What is a compound exercise?

A compound exercise is defined as a multi-joint movement which utilizes several different muscles at one time. An example of this is a squat working your hamstrings, quadriceps, hip flexors, core muscles, and spinus erectus. Using more muscles allows you to use more energy therefore burning more calories.

Benefits of Compound Exercises:

• Using compound exercises gives you the opportunity to perform fewer exercises thereby spending less time in the gym.
• Compound exercises result in a greater release of growth hormone also, called HGH which enables the body to gain lean muscle tissue quicker.
• They also reduce the risk of overtraining because you are able to focus on greater muscle areas to encourage maximum growth and recovery.

Examples of Compound Exercises:

• Deadlifts
• Variations of squats
• Barbell Rows
• Chest Press, inclined.

What is an isolation exercise?

An isolation exercise is when you target only one muscle group for an exercise. They allow you to focus your energy allowing you to build strength, endurance, and definition in that one muscle alone.

Benefits of Isolation Exercises:

• Isolation exercises help target individual muscles for a well rounded physique
• It can also help with imbalances in your muscles due to atrophy or medical conditions.

Examples of Isolation Exercises:

• Concentration curl
• Triceps Pressdown
• Abdominal Crunch
• Leg Extension.

A good workout will incorporate a combination of both compound and isolation exercises to build strength and definition. Utilize compound exercises during the beginning of your workouts to help build overall development by engaging secondary muscles, tertiary muscles and stabilizer muscles or when time constraints are present. Utilize isolation exercises to concentrate on muscles requiring extra definition or when training around an injury.

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Physiologically, the chest muscles are located at the front of the ribcage and are called ‘pectorals’. The pectorals can be divided into pecotralis major and pectoralis minor. Together, they protect the rib cage and are attachd to the shoulder to assist in pushing or pulling.

One of the most popular exercises that targets the chest is the bench press. Pretty much anyone who has visited a gym can recognize this exercise. It is also the exercise of choice for power lifters. It engages the entire chest region, along with the shoulders and tricepts. For building mass, no exercise can beat the bench press.

There are variations of the bench press that focus on different parts of the chest. Incline bench press works out the upper chest, while the Decline version isolates the lower chest. Your workout should ideally include a set of both Decline and Incline versions at least once in two weeks.

A lot of people make the mistake of using isolation exercises to build up mass. These exercises should be used to create definition, not mass. Only pro bodybuilders with a lot of existing mass should be using isolation exercises extensively. For others, a couple of sets of an isolation exercise such as the dumbbell flye is good enough to build definition.

And don’t forget the mother of all exercises – push ups! Push ups work out the chest extensively and build real strength in the arms. You can increase the intensity by placing a heavy weight on your back (or ask someone to sit on your back). This compound exercise should ideally be included in every chest workout.

The chest can be an easy muscle group to develop provided you follow the right techniques and focus on the right exercises. Spend too much time on isolation exercises and you will find a lot of definition, but little bulk. Always be careful when performing these exercises and use a spotter at all times.

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You can see this with your very eyes any time you walk into a gym. Guys hammer their muscles away with 10, 12, 16 and even 20 sets per muscle group with pit bull tenacity, only to grow dejected and frustrated at their lack of results. Months after months, they still look the same if not worse, their strength levels are the same if not less, and even their wallets are depleted by useless supplement consumption.

You may have gone through the same. Insanity sets in, leading you to believe that you may be slacking off and decide to increase the workload even further. Madness! You should do exactly the opposite. An honest and realistic muscle mass program should lead you away from the multiple sets split routine insanity and show you the way to realistic muscle gains. The way to achieve this is through brief but high stress workouts centered on basic compound exercises with free weights.

You can forget about biceps curls and rear deltoids for a while. Instead, you should concentrate on spurring muscle growth all over, discarding isolation exercises and details. By training the whole body muscle groups at once for only very few sets each, you can achieve what many sets for one single muscle cannot achieve: increased testosterone output and muscle growth.

A realistic muscle mass program for regular and skinny guys should clearly be based on a “less is more” approach. Less only in terms on quantity, number of sets, but more in terms of quality, both in intensity and in exercise choice. 12 sets of biceps curls and 16 of cable crossovers will never have an effect on your testosterone and muscle growth. However, 2/3 sets of squat, dead lift, bench press, pull up, military press, barbell row and so on will leave you drained to the bone and your body shocked enough to change. Do not worry about biceps, they will grow anyway.

A muscle mass program so devised will build you lean mass in no time at all. 6 months can see you achieving a radical transformation, while 2 to 3 years are enough to accomplish your full potential. There is no need to waste your life in the gym, many days a week, for no muscle to show for and end up disappointed and frustrated few years down the line, only to give up in despair.

A muscle mass program focused on workout brevity, compound exercise intensity, periodization plans and nutritional guidelines is one that is fit for 99% of the population. High volume split routines are not. They can be effective only for a tiny 1% of professional bodybuilders, possibly thanks to artificial help.

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If you are stuck in a dead pan and cannot see the way out, check out this realistic muscle mass program. Do not let high volume split routines waste your time. For full information on how to build muscle naturally, check out this muscle mass program website.
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Sure, it takes some time to dramatically change physical appearance, however we are talking about few months or 1 to 2 years at most, not years and years spent in the gym with no results to show for while following split workout routines. High volume split routines do not work for regular guys, let alone skinny ones or hardgainers, but only for few people. 10 to 20 sets for a muscle group will lead you to just muscle depletion, while more than 10 repetitions will not do much to build muscle.

A good lean muscle workout program could not be simpler. Forget about isolation exercises like curls, flies and the likes. What you need here is heavy compound exercises like bench presses, squats (the king of exercises), pull ups, dead lifts (as good as squats), parallel dips, barbell rows and so on. Keep the repetition range between 4 and 10, with 5 to 8 the main range. Occasionally periodize with higher or even lower repetition ranges to stimulate the muscles and avoid stagnation. Periodize with a change in exercises too, however not as often as to “confuse” the muscles.

The “Muscle confusion” idea is an old one from the 80ies, which says that to avoid stagnation, muscles should be regularly confused by performing different exercises and repetitions every single workout. Do not buy that, it will only achieve inconsistency and make you unable to judge progress. You should stick to the same exercises and repetition ranges while progressively increasing the load until you reach a plateau. Only then, you may periodize with different exercises and ranges, not before.

A cycle can last as long as 2 to 3 months, depending on individual, lifestyle, nutrition, age and other elements. Free weight training is the preferred choice for most, but a vastly underrated yet effective option is free bodyweight workouts. Initially easily dismissed as approximate to increase the load progressively, they offer instead a terrific workout that will build lean muscle anywhere you are, saving you time. In order to vary the load you must vary the angle and the hand position so as to achieve the desired resistance.

Once got the hang of it, they are just as effective as barbells and dumbbells, as muscles do not know the difference between weights and body weight. Just think of gymnasts and the kind of physiques they have without using weights in their training. If you do not know how to build muscle or are looking for a proper workout routine, the solution could not be easier, if demanding.

Make no mistake, full body workouts performed with few sets for each compound exercise in a 5 to 8 repetition range (excluding warm up) is not walk in the park. They will leave you drained and exhausted, spurring natural testosterone production and muscle growth.

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If you are looking for a way out of stagnation, I urge you to check out this lean muscle workout program for regular guys. View different routines compared in this lean muscle workout program page.
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If you’re trying to gain muscle it’s vital that your bodybuilding training is properly and intelligently planned out, so that you get the maximum reward for your hard work.

Lots of folks spend four, five or even more days a week in the gym, with precious little results except maybe for setting gym attendance records. Don’t let this be you.

You need to have a bodybuilding routine where every workout counts – go for quality over quantity every time you train. If what you’re currently doing isn’t getting any results – change it.

As someone once said,

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.”

Lets look at how some aspects of bodybuilding training that works, and that will give meaningful results;

Training Frequency

First, you need to plan a workout routine that has no more than three training days a week – in fact two is better. Your plan should be to give your muscles the growth stimulus they need to get bigger, then get out of the gym and rest.

Two common mistakes here;

1/ Not doing enough intelligent hard work to give the growth stimulus to the muscles and

2/ Not giving the muscles the chance to grow

If your bodybuilding training is based around a load of isolation exercises that are basically shaping and toning exercises then you won’t be providing the growth stimulus, even if you’re in the gym every day, and training over an hour a day. In fact, if this is you, stop it now.

Exercise Selection

To provide the stimulus your muscles need to get bigger, you need to plan your bodybuilding training around major compound lifts like the dead lift, the squat, the bench press and the chin. These are exercises that hit the major muscle groups, and they will give the anabolic effect that you need.

To give your muscles the chance to grow, you need at least one day’s rest between workouts, two is better. And you need to get proper rest, sleep and food to provide the fuel and opportunity your muscles need to grow. Try and aim for eight hours of sleep a night – this will not always be possible, but try and aim for it.

Exercise Technique

When you train, you need to learn perfect exercise technique on each exercise, and then practise that perfect technique on each rep you do. This is for two reasons;

1/ If your technique is perfect you will give the maximum stress to the muscle, forcing it to adapt by getting bigger and

2/ Perfect technique will go along way towards protecting you from injury.

If for example, you round your back when you dead lift, you put your back in a very dangerous position, where you could end up with a permanent injury.

Add Weight To The Bar

You should add weight to the bar in small manageable amounts whenever you can. If you add too much weight too fast your body won’t be able to adapt to the extra stress, and you’ll lose momentum. Adding small amounts of weight regularly will give you a much better chance of making progress.

Avoiding Dangerous Exercises

Some exercises are dangerous because they’re bad for your joints, but despite this fact, these movements are often being promoted as safe to do.

Avoid any pressing movement behind the neck, and exercises where you have to fit your body motion into a pre set bar path because of the machine you’re using – for example squatting inside a smith machine is bad for your knees and your back.

Also avoid the upright row and the bent over row.

As well as avoiding the exercises above, avoid any exercise that is bad for you – even if everyone else tells you it is safe – when you’re sure that you’ve got the proper form down, if it still doesn’t feel right, drop it.

Train Hard

Although you should only be hitting the weights two or three times a week, you must train hard – and each workout should build on the workout that went before. Going back to an earlier point, if you train on mostly isolation exercises it’s difficult to train hard enough to cause the stimulus the muscles need to grow.

Good luck!

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