Get More Lean Muscle With Isometric Training

In the episode Does Super Slow Training Work?, we learned that when you do a type of weight lifting called “super slow training” you can actually increase tension in your muscles by decreasing the speed of movement, and this can help you gain strength and lean muscle more quickly (but only if you actually have the time to go to the gym and do all your weight lifting at half-speed).

Later, in the episode Is Weightlifting Bad For Your Heart?, we discovered how slow and controlled weight lifting can not only make you strong and lean, but can actually give you a significant increase in cardiovascular fitness – without requiring you to hit the bike or treadmill.

But today, you’re going to learn how to boost your cardiovascular fitness, strength, muscle building, and more without ever stepping foot into a fancy gym by using a technique called isometric training. 

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What Is Isometric Exercise?

On my personal blog, in a podcast episode titled How Underground Russian Techniques From Old Soviet Training Journals Can Turn You Into An Endurance Beast, I interview a coach named Jay Schroeder, who works with professional athletes from around the world. Jay uses isometric exercise to enhance the results that his athletes get – and even if you’re not, say, a professional football player, you can still take advantage of these same training techniques.

The term “isometrics,” which combines the Greek words “isos” (“equal” or “same”) and “metron” (“distance” or “measure”), refers to a muscle contraction without any visible movement in the angle of the joint.  This is in contrast to traditional moving “isotonic” contractions, in which your muscle length and joint angle change throughout the exercise.

If you’ve ever performed a wall squat, in which you sit in an imaginary chair with your back against the wall for as long as you possibly can, then you’re familiar with isometric exercising! Your legs are certainly burning – but you’re not budging an inch. Other popular examples of isometric exercise are the front plank, side plank, and the “boat” abdominal hold in Yoga and Pilates.

If you really want to take isometric exercises to the next level, you can use a technique called “extreme isometrics,” in which you do indeed move your muscles, but you move them very, very slowly – taking as long as 5-10 minutes to complete a single repetition. As you can imagine, this takes intense focus. Go ahead and just try and do a 10 minute push-up and see what happens to your entire body!

Why Isometric Exercises Work

In addition to all of the cardiovascular and strength benefits that I explain in Does Super Slow Training Work?, such as increased cardiac output, better training of your muscles to pump lactic acid, and increased ability to withstand an external force, isometric exercises also result in better muscle utilization and coordinaton.

Think about it this way: whether you’re running a marathon, shoveling snow, or lifting a piece of furniture, if the wrong muscles are turning on for any given movement, then you have poor technique and this means you increase your risk of injury, and you produce less-than-ideal force.

But your body can learn how to utilize the correct muscles, and just like any movement, it’s easier to learn how to use the right muscles when you train slowly or you hold a position, with an emphasis on maximally activating the specific muscle groups you want to work. When you hold a position or move through it more slowly…

…you simply have less distraction and more time under tension for any particular position you’re trying to learn or perfect, so you’re able to sense the proper muscles that you need to activate and better understand how to get there.

Another benefit to isometrics is that while you’re learning how to utilize the proper muscles for any given movement, you are also training your joints to move through their full range of motion. As you move slowly through or deeper into a joint angle, there is a significant amount of stretch placed on the fascia, which is the layer of fibrous connective tissue that surrounds your muscles. As this stretch occurs, you can gain enormous increases in range-of-motion and flexibility that far exceed what you might experience from a regular stretching protocol. For example, by performing 5 minute long deep isometric doorway push-ups such as the exercise demonstrated in this video, I’ve found that my shoulder range-of-motion has significantly improved.

How to Do Isometric Workouts

So how can you utilize isometrics in your workouts?

You don’t need much! Include a weekly or every-other-week workout in which you incorporate at least one move or a series of moves performed very slowly, or simply held for a long period of time. For example, you could simply perform one set of each of the following exercises (timed so that it takes you 10-60 seconds to go up and 10-60 seconds to come down), or simply hold each exercise in it’s hardest position for as long as you possibly can, up to 5 minutes.

• Push-up
• Pull-up
• Dip
• Lunge
• Wall Squat
   

Another isometric technique you can use is to simply do isometrics when you’d normally be standing around anyways – such as doing a wall squat while you’re on hold on the phone, or holding a push-up position during the commercial break of a TV program.

If you have more questions about isometric training, leave them at Facebook.com/GetFitGuy!