 Isometrics are probably the most underutilized, undervalued, yet most effective training tool. Isometrics can make you build muscle and strength and thus help you burn body fat and get leaner. Yet nobody ever uses them or does them properly. This is terrible. Today's episode, we're going to talk all about isometrics. This was something that was a staple with strength athletes back in the day. Isometrics was how all of them trained at least a third of the time and of course they had incredible feats of strength and then it kind of fell out of favor with the development of machines and cables and stuff like that which is too bad because there's a ton of studies done on isometrics and their value in strength training. Zero emphasis put on this as trainers in the last, I mean coming back right now but first 10 years in my career. I didn't learn about them at all. I didn't think of any kind of certification or anything from the academic world when researching all the stuff for how to train clients. It wasn't even part of the conversation. I can't believe how undervalued they were. I didn't even get an opportunity to really incorporate it into my programming with clients because I was so unaware of how valuable it was for all types of clients. Everything from an athletic client to an advanced age client to addressing imbalances to beginner. The list goes on and on on where isometrics play a huge role in the success of whatever your client and I just wish I would have understood that. You can't overstate that. Isometrics can be used for everybody, for any goal, fitness goal, aesthetic goal, they can be applied and they will accelerate your results. So long as they're applied properly, they will accelerate your results. That's what makes them so effective. It's the safest method. I was just going to say, I can't think of another training technique that can be applied across the board like isometrics. In fact, right now at the top of my head, I can't even think of one. But isometrics, you could take anybody regardless of their goal or experience, use isometrics appropriately and they'll get better results. It's so par for the course for our industry to not highlight it because it's unsexy, because you can't sell anything with it, because anybody can do it. So we won't talk that much about it because it's too basic. It's too easy. You don't need anything. It's so crazy how we do that in this space. Some of the best stuff is the most basic things. I was thinking about this the other day and this has nothing to do with this topic, but I was just thinking about this now. We get so many questions around the newest supplement that hit the market and comparing this versus that in the performance supplement world. And it's like nobody talks about taking vitamin D every day. Nobody talks about that. Put it around too long. Yeah, and it's cheap. And it's basic. But the value of that is insane. Even creatine is not even talked about anymore because it's so cheap and easy to get a hold of it. And if you do hear about it, it's all these different formulations. So I feel like that's one of these things here where the space saw it. There was no way to really monetize it much. And so it's like, oh, yeah, those are beneficial, but let's look at these things. You know what I mean? All you need to do is add vitamin Ds, add Zs or Xs to branding, and then school. I thought you were going to make another joke with that. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of PG. Do you guys remember when it was Icai berries? Super high. And you know, blueberries are like the same. I mean, the profile on a blueberry and a sideberry is like just one was from the Amazon and we never had them here. So I'm going to spend $15 on some of these versus blueberries. I could buy the grocery store for $2 berries. Just as good. No, it's super true. I so isometrics, the Soviets did a lot of studies on isometrics and the Soviets during the, you know, the time of the Cold War, I mean, they dominated the strength sport world. And then more notably famous people like Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee was huge on isometrics. He used to talk about them all the time. And Bruce Lee, although he was, you know, he wasn't really a professional fighter. Obviously he was an actor. He did do demonstrations where he would demonstrate his strength and his power for a guy of size. Even today is quite impressive. In fact, there were, and this was, I don't think this was ever filmed, but there were, you know, lots of eyewitnesses where he could hold a 120 pound dumbbell at arm's length. That's wild. With isometrics strength. Now this is a hundred and I don't know how much you weighed, 150 pounds or something like that. He wasn't a big dude, but he talked about isometrics giving him the stiffness and rigidity he needed for punching power and for kicking power. Bodybuilders used isometrics as part of their training for a long time. And then they stopped calling it isometrics and they just said posing. So like Arnold and the, you know, the 70s and 80s, they would say, hey, after every workout, pre-contest, I'll pose for 40 minutes. And that brings out the definition. Were they? Yeah, which, which is really, I mean, it's just highlighting their access to these muscles and being able to contract them individually too, which is all part of this connectivity, you know, surrounding isometrics, where, you know, you can really enhance that process of like your central nervous system and being able to channel in a bunch more force and get a louder contraction on your muscles if you really focus on it. So back to your Arnold statement, when they were doing that, were they actually doing it for the true benefits of isometrics, or were they doing it for posing and that was just a side benefit? They didn't do it to be better at posing. They would say that it brings out detail and definition. Oh, they were. The hardness. I didn't know that. Yeah. So it would, it would say things like, if you get by old bodybuilding magazines, they would say, you know, pre-contest, I don't, you know, I like to do 30 minutes of posing after every workout, really squeezing the muscles, bringing out the definition, the hardness. And so, and the way they explained it was it just, you know, burn body fat in the target muscles. That's not what happened. What happened was that they were actually activating more muscle fibers through isometrics. All right, everybody, today's giveaway maps symmetry. Here's how you can win free access. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Also subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If we declare you the winner, we'll let you know in the comment section that you want. Now everybody else, map symmetry is 50% off. This is for a limited time because in today's episode, we talk about a component of the program, map symmetry. So if you want 50% off maps symmetry, go to mapssymmetry.com and use the code SYM50 for the 50% off discount. All right, here comes the show. You said something about isometrics that's real important. They're extremely safe. Okay, so let me back up for a second. There's three types of muscle contractions. There's the lifting of a weight. So if I'm doing a curl, I'm lifting it. That's called a concentric muscle contraction. When I lower the weight with control, that's also a contraction. That's called eccentric. Holding a weight would be isometric. So isometric contractions, you don't move. Yeah, it's a moveable. If someone's doing an isometric exercise, they're not doing a rep. They're, I mean, they're doing a rep in the sense that they're timing themselves, but they're not moving. Okay, that's what makes them so safe. That's why you could do this on people who are recovering from injury or totally beginner. Yeah, advanced age. Also, simultaneously, nothing has been shown to activate more muscle fibers than a maximal exertion isometric, which is also why it simultaneously is so valuable for advanced lifters. So when you're activating muscle fibers, the more muscle fibers you can activate, theoretically, the more muscle strength and growth you can trigger. Because if you have, let's say you have 100 muscle fibers, there's a lot more than that in a muscle, but let's say there's 100 of them, and you only activate 80, then you're only going to signal 80 muscle fibers to grow and get stronger. If you can activate 100 of them, all of them, then you're going to get a 20% more muscle fiber growth because you're activating more of them. Well, isn't isometrics the only way to get a full 100 potential? I mean, it's the most effective way. I mean, you could probably do it if you're advanced and you're going like hardcore, like exerting yourself, but with an isometric, because, and there's certain types of isometrics that do this, when you're pushing against an immovable object, which we'll get to in the episode, is a form of isometrics, because you're pushing and it's not moving and you're using maximal force, your body recruits more and more muscle fibers because it's not moving. So it's like your body calls upon so many. Uh-oh, it's not moving. Call more. Uh-oh, it's not moving. Use them all. So it activates all the muscle fibers. Other muscle contractions don't necessarily do this. Well, and it's interesting if you go like per joint, like around where the muscle is being contracted, there's a 10 degree carryover of this contractability. So there's, you get strength that actually like carries over even further in terms of like in range or a little bit further past where, you know, that actual movement is getting its maximal exertion. Yeah, so to be, so to emphasize that, so if I do an isometric in this position here with my arm. 15 degree, sorry, I say 10. Yeah, so it's 10 to 15, I think. Yeah. I think some studies will say even as much as 20. But let's say I'm holding the contract here. So this is where I'm getting the isometric contraction. First off, one thing about isometrics that's cool is I can train a specific part of the muscle contraction. So if you're doing an exercise and you notice there's a part of the rep that you're just weaker than the others, I could do isometrics in that part of the rep and get stronger in that part of the rep. Thus making me stronger in the entire full rep or full range of motion. But what Justin's saying, which is also cool, is it's not just in that point. It's also about 15 degrees above and below that. So if it's here for me with the bicep squeeze and I get stronger here, I'm also stronger here and here. So there's carryover, meaning you don't have to do every single point of a contraction to get the full strength along the full range of motion because there's a 15 degree carryover up or down. Yeah, one other like little fun fact before we get into like the actual workout programming and all that too, like that it's used a lot in therapy as well because of the analgesic effects. So there's, you actually get pain relief because a lot of times there's a weakness and instability that's not being addressed properly. So now if you spend the time to isometrically push and squeeze and maximize the recruitment potential, it actually like sends a feedback back that this is secure now. It actually relieves that actual pain signal. Which is the science behind why people that have followed our Prime Pro program or walk through the webinar that we've done and they feel amazing afterwards. Right afterwards. Right afterwards. It's an immediate response. Oh my God, my hips feel better. Oh my God, my low back feels better because of that reason right there. 100%. You know, another thing that's a neat point too is you talk about the three different types of contractions and what I think is really interesting even in advanced lifters, people lifting in a long time there's huge opportunity to improve the eccentric portion and also the isometric portion because they're the like two most neglected. Like everybody thinks about lifting the weight up or moving the weight. I've brought it up on the show before. I don't think I ever walked into a gym and saw more than one or two people actually doing a true four second eccentric, you know, negative in their exercise they're doing and then never see anybody doing isometrics. And so if you're listening to this and you've been lifting for a really long time and you haven't put any sort of focus in those two years, huge opportunity. Huge. All right, so let's talk about the three main types of isometrics. The first one which would be the most advanced and most intense type of isometric would be against an immovable object. So that means you're taking an object and you're applying maximal force to it. It's not moving. So the contraction is an isometric. So this would be like me getting underneath a bench press but the bar is loaded so heavy that I can't possibly lift it or I have it pushed up against the safeties in the cage, for example. So what I'm doing is I'm pushing as hard as I can. The bar is not moving. I'm using external, something externally to generate force or for me to generate force against. That's an immovable object. That is very advanced. That's not a way that I would apply isometrics to a beginner or somebody who's got an injury or someone who we're trying to... So extrinsic force. Extrinsic force. But for an advanced lifter, holy cow. And we'll talk about when you could do stuff like this but do this in a workout and watch how the rest of the workout feels or watch how it feels at the end of the workout. Well, you see this in power lifters use this strategy a lot with sticking points on their bench press or their deadlift. They'll set the rack up to a point where they know, like, man, anytime I get to my max weight, I fail right here. And so they'll set the rack up to where that failing point is and then they'll create this isometric contraction right here to help break through that plateau. Yeah, one thing you could do too if you have a home jam which is this is really cool. I have yet to see anybody. I've seen a few people do this but a lot of people haven't done this and this is just phenomenal is you could take, if you have a home jam, you could bolt two hooks into the concrete that are just stuck. Have a couple chains attached to either end and then put collars on the chains now. And the change could be long. So you could use a short part of the chain, long part of the chain. Now you could put a barbell underneath that and you could bench against the movable object, row, overhead press, deadlift. So you can do that. I mean, anything you want curl and it doesn't move. And like I said earlier in the episode, you'll activate all your muscle fibers or definitely more than you would with other exercise. But again, this is an advanced type of isometrics. This one will fatigue you and can get you sore. Yeah, this was also one of those kind of secret weapons for a lot of those combines. I noticed some of the guys had learned the ability how to apply that type of extrinsic force in an isometric before they would go to try and PR a lift or do something in that regard. And it is an advanced technique, but it's very effective because to be able to prep your body ahead of time to prime that amount of and generate that amount of force, when you go now to lift the weight, it's amazing that your body already has been prepped to be able to access that. Yeah, I mean, you're really turning on the CNS with something like this. All right, the next one, this one is what you talked about just now, Adam, with power lifters is just holding a position with resistance. So this is not me pushing against an immovable object, but rather me using a weight, putting it in a position where I have to support it and then holding it there. So it'd be like doing a squat, going down to the bottom of a squat and then holding that bottom position for 10 or 15 seconds and then coming up. This one is probably most commonly used with strength athletes where they're trying to work on a sticking point. We're like maybe two inches off the ground, their deadlift gets stuck or when they bench press, it's the lockout or the bottom position. The bottom position you just hold and then we push and kill all momentum. Yes. Now, what is happening different in the body with the immovable object versus weight that's resisting it? Is it not getting the same CNS response as and recruitment response or would it be the same? So similar, but you're going to activate more muscle fibers when you're pushing against an immovable object because when you're holding something, you're not pushing as hard as you can, otherwise you'd move the weight. You're just trying to hold. There's value there. The value is that you're strengthening a position in that rep and it's not as damaging. Pushing against an immovable object, go try squatting against something that doesn't move and the risk of injury is higher and it'll fry your body more than holding a weight. Intrinsically, you're bracing a lot more and so you're stabilizing your whole body within that position versus pressing all of that energy outward and so you don't have as much emphasis on the stability of your joints in your spine. So would you think, okay, so one is you're resisting the weight more, the other one you're actually you're trying to move it. Exerting everything against something that can't move. It's all output. It's less on the input. Yeah, the one where you're pushing against an immovable object, that one definitely can sap your recovery. It almost sounds like one of them obtains more eccentric-like benefits and then the other one obtains more concentric-like benefits. I would think the immovable object, you're trying to contract as hard as you possibly can. If you've got a barbell that's got 300 pounds on it, you can't bench that. You're resisting that coming down more than you're contracting. Yeah, that's interesting. So I wonder if there's any studies that would show that doing one of the other tips more towards similar benefits as the concentric versus the eccentric. So I would use the immovable object and that one would supplement a set for me because you exert so much energy with it. The holding a position, I can add that to my sets and I'm not really adding... I mean, it's not only that I adjust the weight, right? I'm not really adding to the recovery load. So I can do... And I do this in my workouts all the time. I pause reps all the time with certain exercises and it doesn't really hammer me or take away from my recovery. If I do an immovable object type rep, that's a set. Like I know I have to take away another set in order to add that because it's going to fry my body. So in terms of intensity, the immovable object type of isometric it just takes taxes the body much more than holding the position. The third type of isometric has the least... produces the least damage on the body. It doesn't require lots of recovery. This actually can facilitate recovery, this type of contraction. And this one's the most appropriate for correctional exercise. And this is where you're just trying to create internal and intrinsic isometric contraction. So this will be like flexing, right? Or posing or correctional type movements like you find in Prime Pro. Prime Pro is full of this kind of stuff where I'm in a 90-90 and I'm trying to hold my leg up in a position. I'm not pushing against something. I'm not resisting something necessarily but I'm just trying to activate. I'm just trying... So this was like correctional. Where it's like I can't fire my mid-back. My shoulder blade rises too much when I do an overhead press or whatever. This is more like I'm doing it without resistance except for the resistance I create myself. Right. So it's more gravity... Well, it's more body weight, the driven, right? So it's like, yeah. And you use this a lot in mobility technique. And so there's some, I guess, confusion because you are... There's some actual movements that are happening while simultaneously you have to brace and hold your body position, which could be considered isometric while you're going through certain movements. So... And this is something that's really important to train which applies to your big compound list because to be able to keep your body from shifting and from twisting and rotating at all is a massive consideration because that's usually a lot of times where we get into these problematic areas where injuries occur and where stress gets directed to the joint. Well, it would be an example of that. What's an exercise that would be an example of what you're describing right now? What comes to mind right away? If I'm talking about something that I'm doing for a mobility drill. So if I'm doing... Like if I'm trying to say just a simple wall circle and I'm using my shoulder is the directed point where of rotation where I'm trying to keep my arm locked out. I'm trying to keep my shoulder from rotating with it to make it easier. And my hips from rotating because my natural tendency is to want to kind of turn towards the rotation and to be able to brace and keep everything completely straight. So it's like controlling the rest of my body in the kinetic chain and being able to isolate a joint so it can move freely. Another example would be like a lizard with rotation and I'm at the end range of that and I'm trying to activate that full rotation while I'm trying to keep everything else very neutral. Yeah. Now, interesting, right? So this last type of isometric contraction you find in map symmetry in the first two weeks. A lot of what we do in the first two weeks is similar to this. And now we talk about map symmetry as being this like unilateral training exercise balances right and left, creates a symmetrical looking body, helps bring up weaknesses. But the first two weeks is isometrics and you might wonder why are there isometrics in there because isometrics are a great way to balance out strength output to give the body the range of motion it needs on both sides and essentially to activate and wake things up. So when you're trying to train unilaterally you're probably gonna have one side that's strong on the other doing a week or two of isometrics in the beginning is gonna help you when you do your unilateral training because it's gonna wake things up and give you that form that you need. Otherwise it's so far off. Well, it's gonna provide control and stability. That's right. Which is something that you need to consider that especially once we start unilateral training because the tendency to rotate and to compensate gets heightened when you just work on one side of the body. That's right. And even simpler way I think to communicate it would be when you do bilateral stuff both feet on the ground or like a bench press both arms or like that most everybody has one side that is more dominant the other. One of the main reasons why we all have that is there's better communication to one side than the other side. Right. When you do this first phase in isometrics is we are working on that communication. We are working on your ability to communicate to the weaker side and we're isolating that one side so you can really focus on that communication. And they build muscle in it. And then going into the unilateral work is the building muscle on that side. Absolutely. All right. So there's three main ways that you can use isometrics the different types of isometrics. The first way is before your workouts. I like using isometrics before I do my traditional workout because I'm activating more muscle fibers. I'm giving myself better ranges of motion or better stability and control. And this gives me a better workout. Like if I do isometrics before I bench press this becomes more correctional but it allows me to get better technique and form and get into the groove better. So Maps Prime does a lot of this in priming. Priming is a lot of isometrics before you do your workout giving you better technique and form and getting more out of the exercises that you're doing. So if you're doing isometrics before your workout you're looking at 10 to 15 minutes before your workout and this will trump any warmup that you've ever done. This is not just reducing risk of injury which is what warmups are supposed to do. It's also activating more muscle fibers and just giving you better results. Yeah. I mean there's favorable posture for performing these movements. And regardless of information out there that likes to get into the nuance of morphology and how people bodies differ and whatnot there's always going to be favorable positions to put your body in before you perform the movement. And so priming and being able to isometrically contract the muscles to be able to support that position will put an advantage into your workout like you've never had. Like so this is something that will prep you and help you to perform at your highest. I'm so glad you brought that point up because this is an area where I think there's some contention with some of the things that we communicate on this podcast in regards to mobility and priming. And there seems to be this camp and they're an intelligent camp. There are a lot of smart coaches and trainers that just advocate for doing more sets and they use the morphology argument all the time. They're like we're all so unique and different this idea that we should squat all the same way or do these exercises the same way. And I really and even though there's some truth within that I really don't like that message because in my experience every client that I've ever trained has room for improvement to the point you're making. There is a more optimal or there is a better position for you to be in to get the most from this workout and also to protect you from not getting hurt. Right on an individual basis. Right. So this idea of mobility stuff is bullshit and all this like I hate that movement in our space right now because it is such a terrible message because everybody, I don't care how advanced you are can improve their ability to move the weight better, more safely, more effectively and one of the best ways of doing that is by priming the body before you go in the mood by activating certain muscles and maybe even relaxing other ones so that I can put my body in the most optimal position to get the most from this exercise. So before your workout isometrics serve two functions. One, wake up the muscles you're looking to wake up activate more muscle fibers and two, give you better movement so that you reduce your risk of injury and get better reps essentially. The second way that isometrics are typically used is at the end of a workout and this is how bodybuilders traditionally have used isometrics. This is when they flex and pose a muscle at the end of a workout. They just finished their chest workout now they're done and now they're gonna sit there and hold a chest squeeze for 30 seconds or 15 seconds or whatever. At the end of the workout the benefits really are maximize the pump and there is value in the pump in that it does signal muscle growth to an extent but also it's to get to wake up any dormant muscle fibers that might not have been woken up with that workout with a maximal exertion squeeze but personally after the workout the value I see is the pump. Once I'm done with my workout and I want to really get every little ounce of blood into that muscle to send that pump signal that's when I do something like this where I'll get into a position squeeze the muscle hold the hell out of it for 20 seconds 30 seconds rest do a couple of those and watch what happens it takes your pump into the 10% higher. Wouldn't you make the case too that there's some benefit there though also for just simply being able to train your ability to activate the muscles that you want to call upon in a state of fatigue or exhaustion or like when you spend like one of the things that happens it's to almost everybody when they lift is as soon as the muscle fatigues there's breakdown in the mechanics and this is what we see a lot like somebody will be doing an exercise and then get three or four more reps but the the muscle is fatigued so this idea of oh I've trained a whole hour now I'm all done working out my entire body is fatigued but then I can still call upon a ton of attention to right to the bicep or right to my quad or whatever muscle that I'm activating there has to be some value in training that skill so that when you go to apply that type of mental connection while you're in the middle of your workout you have this you've trained your ability even under fatigue to stay connected to the muscle that you want to activate you're hardwiring a discipline there right within your lift which is an important factor because that is a very common way that people don't squeeze out the maximum potential is because the breakdown happens on fatigue there is a way to psychologically push through that and be more disciplined in that and so I think it is that does apply very well yes now you can also do correctional type isometrics at the end of the workout and this is more for the analgesic effect so if you finish your workout oh I'm a little sore in my shoulder then at the end you can do some correctional type exercise and what it'll do it is it'll change the way your body moves afterwards because what tends to happen when you tweak your body a little bit is your movement patterns change a little bit and sometimes those movement patterns end up causing more pain later on so doing isometrics at the end in a correctional way can get your body moving a little better so you're not walking or moving funny and you know you're not getting even more problems you know later on the third way this is also a popular way bodybuilders like to use isometrics is in between sets now the reason why this is valuable is if you are trying to feel a muscle in an exercise there's almost no better way to get yourself to feel a muscle especially a muscle you have trouble connecting to then using isometrics in between sets so let's say you're doing your presses and you still feel your chest in your bench press well after you do a set in between squeeze the hell out of your chest or get some bands or cables and hold a position or hold a position you pick I like to squeeze position hold it squeeze it feel it then go do your bench press and all of a sudden you can move and position yourself in a way to where you can feel the chest working it's really effective for glutes lats hamstrings areas that people tend to have issues feeling especially when they're beginners well wasn't it Ben Bakulski who was really highlighting the fact that certain muscles that are underdeveloped it's really a connection issue yes so to be able to call upon a muscle that you're trying to develop more within exercise especially if it's a compound exercise or something where you're using a lot of muscles at once to have that opportunity in between sets to enhance it and really fire it off and then take it back into that lift will help to put more emphasis on that my favorite way to use this is what you were saying Sal and specifically to the butt one of the most common exercises that a lot of times my female but both male and female but my female clients tend to care more about this is the ability to feel their butt working when they squat and a lot of times they don't they feel it in their quads and hamstrings everywhere else but their butt and so using like a floor bridge an isometric floor bridge between sets was I mean this was something that like this was Katrina for a long time Katrina has always been a pretty good squatter as far as strength but she's like my butt never gets sore I never really feel it in there and now she was a big runner and she was very quad dominant in and because of those things and so we had to use this a lot to get her to be able to activate that both squats and deadlifts but huge difference when you teach them that way because it is like you you know you're you're telling you're loading somebody on their back and tell them to go through this movement and you're I mean you're thinking stability and I'll get all this weight and oh my god just getting out of the hole and so also to be saying oh and just use your butt to get out of that is really difficult the body's going to default to what it's most comfortable doing or what it's been doing for years or decades in her case and so getting the you to train like no you need to fire this the isometrics in between sets floor bridges in between squatting was like game changer for me yeah I did this to myself as a kid to feel my lats because when I first started working out my back I didn't feel my lats and I had read that squeezing the lats in between sets would help and it did and then I did exactly what you did Adam this was the way I used isometrics with my clients before I learned about isometrics I figured this is a great way to get my clients to feel certain muscle groups and it was most common was but and I did exactly the same thing floor bridge at the top squeeze your glutes oh you feeling burned now cool we rest a little bit do a set now all of a sudden they feel their butt when they're doing a squat yeah look check this out here's what we did because we're talking about isometrics and because map symmetry includes a phase of isometrics and of course the rest of its unilateral we're going to make map symmetry 50% off this is a limited time for this episode so if you're interested in map symmetry you want it half off just go to maps symmetry dot com so m a p s s y m m e t r y map symmetry dot com and then use the code s y m 50 for the 50% off discount also you can find all of us on social media so justin is on instagram my pump justin adam is on instagram my pump at him and you can find me on twitter at mine pumps out today we're going to teach you everything you need to know to build a strong well developed chest when I think of weak points and in areas that I struggled with developing for a really long time chest was up there with the yeah it was for me it was for me for sure I got more caught up in the weight I could lift versus how I was developing my body I think it's one of the most challenging muscles to develop for most people because the form and technique