5 Reasons Why Compound Exercises are Better than Isolation

Because It Engages More Muscle Groups

We do exercise every day, whether at the gym or at home. It keeps us healthy, fit, and strong.

Now, an important fact is that aside from isolated muscle exercises, some exercises tend to engage more than one muscle. More specifically, a muscle group. Let me make it clear.

So, to begin with, we can say that exercises can be divided into two types based on muscle impaction. These well-known types are:

● Isolate Exercises

● Compound Exercise

Yeah, I know. It’s not a surprise to you. Well, let me lay it down to you in a little more detail.

In this article, I’ll tell you all about compound exercises, the differences, and the reasons why you should do them often. So, without talking further let’s get started.

The Definitions

So, we know that exercises have both an isolated and compound impact on our muscles. It’s essential that we know the definition of both these types. Here are short descriptions about them:

Compound Exercise:

A compound exercise is those exercises that involve or engage large muscle groups at a time instead of a single muscle. For example, squats or pull-ups are one of the best compound exercises using a large muscle group to work at a time.

Isolation Exercise:

An isolation exercise is simply known to target one specific muscle at a time. More clearly, isolation exercise impacts on a specific area of your body. For example, Bicep curls or sit-ups only tend to target your certain area.

Exploring Some

We do many compound exercises. Most of them are known while some may be unfamiliar. So why don’t we know about some of them ? Here is a small list to work with:

● Bench-Press

● Push Up

● Pull Up

● Squat

● Jogging or Running

● Dips

● Dead-Lift

As I said, some of them are obvious and others might not be. So again, here is a list for isolate exercises:

● Bicep Curl

● Crunch

● Sit-up

● Military Press or Overhead Press

● Sumo Squat

● Triceps Extension

Differences Between Compound and Isolate Exercise

For obvious reasons, there are some major differences notable between a compound exercise and an isolation. For the debate, here are 3 big differences between a compound and an isolation exercise:

1. Amounts of Muscle Usage

The big difference you will notice at first is that compound exercise involves more muscle than isolation exercise. Compound exercise always seems to involve your core at first while doing one.

Isolation exercise on the other hand only engages a certain area.

2. Burning Calories

We burn calories while doing any exercise. Some exercises burn less calories while others burn more.

Now, the difference is that compound exercises burn more calories than isolate exercises. To be honest, isolated exercises are not even close. Compound exercise puts an impact on your muscle and burns calories at the same time.

So, isolation exercise is not the best at calorie burning. I mean, you only move one part of your body at a time. It’s not ideal for cardio, but it’s effective for building or impacting muscle in a certain area.

3. Effectiveness

When it comes to effectiveness, both exercises are equally effective for how they’re done.

Let’s say that when we do push ups, our chests and triceps as well as back muscles also get involved in it. So, push ups not only grow your chest but also your triceps and especially your core too. Compound exercises are ideal for large muscle training at a time.

Isolation exercises are also effective for a specific area. But unlike compound exercises, these exercises don’t target muscles all around your body.

Say for example bicep curls. When you do curls, it most effectively affects your bicep area. So, you can say isolation exercises are effective for specific muscle training.

Pros and Cons

Like every other exercise, I believe compound and isolated exercises also have some advantages and down-sides as well. So here is a list of the pros and cons:

Pros

Here are some pros of compound and isolated exercise:

Compound Exercise:

● Burns More Calories

● Best Way to Increase Strength

● Quickly Elevates Heart rate and releases anabolic hormones

● Improve Intermuscular Coordination

● Reliable for Endurance Enhancing

Isolated Exercise:

● Great for Building Muscles

● Affects only in specific area, so you don’t need much energy

● Provides more definition to specific muscle areas.

● Reliable when in injury or to avoid one.

● Helps you target overlooked areas in Compound Exercise

Cons

Here are cons of compound and isolated exercise:

Compound exercise:

● Easily burn through your energy. So, you might end up burning more calories than you need

● Can result in an injury if proper form is not followed

● It can be tricky if you have weak muscle or specific damaged muscle

● May overlook some muscle

● Requires strength to perform heavy exercises. Might not be suitable for beginners

Isolated exercise:

● Only affects one muscle group at a time

● Takes more time and focus to complete

● Burns fewer calories, not suggested if you tend to quickly burn calories or lose weight

● Does not release anabolic hormones during workout

● Not reliable for building overall body strength

As you can see, both compound and isolated exercises have their own pros and cons. It turns out that isolated and compound exercises might not be perfect, but it’s good nonetheless.

5 Reasons Why Compound Exercise Should be Done Often

There are also some good reasons why compound exercise should be done often other than isolated exercise. Aside from all the cons, compound exercise really does the job better than isolated exercise.

So here are 5 reasons I think why compound exercise should be done more often:

1. It Burns More Calories

I’ve been saying it from the first and here I say it again. Compound exercise engages more than a single muscle group to work which leads to burning more calories and quickly pumps up your heart.

Also, another great fact is that compound exercises release essential hormones which helps you with better workout performance.

2. Increases Strength to Next Level

In my opinion, strength doesn’t rely on muscle. And compound exercises are proof of this.

Compound exercises like squats or pull ups don’t give you the muscle definition like an isolated exercise will do. But it affects your whole-body muscle.

So, at the end, you use your whole-body strength or at least large muscle groups to do the exercise. Doing compounds more often will get this strength to a whole new level you’ve never been.

3. No Need to Go for Specific Muscle

Compound exercise engages large muscle chunks at a time to work. You might end up training all your muscles through a single exercise.

Take deadlift for example. When we do deadlifts, we first engage our lower body muscles. And then we use our upper body muscles especially core and back muscles to get straight up.

So, a single exercise like deadlift trains more than 6 muscles to work. We don’t need to do other isolates after doing compounds like deadlift.

4. Enhances Endurance

Compound exercises enhance your endurance alongside building strength and muscle.

But how, you ask?

Well, it’s simple. We know that compound exercise requires multiple muscle groups to work together as one. All these muscles use up a lot of energy to work together. So, your heart activates and pumps hard to provide blood flow to all muscles.

Take running for example. Running involves your upper body as well as lower body muscles. When you run, you can certainly see your heart beat louder and faster.

The more you do, the more your body gets used to it. That’s how your endurance increases at the end.

5. Overall Body Fitness

Remember all the gym stereotypes that only go for one muscle or just their upper body? Well, with compound exercise, it’s not the same story.

Compound exercises use muscle groups you may not think of. Even an upper body exercise like pull ups may use the strength of your lower body.

It’s like if you don’t care much of your specific body muscles, compound exercise will take care of that. Some exercises like squats or jogging involve both your upper and lower body muscles. It’s like overall fitness care.

Conclusion

It seems like we’ve reached the end of our topic today. I hope it was helpful to you in any way.

Isolate Vs Compound, this debate seems to go forever. Which one is better and which is not? Well, if you ask me, not just me but any other experienced people will say both are better.

To put it simply, you can gain benefits from both isolates and compounds. It simply depends on how you want to approach.

I’ve shared quite a few important pieces of information like all the pros and cons and reasons why I think compound might be better for some people.

If you ask me, I personally think a compound approach might be better. But the opinion purely depends on you.

What do you think? Which is better for you, Isolated or Compound? Let me know your opinion. Also let me know if I missed anything.