.

Everything except legs is supersetted with exactly this approach.
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<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">If you are going to do an iso then it's a good idea to use a movement which allows you to increase strain and/or stretch on a muscle over and above what you can accomplish with a compound. </div>
Exactly what Lol said. I am doing this with bench followed by DB flyes.
 
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