What Is Isometric Exercise? Isometric exercise is a scientifically proven strength training protocol in which you use the muscles of your body to place pressure against an object, door jam, pole tree etc...
Or you hold the muscle in a fixed position for a predetermined period.
Although isometric exercises may lead in an immense deal of gain to the individual, there are some precautions that should be reviewed.
* If you have high blood pressure you should not use Isometric exercise because it can cause a "spike" in your blood pressure.
Although the blood pressure typically returns to normal once the muscle relaxes.
The spike in blood pressure can be dangerous to those who already have increased blood pressure.
* Another consideration when executing isometric exercises include the duration of time each action is held.
The duration of time an isometric exercise is executed is comparable to the number of repetitions executed in other types of strength training workouts.
For strength training purposes, a length of 7 to 10 seconds per exercise is optimal.
In recent years there has been continued research into the use of isometric exercise and one new theory is that of blending both isometric and isotonic exercise.
What I mean by that is you would do the exercise as follows: - Assuming you were going to do a set of dumbbell curls.
You would curl the weight for say...
9 repetitions and then on the last rep you would curl the weight slowly but stop at the half way point.
Hold the dumbbell there till a count of 10, then slowly lowering the weight.
This exercise will create an incredible pump and muscle burn! What I am saying is using this "Post-Isometric-Hold" you will find your body responding with new muscle size and strength gains almost immediately.
You can also use resistance bands instead of dumbbells or free weights.
In my opinion I prefer resistance bands because of the ability to train anywhere and the variety of exercises.