Isometric exercise is a strange concept that may well go against everything you’ve been lead to believe about exercise, weight loss and muscle building. Normally when you think of going to the gym or doing a workout you imagine something fairly active – with lots of lifting, sweating and running. Well isometric exercise is actually the complete opposite of this image (except for the sweating) and involves working out without moving.

While that might sound far fetched you probably have the wrong idea – you see although you’re not technically moving, you are still in fact contracting your muscles over long periods and putting in one hundred percent of your effort. Isometric exercise is the opposite of plyometric exercise which involves sudden explosive movements and includes such exercises as box jumps and clapping press ups. While plyometric exercises then work those fast twitch muscle fibres used for fast movements such as sprinting while isometric exercises work the slow twitch muscle fibres that are key for endurance, as well as the smaller supporting muscles around those major muscle groups and are used for balance. While isometric movements don’t train the muscle through the full range of movement, they do train them to their fullest at the most difficult point making them great for balance as well as strength gains (though potentially resulting in a slightly ‘shorter’ looking muscle if used alone unless you train isometrically at a range of joint positions), for this reason many advocate their use including Bruce Lee himself. The ‘normal’ movements you are more used to using in the gym are called ‘dynamic’ exercises and fall between isometric and plyometric exercise. To get the full range of benefits from your workout you should really be using all three together.

There are actually several different types of isometric exercises you can use in your workout however, so here is a list of a few with a description of how and why to use them.

Static Contraction Type One – Static contraction is any exercise where you are contracting the muscle without moving at all. Here you are normally working sub maximally at about 80-90% of your full capacity to prevent hernia or bursting blood vessels. There are several ways in which this can be achieved. The first method is to push against an immovable object such as a wall or door frame and hold for several seconds. Bruce Lee achieved this by having a chain with a bar attached to the floor. From here he could then attempt to curl it by pulling against the screws in the floor. This was reportedly an excellent way to train for maximal strength. While it’s true that this would train the muscle at the full range of motion – training three times at different points (by shortening and lengthening the chain or your distance from the wall) would be enough to account for this short coming.

Static Contraction Type Two – Alternatively, instead of using a wall or chain you can use your own body – pressing against your own limbs and joints to provide the resistance. For example for a chest exercise you might just press your palms together in front of you as hard as you can for a couple of seconds – which will do essentially the same thing as a pec flie pretty much. This way you actually don’t need any equipment or even surroundings other than your own body and makes perhaps the most easy and practical workout of all. This isometric exercise is probably the only way you can train in bed without disturbing your girlfriend!

Static Contraction Type Two – The other way to use static contraction is to try holding a weight that’s too heavy to lift. This will require a spotter and is similar to using negatives except you don’t let the weight move at all. For example then, if your one rep max on the bench press (the maximum amount your can bench press in one go) was 100kg, you would instead put the weight up to 110kg then hold it just above your chest for as long as you can – having a friend stand by to help you put the weight back is crucial and they will also be on spotting duty in case you get trapped beneath the weight. You should hold the position until you begin to lower the weight and repeat for at least three reps. The other benefit about this kind of training is that it’s very quick!

Power Positions – Power positions are the name given to the above mentioned static contraction methods when used at the end of a repetition of a dynamic exercise. For example you might perform ten reps of bicep curls normally then finish off the set by holding the dumbbell at the middle point for as long as you can at the end. Again you should hold this until the weight begins to lower – which will happen quickly if you’ve performed enough reps at a high enough weight previously. This is a particularly effective use for isometric exercise as it trains both the fast twitch and slow twitch muscles fibres and is a great way to take any set to exhaustion quickly and increase the intensity of your workouts.

Isometric Holds – Isometric holds are essentially the isometric exercise of the bodyweight world. Here you hold yourself in a position so balancing rather than repeating the repetitions. For example you might hold yourself in a low press up position, hanging from a pull up bar, or in a handstand position. This requires an incredible amount of strength, endurance, balance and muscle control and if you can build yourself up to be able to hold these positions you should find yourself becoming far stronger and more agile very quickly. These train multiple muscles in the body simultaneously and at the same time train the smaller muscles required to be able to balance. This kind of training will give you a gymnast’s physique in no time!

Mack LeMouse

Copyrighted material; do not reprint without permission.

 

View all articles by Mack LeMouse