Hey guys, Sean Nalewanyj here, BodyTransformationTruth.com, and today I wanted to answer a really common
question that people ask, which is how to consistently progress in weight on smaller
isolation exercises.
They’ll say things like, you know, “obviously you can’t just keep adding 5 pounds every
few weeks to exercises like side lateral raises or bicep curls, so how am I supposed to achieve
progressive overload on those exercises”.
So, this is a good question to ask, but as far as I’m concerned there’s really no
big difference between the basic concept of progression when it comes to small isolation
exercises in comparison to big compound lifts, your primary focus is still to just gradually
increase the weight that you use over time, and assuming that you’re training and eating
properly, you should be able to achieve consistent, ongoing progress as long as you continue training.
However, there are two very important things to keep in mind here.
First off, an isolation exercise only involves the use of one single muscle group and so
obviously the overall rate of progression is going to be a lot slower and more gradual,
and because all of the stress from those exercises is being directed at just one muscle group,
small increases are still going to be very significant.
I can’t give a direct parallel here, but for example, you could say something like,
maybe 2 extra reps on a tricep extension is going to benefit your triceps in the same
way that 5 extra pounds on a deadlift would benefit your back and legs.
So you really have to lower your expectation for how quickly those isolation exercises
are going to increase in weight and recognize that any progression at all, even if it’s
just a single rep or even half a rep, that still is significant, again because you’re
only using 1 single muscle group.
And the second thing to remember is that any time you increase the weight on an isolation
exercise, you’re going to feel that increase way more heavily because it’s a much bigger
percentage jump in comparison to increasing the weight on a compound exercise.
For example, if you’re performing side lateral raises with 20 pound dumbbells and then you
increase to 22.5 pound dumbbells, you’re increasing the total weight lifted by 5 pounds
which is actually a 25% increase, whereas if you were performing deadlifts with 200
pounds and then you added 5 pounds, the increase there would only be 2.5% which is 10 times
less.
So let me give you a couple of tips on this particular issue.
First off, if jumping up to the next set of weights on an isolation exercise feels too
heavy for you, then what you want to do is focus on increasing the number of reps that
you’re performing first and foremost before you try to go ahead and add more weight.
So instead of trying to increase the weight on for example a dumbbell curl once you reached
maybe 8 reps with a certain weight, try bumping that up to 10 reps or even 12 reps, and then
increase the weight from there.
Or if you get to 10 reps on a side lateral raise and you try to increase the weight but
it feels too heavy, then bump that up to 12 reps or even 15 reps before increasing.
Another option that you can use to get stronger with a given weight before going up is to
decrease the rest time in between sets, or to just make the exercise itself more difficult
by pausing for a longer timein the fully contracted position, slowing down your negatives or just
adding some more volume by performing an extra set or two.
And one more point that I’d add here is the concept of “microloading”, which is
to try and find ways to decrease the overall amount of weight that you add each time so
that the percentage jump isn’t as big.
For example if you’re performing a machine isolation lift but the weight stack only goes
up by 10 or 15 pound increments at a time, then depending on the machine you could rest
a small dumbbell on top of the weight stack, or you could even hang a 2.5 pound or a 5
pound plate off the pin like you see here, this is something that I personally do all
the time.
Or with dumbbells you can actually purchase small magnetic micro plates that attach onto
the ends of the dumbbells, or you could even wear really light wrist weights depending
on which exercise you're performing, these are just some ideas to play around with, and
if you get creative then there are all sorts of different ways that you can increase the
weight on isolation lifts by only 2.5 pounds at a time as opposed to 5 or 10 pounds.
So, bottom line here, progressive overload is the single most important factor when it
comes to gaining muscle size and strength over time, and you should strive for continual
progression on small isolation lifts in the same way you do for compound lifts, except
that the increases are going to happen a lot more slowly, and that’s totally fine because
even small increases on isolation exercises are still very significant in terms of gaining
muscle size and strength because you’re only utilizing a single muscle group.
So thanks for watching this video lesson, I hope you found the information useful here
today.
For more no nonsense, science based training tips just like this one along with nutrition
and supplementation information to maximize your muscle building and your fat burning
progress, make sure to head over to BodyTransformationTruth.com and grab my complete “Body Transformation
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the description box below.
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Talk to you again soon.