To isolate or not to isolate...

[casualbb]

Everybody does tons of arm isolation exercises in pursuit of those 18" guns. I myself have been guilty of this in the past as well. But you might not need to.

This was posted on the HST boards today:

The Effect of Supplemental Isolated Weight-Training Exercises on Upper-Arm Size and Upper-Body Strength

RA Rogers, RU Newton, KP McEvoy, EM Popper, BK Doan, JK Shim, LR Bolt, JSVolek, and WJ Kraemer.

Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 14(3)3, Aug 2000 (p369)

The aim of this study was to examine the hypothesized additional
training effect of programming isolated supplemental exercises in
conjunction with compound weight-training exercises on muscle size and strength. Seventeen national-level baseball players volunteered to participate in this 10-week training study and were randomly divided into 2 groups. The control group completed a 10-week training program consisting of the bench press, lat pull-down, dumbbell incline press and dumbbell 1-arm row exercises. The treatment group completed the same training program but with the addition of biceps curl and triceps extension exercises. A tape measure was used to record upper-arm circumferences, and a 5 repetition maximum (5RM) was determined on the bench press and lat pull-down for each subject before and after training.

Both the treatment and control groups displayed significant increases in upper-arm circumference (6.6 and 6.5%, respectively), 5RM bench press (21.4 and 22.1%, respectively) and 5RM lat pull-down (15.7 and 14.5%, respectively). There were no significant differences between the groups in the percentage change before and after training. The findings of this study suggest that isolation exercises are not necessary in order to increase compound movement strength or increase upper-arm girth. These findings also suggest that strength coaches can save time by not including isolation exercises and still achieve increases in strength and size.

Just some food for thought.

-casualbb

 

[louden_swain]

I have never needed to use isolation exercises to build big arms. After training for several years, basic compound movements have worked the best.

 

[Rich_S]

I have 18.5" arms and the only direct arm work I do is 2-3 sets of standing barbell curls and 2-3 sets of skullcrushers. I do a lot of bench presses, military presses, weighted chins, weighted dips, and barbell rows though.

 

[Jman88]

I concentrate on doing the big heavy movements (rows, dips, chins) and by that time I only need a few sets of isolation type exercises to finish them off.