Personal Training
I Wanna ROCK!
I have been so super busy and I am sad to say that my blog has taken somewhat of a backseat recently due to lots of things happening. I still am reading your blogs, and I am trying to check in with my own as much as I can!! This weekend was great, I was out of the house a lot, which I always love. We live so close to Boston, I sometimes take it for granted all that the city has to offer! On Saturday night, we went to see this play:
Rock of Ages. The Rock of Ages tour is here in Boston and as soon as we heard about it, we got tickets right away. Jason and I are HUGE 80’s fan’s and this is a show based on all music from the 80’s. To say this play was amazing is an understatement. I was OBSESSED!!! We bought the soundtrack on Itunes as soon as we got home. It was so good. I highly recommend you to check out the tour and see if its coming to a city near you!
The man behind the amazingness is this guy! Do you recognize him? His name is Constantine Moroulis and he was on American Idol. He didn’t win but he came damn close. He is incredible.
I absolutely love going to live shows. They are fun, more interactive, and the actors/singers I find have more talent than most “famous” singers and actors in Hollywood. I was blown away by this show!!
Here is the cast performing at the Tony Awards!
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I am currently waiting for more GB storage to upload photos (for those who have Blogger, are you having this problem? It is not letting me upload any more pictures until I buy more space! I did buy some more and its taking longer than I thought for it to actually kick in. THEREFORE I sadly have no more pictures to share with you! I will try to post tomorrow some more exciting pictures of my life 🙂
I will take this time to talk about the two main types of exericises that some in the fitness industry like to catagorlize as compound or isolation movements.
What are compound exercises?: They are multijoint exercises that work several muscles or muscle groups at the same time. An example of a lower body compound exercise would be the squat. The squat works not only the quadriceps, but the hamstrings, core, glutes, calves and lower back as well
Examples
- Squat
- Deadlift
- Walking Lunges
- Row
- Lateral pulldown
- Chin up (pull up)
- Deadlift
- Shoulder Press
- Bench press
- Plate swing throughs
Benefits
- Generally, if you’re main goal is to build muscle, you should use compound exercises as the main focus point of your weight training program and bring in complimentary isolation exercises to supplement the “big movers”
- Compound exercises can allow you to lift heavier weights and work more muscle groups at the same time than isolation exercises. This saves time in the gym while stimulating the maximum amount of muscle fibers. For example, the bench press exercise is not only working your pec’s, but your triceps biceps and delts as well-all as stabilizer muscles and can cause you to build more muscle and burn more fat
- Compound exercises can potentially prevent overtraining in individuals. The problem with exercises programs that focus on all isolation movements is that you can be working your muscles more than you should be. If you do a bicep/triceps workout one day, then a chest workout the next day, you end up working your triceps in both days because you also use your triceps in bench presses. Chances are you will not be fully recovered and will possibly see a decrease in strength because of this. By using compound exercises you can construct either a 4 day upper/lower split or a 3 day full body split and ensure you have a maximum recovery period built into your week
What are Isolation exercises?: Isolation exercises focus on only one single joint movement meaning they focus on one muscle or muscle group at one time. Some examples of isolation exercises include lateral raises, bicep curls and triceps kickback.
Examples
- Hamstring curls
- Calf raises
- Leg ab/adduction machine
- Triceps kickback
- Biceps curl
- Lateral/front raise
- Cable fly’s or cross overs
Benefits
- Isolation exercises can be beneficial to those coming back from an injury or to correct a muscle imbalance in the body. Isolation a certain muscle can be beneficial for increasing strength. After an injury, when a certain muscle group or muscle isn’t as strong, this is when isolation exercises are extremely important
- You can also perform isolation exercises to add bulk and more definition to a certain muscle group. For instance, if you want to work on making the biceps bigger, you can add biceps isolation exercises into your weekly routine.
- Isolation exercises can help strengthen those stabilizer muscles that we need to keep stong to perform everyday tasks. Isolation exercises should be used to compliment your compound exercises.
My advice would be to mix it up BUT I do believe that compound movements should be the base of your workout. It is a great idea to supplement with some isolation exercises as well to make sure you are making the most out of your gym time!
- Do you like live shows or movies better? I definately like shows! there is something magical about seeing the actors/singers live –you feel connected!
- What is your favorite compound and isolation exercises?? I love walking lunges for compound and lateral raises or tricep push down for isolation
- What have you been having for your post workout snack lately? I have been loving a protein shake and some oats!
