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Compound exercises vs isolation exercises, which one is better ?

Compound exercises vs isolation exercises: Let dive in and find out which one is better.
If you are a person who loves a healthy body and takes exercise routines as an oath. But you don’t have a clear picture of what actually can work for your body type and which types of exercises you should do. Then, this blog is for you. 
If we will talk about the best exercise routines there are two of them: Compound exercises and Isolation exercises. 

What builds muscle better, Compound or isolation?


As per our health experts, 80% of the training should come from compound movements and 20% of training comes from isolation movements.

What are Compound exercises-

Compound exercise
If you are into workout and gym you must have heard about compound exercise. A COmpound exercise is a must in any good workout routine.
They provide benefits in all the areas of fitness

  1. Muscle
  2. Strength
  3. Function
  4. Weight loss


Compound exercises Involve Functional movements with free weights and put a lot of stress on your joints. Hence, if done incorrectly this exercise may result in injury if performed incorrectly. It is absolutely critical to follow these exercises in the correct form. In my advice, the best way to ensure the correct form is to show the pose to a trainer and try it under your trainer’s guidance. 

Note- Make sure to do this with lightweights.

For full benefits of compound, exercise must be performed over FULL RANGE OF MOTION
 In order to get the full benefit of squats, we need to at least go down so our thighs must at least be parallel to the floor. This will require some about of flexibility and strength. Considering our current Modern Lifestyle.
Many of us might not have the flexibility or strength to perform compound exercises to overcome this limitation start out with lightweight and then slowly build the strength upon increasing the weights. 
To increase weight or Range of motion also pay close attention to your form and try under your trainer’s guidance. 

Note: Most injury happens when someone lifts the weight which they cannot manage.

The Compound exercise involves the cohesive use of a team of muscles
Muscles team for Squats:
Just as in a team the workload might get unevenly distributed in the team members based on the competence of a certain team member, similarly while performing compound exercises. One muscle group might end up doing more work than others. This can cause some muscles to strengthen than others.
Only performing compound exercises may result in strength and muscle gain plateau. This is where Isolation exercises can be of great use.

  • Quadriceps
  • Gluteus Maximus
  • Adductor Magnus
  • Soleus
  • Hamstrings
  • Gastrocnemius
  • Erector Spinae
  • Rectus Abdominis
  • Obliques 

Isolation exercise-

isolation exercises
An Isolation exercise only targets a single muscle group. These exercises are most often but not also performed on the machines.  these machines provide support to the rest of the body while one muscle group does all the work. Since only one muscle group does all the work the overall intensity of such an exercise is relatively low. 

One muscle does the work  —-> Low-Intensity workout.

Such exercise is therefore not very effective in Developing Mass and Strenght, But hey this doesn’t mean that isolation exercises are completely useless and are not beneficial for a workout. There are some benefits of isolation exercises as well, let’s look at some of them-

  • Makes your muscles extra defined.
  • target specific areas of the body at a time.
  • involves just one joint at a time and recruits a limited number of muscles.
  • Helps you in toning your arms.

Note– Isolation exercises are for those who are on an advanced level of body training and as looking for an exercise routine to strengthen a specific area of the body. It can work wonderfully for the body areas that are overlooked in compound exercises.

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