Isolation workouts and Your Bicep
Imagine you have been lifting heavy weights in a gym for six months. Your exercises of choice were mainly compound lifts. In addition, you have been eating well and resting enough. Unfortunately, your biceps are just slightly bigger than half of the year ago. Should you keep doing big compound lifts and hope for the best?
Problem with Compounds
Compounds are more practical exercises, because they target more muscle groups and mimic our natural moves. That is fine. However, there are people who would like to have a greater biceps ratio to other muscles. If you have huge biceps it would still look small if it’s between even bigger deltoid and forearm. Compounds are not very good at building one muscle while only maintaining other. There are people who look at compounds as only proper exercises both from the physiological and historical point of view. I can’t agree to that for 100%.
Isolation Exercises
Yes isolation moves are not as ”natural” as compound moves, but it is still possible to perform them even without equipment so it is only speculation to say that they are a modern day thing. The real problem with isolation exercises is when you rely only on them. To get stronger and keep overall balance of muscle, compounds are the best. At the same time, I think it is great, for someone who are not genetically blessed, to occasionaly go through a little isolation exercise program. That is the easiest way how to acquire proportions you want.
Curl
If you have done your compounds for some time, gained muscle mass, and feel that biceps are still disproportional, you could consider classical curls. They are today often bashed in forums and blogs as a useless exercise. In reality, curls are still the best biceps targeting isolation exercise. Reason for their bad reputation is over enthusiastic fitness beginners. A first thing they often do in a gym is performing countless curls with poor form and unsuitable weight. However, that does not mean that curls have no place in your routine if you want to grow bigger biceps.
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