Welcome to IsometricExerciseSite.com! Whether you’re a martial artist, body builder, elite athlete, or just a plain old fitness enthusiast, I hope you find this site fun and informative. It’s a collection of the best articles, videos, and pictures on the web about using isometrics and plyometrics for strength training.

If you’re interested in really mixing up your workout routine, I sell, and recommend the following products:

Lean Body Fitness

The premise of this book is also that you don’t need to spend crazy amounts of time at the gym to have a strong athletic body. It’s a good read for people who don’t have a lot of time to pump iron at the gym. He talks about how to melt fat and increase strength by training like an athlete. Click here to check it out.

Strong in 7 Seconds

Probably one of the most comprehensive books about isometrics on the internet. Tons of great exercises and really good testimonials, pictures, and videos of regular people (not bodybuilders) that have gotten real results in as little as 10 minutes a day. Click here to check it out.

No Nonsense Muscle Building

This guy is the real deal. He was a skinny twirp that created one of the most popular muscle building programs on the internet. What’s great about him is that he busts the common myths that you have to bulk up on steroids and do crazy workout routines to build muscle. All in all, it’s a straight forward guide with tons of tips on proper diet and exercise to build muscle. Sign up to his email list for really good strength training articles. Click here to check it out.

Looking to expand your chest workout? Check out our sister site, http://IronChestWorkouts.com Also, if you’re an athlete and looking to increase your vertical leap, check out this plyometric exercises site.

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Isometric training is a perfect thing to add to your work out program. It can  help you improve strength levels in all essential lifts. For example, you might begin with the standard standing pectoral butterfly stretch against the cable machine. You are at full extension, and incapable of moving the rack, obviously. After holding that flex and pressing as hard as possible for 30 seconds, move to the middle range of the stretch. Add another 30 seconds of complete tension - pressing with everything you have against a weight you obviously know will not move. Finally, finish that “set” with another 30 seconds of the final locked out position.

The idea is that isometric training will give the muscle an infinite workload of resistance, recruiting all of your muscle fibers to accomplish the impossible task. You can emulate just about any lift you can imagine, simply by contorting your body against some equipment in the gym, or in your home or office, when time is short. Muscle coordination benefits tremendously, which allows for greater contraction, strength, and concentration when you’re actually conducting the movements the isometric stretching was designed to mirror. Mix isometric into your training following the three major lifts of deadlift, bench press and squats. You might just discover it allows you to break a plateau and increase your strength levels without resorting to steroid use or weight gains.

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Gymnastics Strength Moves

Front Lever

The front lever is a strength move that is performed on the still rings. It can also be practiced at home on a pull-up bar. Begin from an inverted hang (you hang upside down with a straight body with your hips by your hands). Make a very tight grip, tuck your pelvis to assume the hollow position, squeeze your abs and glutes, tighten your legs, and point your toes. Begin to slowly lower your body maintaining the hollow position and keeping your arms straight throughout. Consciously tense your armpits and isometrically (without any actual movement) pull downwards (towards the bar or rings) and inwards (towards the front of your body) with your hands (activating your lats and your chest). Your upper body will naturally shift backwards to establish your center of gravity. Begin with a small range of motion and work towards holding a horizontal position.

Planche

A planche is a strength movement where you assume a push-up position with your feet off the floor (feet parallel to the ground or higher). The gymnast holds his body in this position. This movement can be performed on rings, the floor, or parallel bars. I would suggest doing this on rings or bars because of the strength enhancing effects of gripping the apparatus and it is not as hard on your wrists. It will also allow you to hold the planche in lower positions as you are working up to parallel or higher. Begin by holding yourself up on rings or bars. Squeeze the rings or bars and lean forward. Assume a slight arch position by lifting your heels, tensing your glutes and your lower back muscles. This will help raise your lower body to the proper position. Lean as far forward as you can without falling. While lowering yourself isometrically push your hands upward (as if you are trying to raise your straight arms over your head) and outwards (away from your body) tensing your shoulders, upper back, and chest.

Methods of working up to the Planche

1. Initially perform in tuck position with your knees pulled to your chest. Straighten your legs a little when you are able to hold the position for 10 to 15 seconds. The progressions can be: tight tuck, partial tuck, straddled legs, and legs together.
2. Begin in push-up position with your feet supported by a chair, step, etc. that is the same height or higher than your shoulder. Lean forward employing all of the tension techniques. You will begin to feel the pressure of your feet on the supporting object decrease. The goal is to lift and hold the feet completely off the object.

Iron Cross If you do not have a set of rings, you can perform crosses on chairs. Find two chairs whose seats are the same heights. You will need to tuck or hold your straight legs out in front of your body. Place the chairs so that they are facing the same direction. Start with the chairs close together (just wide enough for you to fit your upper body between them). Place your upper arms on the chairs and lift your feet. Gradually increase the difficulty of the exercise by moving the chairs further away from each other. All of these will be done in the final position of the cross.

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Myth 1: Reduce “Problem Areas” with Certain Exercises

Doing 1000 crunches to burn belly fat probably won’t work… sorry to break it to you.

The truth is that fat loss has a lot to do with genetics, hormones, and age. Weight loss is a simple formula; calories in must be less than calories used. Strength training exercises to build up certain body parts of course is perfectly valid.

So if you want stronger arms, stop wasting money on phoney products and do your isometric exercises.

Myth 2: You Need Equipment to Have an Effective Strength Training Workout

Strength training is about breaking down your muscle fibers through resistance, and there are tons of ways to do that. You can do isometric exercises, plyometrics, body weight exercises (pushups, pullups, dips, crunches, etc.), and of course weights.The point is that although you can use weights, isometrics, isotonics, and plyometrics done at home can build functional strength, and make you feel good too.

Myth 3: Strength Training Will Make You Slower and Less Flexible

Ok, so the jury is out on this one. Bruce Lee was known to avoid weight lifting because he didn’t want to get too big, but building up lean muscle can actually help you speed up, depending on how you train and what your goals are.The stronger your muscles are, the more force they can exert. Weight lifting for body building is completely different from strength training for combat sports or agility

Click on this link for more strength training myths. It’s a really interesting article because it not only debunks these myths, but tells you where they originated.

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And if you’re still up to it, check out this video on plyometrics for combat conditioning, and for all you ninja’s out there, here’s a fun lower body plyometrics workout for ninja training. And check out these posts to learn how to overhaul your “regular” strength training routine with isometric exercises.

Isometric exercises have been used for rehab for a while. In fact, Rutgers University’s CareCure Forum has posts about isometrics and rehabilitation. For anyone interested in how isometric exercises work, I read about an experiment on the BodyWeight Exercise Blog that took place in 1920. Scientists at Springfield College in Springfield Massachusetts ran an experiment where they took a number of frogs and tied up one of their legs, completely immobilizing it. The frog could only move one leg free, and couldn’t move the other one at all. They wanted to see the effects of atrophy on the boung leg.

Surprisingly, after two weeks, the bound legs had grown stronger and larger.  So much so that the frogs now actually jumped in a lopsided fashion. The researchers had actually made an incredible discovery concerning isometric training, but they simply didn’t realize it. Apparently, by binding the leg, the frogs had to use all of their muscles right down to their deepest fibers to try to move their leg. In contrast, it only took a small percentage of the frog’s muscle fibers to move the free leg.

Although isometric exercises don’t typically have a large range of motion, when the muscle is exerted continuously and vigorously, it will grow stronger and larger than doing a fluid, repetitive motion that relies on momentum (imagine a bicep curl done while swinging the dumbbell up and down). Strength and mass is achieved by working the muscles intensely and deeply.

Now that you know why isometrics are so effective, check out these posts to learn how to overhaul your “regular” strength training routine with isometric exercises and plyometrics.

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“Don’t get me wrong, isometrics can be very effective in building tremendous strength, like in gymnastics… say a full body planche, or a cross, v-sit etc. (assisted of course) I’m not sure how isolation isometrics like here is really effective, especially when done without any measurable resistance”

But I can attest from personal experience, if you really focus, you’ll get an incredible strength training exercise workout.

And check out these posts to learn how to overhaul your “regular” strength training routine with isometric exercises and plyometrics.

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“A recent study showed that playing the didgeridoo to train the upper airway muscles “significantly ameliorated OSA syndrome severity and associated symptoms,”

With this in mind, the researchers chose a set of isometric and isotonic exercises for the tongue and soft palate area (oropharyngeal area) derived from speech therapy training that involved suction, swallowing, chewing, breathing and speech.

At the end of 3 months, the average apnea-hypopnea index, the sum of apneas plus hypopneas (episodes of shallow breathing) per hour of sleep, had decreased significantly from 22.4 to 13.7 events per hour in the exercise group. In addition, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality score improved from 10.2 to 6.9 points, snoring intensity was reduced from “very loud” to “similar to breathing,” and Epworth Sleepiness Scale scores dropped from 14 to 8.”

Pretty cool huh?

Click the link to read the entire article on using isometric exercises for sleep apnea

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