Compound VS Isolation
Can you build muscle and change your body with light weights and isolation exercises?
Of course you can. To a point.
Training is about sending signals to your body that it needs to change. Causing a stress so great the body freaks out and is forced to adapt to the stress.
When you first start training, anything can cause the stress. Going from nothing to something is one helluva shock to your body and it will adapt accordingly by building new muscle.
You can achieve this with light weights and isolation exercises. A 5kg dumbbell curl is heavy when compared to lifting your empty hand.
However the body will figure that stress out quickly and where 5kg once caused your body to run around like a headless chicken looking to hide, now it’s nothing more than an annoyance. The change has happened. You got better. There is no need for further adaption to that stress. So the changes stop.
The issue with focusing on isolation exercises is they don’t have much range for progress. There is only so far up the dumbbell rack you can take a dumbbell curl before you’re no longer isolating your bicep and you’ll be using more of your legs, back and shoulders to do your little bicep exercise. Now it’s no longer an isolation movement. It’s just a light weight mess not working the intended muscle correctly and not causing any stress to the much larger muscle groups doing most of the work.
It’s long been said you need to build a foundation of strength by focusing on the main compound movements. Bench, Squat, Deadlift, Overhead Press.
Why? Because these simple movements work every muscle in the body.
They are basically limitless to how far you can take them. A 300kg deadlift was considered the holy grail of lifts when I was starting out. Now 400kg is being lifted in gyms across the world and I even saw 501kg attempted in a gym the other day.
These movements will lay the foundation for a person to build a fundamental strength base from which they can take their training in any direction they choose.
These exercises are used by athletes and coaches the world-over regardless of sport because of their effectiveness, simplicity and carry over to every movement we do.
Isolation and light weight has a place but for all the people on the internet saying you can build pecs by doing 5kg plate presses or gigantic quads by doing body weight sissy squats, that simply isn’t true.
The people who have awesome physiques all built their body’s with basic compound lifts and heavy weight. Once that’s done and established after many years of training you can then get away with doing the smaller, light weights to keep the muscle you have. If someone is so genetically gifted they can get away with doing anything and build muscle, sorry but unless you’re one of those people, what they have to say has basically no relevance.
The people who say you can build an awesome physique by doing light weight, isolation movements and you don’t need heavy compounds who have no muscle? The internet is full of them. Come on, they have no muscle. What more proof do you need?
You can “work” a muscle with any weight. Hell, walking works a muscle which is why you get tired if you walk far enough. But is that work going to force it to change? I can sit here and squeeze my chest and cause it to pump with blood but is that really going to freak my body out and signal it to build new tissue?
For the vast majority of us, training is an unwinnable, never ending battle between us and the weight.
It isn’t complicated. It isn’t pretty. It doesn’t need to isolate specifically but it does need to be heavy enough to signal the body to change.
It is a constant struggle to push your mind to places it doesn’t want to go and to make your body do things your mind never thought possible.
Along the way though, you are rewarded with new found strength of both mind and body, more muscle, less fat, better health, better mobility and ultimately, the body you desire.