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Compound vs. Isolation Exercises: Which is Right for You?

When it comes to strength training and building muscle, there are two primary categories of exercises: compound and isolation. Each type has its benefits and serves different purposes in a fitness routine. Understanding the differences between these two forms or resistance training can be extremely useful and inform your personal training routine.

Compound Exercises

Compound exercises involve multiple muscle groups and joints working together to perform a movement. If more than one joint is working, more than one muscle group is working. These exercises recruit a range of muscles making them extremely effective for overall strength and muscle gain. Some examples of compound exercises include squats, deadlifts, bench presses, and pull-ups.

Advantages of Compound Exercises

• Efficiency – Compound exercises are time-efficient because they work multiple muscles at once. This means you can achieve a full-body workout with fewer exercises.
• Functional Strength – They promote functional strength, helping you perform everyday activities more efficiently.
• Calorie Burn – Compound movements burn more calories due to the increased muscle engagement, making them beneficial for weight loss.
• Hormonal Response – Compound exercises stimulate the release of hormones like testosterone and growth hormone, which help muscle growth and overall health and wellness.

Isolation Exercises

Isolation exercises target a single muscle group and involve movement at only one joint. Bicep curls, tricep extensions, and leg extensions are examples of isolation exercises. These exercises are often used to target specific muscles.

Advantages of Isolation Exercises

• Muscle Focus – Isolation exercises allow you to isolate and target a specific muscle group, making them useful for strengthening specific areas of the body.
• Injury Rehabilitation -They are valuable for rehabilitating injuries or strengthening weaker muscles that may not be ready for compound exercises. Isolation exercises are a must for anyone rehabbing after mild to severe injuries.
• Mind-Muscle Connection – Isolation exercises help develop a strong mind-muscle connection, enhancing your ability to feel and engage the targeted muscle.

Which should you choose?

You should choose to do both variations of resistance exercises. Compounds will help to improve overall strength and can add large amounts of muscle to the body when compared to isolation exercises. However Isolation exercises are extremely useful at given times, for example when a client of mine is feeling a little fatigued I will incorporate more exercises to the session as they require less energy and when done correctly the risk of injury is extremely low.

Both variations have their benefits and a well rounded training program will make use of both Compound and Isolation exercises.

When working with a client I will use a variety of exercises including Compound and Isolation along with a varied exercise range and muscle contractions to promote muscle growth and a healthier well functioning body that can perform a range of functional movements.

If you want more information about the topics discussed in this article get in touch today and we can arrange a phone consultation or better yet book a session and we can start you on your path to a healthier lifestyle.

I have been working out of gyms for almost 30 years now and this is the one tip I wish I could pass on to as many people as possible.

It’s a very simple muscle contraction that is the most effective for building muscle. This is called the eccentric muscle contraction. An eccentric muscle contraction occurs when a muscle lengthens while under tension,
typically during the lowering phase of an exercise. For example, when you lower a dumbbell during a bicep curl, your bicep is undergoing an eccentric contraction. Eccentric contractions can be beneficial for muscle due to increased muscle damage: Eccentric contractions cause more micro-tears in muscle fibres compared to concentric (shortening) contractions. This increased damage triggers the body’s repair and growth processes, leading to muscle hypertrophy (growth).

Another benefit is that muscles can handle more load during eccentric contractions than during concentric ones. This means you can work with heavier weights during the lowering phase, which can stimulate greater muscle growth. Growing muscle like any discipline has a right and a wrong way, in my 30 years of resistance training I have learned how to grow muscle in a safe and effective way. One consideration for training in this way, is that you will often need a training partner or personal trainer to spot you during this eccentric phase (and to help with the concentric phase of the lift – think shoulder press) – and that’s where I come in.

Get in touch if you’d like to train together and break through any current plateaus you have. Would love to hear from you!

Jason

As a running coach based out of Galway, I get alot of questions from potential clients about running, speed development and running technique. Here’s some of the most frequently asked questions I get asked:

• Is running good for me?

Yes running is absolutely one of the most all around beneficial forms of exercises you can partake in. Running uses all the major muscle groups, from calves to glutes to back and shoulders. The cardiovascular benefits are also second to none with higher speeds of running really challenging the heart and lungs to function effectively.

• How do I start running?

Start slow and start short. Start by running slowly, allow your body to adapt to your new form of exercise by focusing on running technique. Start short with small runs, 5 minutes away from your house and 5 minutes home.

• Is running good for fat loss?

Running has been proven to be the best form of fat loss when you are moving at high speeds, this is known as sprinting but at high speeds our risk of injury goes up so build up to your top speed slowly over the course of several weeks.

• Do I need to warm up before running ?

Yes a warm up is strongly recommended before running, running is a dynamic form of movement and any dynamic form of movement requires a warm up. This can be as short as 10 minutes of light jogging on the spot, squat movements, lunges and arm swings will all have a positive effect.

• Should I stretch before running ?

Yes stretching is extremely beneficial, but dynamic stretching is strongly recommended where static stretching is recommended only after your training session is over.

• How often should I run?

This is a serious issue with many runners, loading is important, overloading the body and an injury is inevitable. If I were to try Christiano Ronaldo’s weekly training I would expect an input within a week or two, allowing the body time to adapt to the new loading stress.

• What mileage should I be doing weekly?

This is linked to loading and there is no set distance per week you should be running, some weeks I run 5km, some weeks I run track sessions that are about to little more than a mile total. Listen to your body, if it feels loose and healthy you can further load it, if it feels fatigued and tight it’s time to take a break and allow for a recovery period.

• How do I avoid injuries?

Loading, warm up, stretching, running technique, and allowing for recovery time will reduce injuries by a shocking margin. Start slowly and short, warm up, stretch before and after and let your body rest and injuries can often be completely avoided.

• How do I improve my running times?

Strength and conditioning, plyometrics, shorter faster runs will greatly reduce your running times.

• Will running give me large muscles?

Yes and no, the glutes, quads, calves and hamstrings will definitely become more muscular while the upper body shows little sir of muscle development. Any movement pattern that causes fatigue will build muscle but you will not create a bodybuilders physique though running, although you will create a lean athletic physique.

I hope you found some of these frequently asked questions about running useful, if you’d like to have a chat about your running journey, be it from a beginners point of view or as a GAA athlete or similar, please get in touch. 

Jason – Should I lose fat or build muscle first?

This is a question that I have heard many times in my 20 years experience in health and fitness. And it’s definitely not going to be the last any time soon! A quick Google search for the answer makes it even more confusing even to myself. The answer you will get is to lose fat first, however this makes very little sense to anyone who is in the know! I have even heard on occasion that losing fat and building muscles can’t be done at the
same time.

This is of course absolutely false, you can lose fat and build muscle at the same time, in fact I strongly recommend it. The more muscle your body has in terms of its power output, i.e how much power can your muscles produce will inevitably use more energy than weaker muscle with less capabilities to produce power. Being active all day requires muscle that doesn’t fatigue quickly, and being active all day will require more energy. So how does this affect the outcome of the question of fat V muscle first?

Powerful muscle that can be effective for longer uses more energy, and what is fat used for in the body? Energy! Food is our energy, excess intake of energy results in excess body fat. Now at this point a calorie deficit must be touched upon, if you are below your energy requirements/ food intake for the day you will burn off your reserve energy supply, body fat! So a calorie deficit is as always required when losing body fat.

So powerful muscles that you use all day will burn off more fat so logically more muscle will use more energy. So if you begin immediately following a resistance training program that will result in hypertrophy/muscle growth you will gain more muscle which will in turn use your body fat as an energy source, with the right nutritional guidance body fat will begin to be removed from your body instantaneously.

I hope you found this helpful and if you want to understand more about building muscle and losing body fat try my online coaching program which covers resistance training, cardio including anaerobic and aerobic cardio with tailor made nutrition plans. Get in contact and book your free consultation today – I would love to hear from you!

Jason

How to improve your 5k time. Guaranteed results!

Improving your 5 km time has many variables, better sleep, nutrition, running shoes etc, but a very simple and long term method to improve your 5k is to do shorter, faster runs. 

Shorter running at a faster pace will improve your fast twitch fibre power output, this will lead to a longer stride length with improved distance with each stride.  By running shorter, faster runs such as 800 metre runs your body is adapting to using type 2 muscle fibres which allow you to move faster while using less energy. 

Fast twitch fibres are essential for speed, so training them will result in guaranteed lowered 5 km times. This doesn’t have to interfere with your regular training schedule, simply try to incorporate this into your regular training week. 

A very good and extremely simple training session would be to choose either 3 x 800 metres or 4 x 400 metres. 

The breaks shouldn’t be too short, we are training fast twitch fibres which have limited stamina so allow for longer recovery times, if the recovery time is too short the runs will get steadily slower as your body will simply call on your type 1 muscle fibres also known as slow twitch due to their superior stamina.  Although times will vary for each runner, try to keep the break at3/4 minutes, if your times drop significantly take a longer break and try to keep the time of each run as similar as possible. 

Sound achievable?

If you need some assistance or guidance in putting together a running plan so you can beat your existing 5K time – reach out to me to discuss further – I would love to hear from you!

The first step when entering the acceleration phase of running is essential, within us all is a fear of falling, this fear of falling actually prevents us from moving faster.

Try this at home and you will see the results in real-time, stand with two feet together and lean forward from the ankles keeping the rest of your body straight. As you begin to lean forward gravity will take hold and you will inevitably fall forward, so to prevent this fall we will put our foot forward and prevent this, but this causes a braking motion which is usually an athlete’s first step. So the first step causes the body to slow down which if fixed will lead to and increase in speed instantly.

This is corrected by allowing the body to lean forward from the ankles but instead of putting the foot out to prevent the fall, drive the foot in a backward motion pushing the ground away from under your feet. A good image is to think of pushing something heavy, like a car, if you try to push the car standing upright not a lot will happen, but if you lean forward and drive your feet back pushing the ground behind you the car will begin to move. This is the same principle that must be applied to the acceleration phase, and a great way to training this effectively is to run as hard as you can until your body is upright, this is called running through the fall which means that if you are running faster than you are falling down you are running though the fall and now you have free energy in the form of gravity and you are moving faster.

I share lots of techniques like these in my personal training, 1-1 running coach and GAA coaching sessions.

When working with clients who are new to personal training, I often start our first “leg day” addressing the most common issue I come across when beginners hire me to transform their physique –  The glute/ quad issue. Perhaps this has happened to you too, you start any resistance program that includes squats, lunges, single leg squats etc and your quads/ thighs are absolutely on fire but nothing else seems to be fired up. We all want bigger stronger glutes but not everyone wants big quads. If you can relate then you are quad dominant and need to focus on posterior chain exercises. Any exercises that can access the quad are off limits for the first few weeks until we can swap the quads for the glutes as the dominant muscle group.

So what does this look like?

Floor exercises such as donkey kicks are a great starting point. Donkey kicks rely on your own body weight and movement patterns to fire up the glutes and start sending a signal to the glutes to get moving and start taking the workload away from the quads.

Kickbacks are typically next on the list as they are a similar movement pattern to donkey kicks but with the added bonus of a level of resistance of our choosing. Next is typically an RDL which is a hip hinge movement pattern but again does not require the quads to do any of the work. This is definitely the most technically difficult of the beginner glute exercises but it is an amazing exercise that uses all of the posterior chain muscles.

The last exercise is the hip thrust which is in my opinion the best glute exercise on the market. But this can begin to bring in the quads if the resistance is too high so lighter is better here. And even if the weight is not very heavy the glutes will get tired and your intelligent brain will incorporate the quads to help you out so as soon as the quads are even beginning to burn the set is over.

This will continue until we have enough glute development and they are now the dominant muscle group. At this point we incorporate squats, single legs squats, lunges, box squats, heavy hip thrusts and any other relevant exercise that will help grow and develop your leg and glute muscles.

The decision to work out at home or at the gym depends on several factors, including personal preference, budget, and fitness goals.