Let's start by explaining the difference between the two terms. Full-body movements are exercises that will engage and stimulate a large number of muscle fibres of the different muscle groups across the whole body. Isolation exercises, on the other hand, focus on one muscle group at a time. For example, the Clean&Jerk is a full-body movement, while the bicep curl is an isolation exercise. Both types of movements have their place and purpose in an individual's training program. We're going to have a look at the benefits of both movement types, when to use them and why you need to include them in your training plan. However, there are scenarios where you shouldn't use one or the other exercise type. I'll be talking about that too. Why full-body movements? Complex movements require mental focus and the ability to produce force by contracting multiple muscles simultaneously. Let's take the barbell thruster exercise as an example. The thruster has two major components - the front squat and the overhead shoulder press that must be performed as a single motion. From top to bottom, almost every single muscle group is involved in the execution. Foot muscles play a stabilizing role; calves, quads and glutes generate massive amounts of power during the standing phase to drive the barbell upwards. The core (including the lower back, obliques and abdominals) is responsible for stability and balance. The back muscles also contribute to torso stability and dealing with the load, thus protecting the spine (from ending up looking like a messed up accordion). Finally, the shoulders and triceps will make sure that the momentum of the barbell continues and the weight finishes overhead with the elbows fully locked out. When lowering the weight, all these muscles will carry on working. Additionally, other muscle groups like the biceps and the hamstrings will join in (assisting with the eccentric phase) to slow the movement and prevent the bar from crashing down on the individual. Implementing exercises that target the whole body will result in increased strength and power, improved lifting skills and body mechanics (including timing and improved form), and stronger joints. If you've tried full-body movements before, you know for sure that the body has to work extra hard to complete complex moves like a thruster or a snatch. Such heavy work requires more energy which results in more calories burned. Isolation exercises that engage fewer muscle fibres consume less energy compared to full-body movements. Another benefit of full-body complex movements is improved neuropathways, i.e., more efficient communication between the nervous and muscular systems. To successfully perform skilful moves like the snatch, top-notch coordination, extreme speed, exceptional strength and absolute precision is required. Even more important is that all these components are present simultaneously, which is only possible if the nervous system and the muscular system are in perfect sync. In strength and conditioning programming, full-body movements are a staple. The reason being is that most sports require explosiveness (maybe not chess unless you are losing and seriously thinking about knocking out your opponent). Exercises like the thruster or slam ball will help to develop force production at speed, aka explosiveness. We tend to prescribe these exercises as the first thing to do during the workout (after the warm-up and mobility drills) as they are incredibly taxing for the nervous and muscular systems. Hypertrophy is the only training style I can think of that might completely exclude power moves. Bodybuilding's primary focus is to increase muscle mass. Hypertrophy is more like a positive byproduct rather than the main reward when it comes to power moves. Nonetheless, I often recommend the inclusion of full-body moves in bodybuilding training plans. The benefit of starting the workout with a total-body exercise is to fire up the nervous system, warm up the muscles and lubricate the joints. This approach will improve performance and minimize the risk of injuries. How about isolation exercises? Isolation exercises focus on the contraction of one muscle group at a time. However, it doesn't mean that the rest of the muscular system takes a holiday. When performing isolation exercises, the brain recruits several other muscles to assist the movement and stabilize the target limb or the whole body, if needed. The two main reasons why we use isolation exercises are rehabilitation and hypertrophy. Suppose somebody sustained an injury that often requires physical rehabilitation. During physiotherapy, the main goal is to restore the joint(s) and surrounding muscles to a healthy condition (as much as possible). In the early stages of rehab, therapists prescribe isolation exercises to mobilize joints, promote blood flow to the injury site and stimulate muscles. As the injured area heals, compound (multi-joint) movements can be introduced to further strengthen the affected joint and/or muscles. At the other end of the isolation spectrum sits bodybuilding. The goal of hypertrophy training is to cause as much muscle cell damage as possible. Why causing damage, though? First of all, by damage, we mean microtears that occur when the muscles contract under heavy resistance. When the activity stops and the body is at rest, the cell repair process begins. The healing of those microtears create tiny scars, which will increase the size of the muscle cells, and when that happens to hundreds of thousands of cells, we end up with bigger muscles. To stimulate hypertrophy, bodybuilders repeatedly perform exercises that target one area at a time, like leg extension, to isolate the quads. We also use isolation exercises in strength and conditioning, but it's less common. After the initial assessment, we may discover that a particular muscle group is significantly weaker than the rest of the body. In that case, we'll implement isolation movements in the training program to bring up the strength of the lagging muscles. I talked about improved neuromuscular pathways as the result of performing full-body movements. The same can be said about isolation exercises. If anything, it probably happens faster. When working on a single muscle group, the brain has fewer commands and feedback to process; thus, communication between the nervous system and the muscles can improve faster. We've discussed some of the benefits of the full-body and isolation movements, so now let's have a look at some scenarios where it would be wise to exclude them from the training regime. Because of the complexity of some of the total body exercises, I would recommend beginner lifters to stay away from those movements until they mastered the basics like squat, deadlift, chest press, shoulder press and pulling movements. Build strength and confidence before attempting heavy power movements or Olympic lifts to prevent injuries and setbacks. If you're short on time, filling your workout with a tonne of isolation exercises wouldn't
be too clever. They tend to be time-consuming, so you might need to shorten your training sessions, which can be super frustrating. Another issue with isolation exercises is the strain they can place on the muscles and joints. The excessive use of isolation moves can lead to repetitive overuse, which later can develop into full-blown injuries. The final conclusion is that you should have both types of exercises in your programme. The ratio and the specific movements you (or your trainer) chose will depend on your goals and your assessment result.
Written by Szilard Jakab
16.08.2021
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