compound movements-isolation movments

[powerrack]

The average lifter usually does a combo of compound and isolation movements. Now I know there is a few on the board here who almost exclusively do compound only movements. What do most of you think...my program is mostly compound with the basic few isolations thrown in, such as side laterals, and curls,etc, which is the usual, but are there any of you out there who even omit those and train exclusive with no flyes,curls,pushdowns,etc?

 

[Tom]

sometimes...

last year i went 10 months without doing any direct arm exercises. i concentrated mainly on compound chest and back exercises and a few lateral raises. i got significantly stronger, gained a few pounds and lost no size whatsoever on my arms. in fact they appeared thicker and fuller. now i started arm work for summer and i already know i'll drop it again in a few weeks.

 

[powerrack]

last year i went 10 months without doing any direct arm exercises. i concentrated mainly on compound chest and back exercises and a few lateral raises. i got significantly stronger, gained a few pounds and lost no size whatsoever on my arms. in fact they appeared thicker and fuller. now i started arm work for summer and i already know i'll drop it again in a few weeks.

I've elimanted a lot of movements focusing on a main few now, I also cut the volume way back on arms with only one movement for bis and one for tris now, things are improving.

 

[IronMike]

..

On one of my more successful mass gaining programs I too eliminated arms-specific training and found I made good strength and mass gains overall with no diminished results for arms. I dropped volume on things like calves and concentrated on big, low rep high weight compound movements.

If rowing 300lb+ isn't going to get your arms to grow, then curling 110lb won't help much either.

Try it and see how you go. IronMike

 

[maldorf]

On one of my more successful mass gaining programs I too eliminated arms-specific training and found I made good strength and mass gains overall with no diminished results for arms. I dropped volume on things like calves and concentrated on big, low rep high weight compound movements.

If rowing 300lb+ isn't going to get your arms to grow, then curling 110lb won't help much either.

Try it and see how you go. IronMike

I have to agree here too. Ive gone this route before, doing just 3 sets for biceps and 3 for tris and paying more attention to the compound movements. When I went back to doing more arm work I found that I was actually a bit stronger in the movements. I think the key is variety. Do workouts like this for 6-8 weeks and then switch back to doing more assistant work.

 

[buselmo]

i know this might be the worst answer you can ever hear, and i hate it when someone tells me this... but it all depends on the person. everyone is different.
personally, i only use compound movements... no isolation whatsoever... i've had my best gains doing this...
now i'm pretty good friends with the arabian light heavy champ (currently he's 5'6 weighing 240 lbs at under 12% fat... really big guy), the guy told me he stopped doing compound movements 6 years ago... he only does isolation... and he does something like 15-20 sets per muscle group... i tried his method under his supervision and diet for a week... i lost so much mass and strength it wasn't even funny.
so, yeah.. it depends

 

[thebrick]

Through the years I made my best gains by far by centering my workouts around heavy compound movements and no isolation. Take a look around the gym. As a rule, who are the biggest guys? The ones squating and deadlifting or the guys doing mostly concentration curls and cable crossovers?