Build Muscle with Isolation Exercises
Trying to build muscle can be easily accomplished for some, but for many it can be a very frustrating endeavor. Anybody can get into good shape, but how we develop our muscles is unique to us all. Genetics plays a major role in determining which muscles develop the biggest and the fastest. My legs have always been strong and develop much faster than my chest does. Bench press has ever been a struggle for me when I work out, while squatting three hundred pounds came easily to me.
Everyone’s focus is different, because we all want a different part of our body to stand out. In this article I am going to focus on arm isolation exercises that will aid you in getting your arms pumped up, and also some general weight lifting advice that is good to know.
Everybody likes a good-looking bicep. It is the first thing we flex when we are showing off our strength for a reason. It stands out among the muscle groups because of how big the curvature of it can get. A great way to build this muscle is to try to isolate it in your exercises. Instead of using shoulders and biceps to lift something try doing a Preacher Curl.
Take a dumbbell and drape your arm over the back of a chair or any other support that lets your arm hang down on the other side. Once the top of the support is in your armpit do normal curls with your arm. This takes your shoulder and chest out of the equation and isolates the bicep to receive all of the weight that you are lifting. Make sure you do not overdo the weight, but you will quickly notice a bulk difference with this lift.
For the shoulders, grab those dumbbells again. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, lift your arms individually straight out, and bring them up to shoulder height. It is important to do this lift with one arm at a time. If you do both arms at once you are far more likely to arch your back to aid your arms with the lift, which is detrimental to the isolation of the shoulders. Next, from the same position, lift your arms out straight, but to the sides. It will hit other parts of your shoulders and make sure you cover the entire breadth of this complex muscle group.
One of the most important discoveries to exercising has been the term “muscle confusion”. It involves changing up how you exercise so that you dodge the infamous plateaus that eventually happen with weight lifters. Changing up your lifts is easy and can be done with just a quick Google search, but if you are unsure about your form make sure you ask a trainer at your gym to avoid injury. If you are working out consistently, try to change your workout every four to six weeks so that your body keeps adjusting to new things.
Soreness in muscles means they are getting bigger after they repair themselves, so if you begin to not feel that soreness, change it up. Finally make sure you are eating right and staying hydrated when you are tying to build muscle so that your body can repair itself as fast as possible. It is much easier to eat right when you just came from the gym, since you do not want to waste all the hard work you just put in. This is a small sample size of isolating muscle groups, and it is meant to get you thinking how isolation can benefit your training regimen. There are thousands of different exercises to try so keep on doing new things so that your muscles can reach their limitless potential.
Used under Creative Commons Licensing courtesy of anton petukhov
