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StrongFirst and Isolation Work

rvaldrich

rvaldrich

Level 5 Valued Member
Howdy! I just returned and wrote about it elsewhere, but while I was away, I spent some time experimenting with various protocols, many of which were increasingly isolation-focused.
And, to be honest, some of it really worked wonders! I especially found work for my serratus/pec minor and mid/lower traps REALLY made a difference in my performance.

I know the default answer is 'variety days' or 'later in the day', but does StrongFirst have any sort of 'system' for incorporating targeted work like that? Any kind of systematic recommendations for doing shoulder rotations or hanging shrugs?
Pavel, ages ago, published some addendums to EtK with a lot of exercises. Is 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps once a week on Variety Days still the go-to recommendation? Or is there any new insight?
 
rvaldrich said:
Howdy! I just returned and wrote about it elsewhere, but while I was away, I spent some time experimenting with various protocols, many of which were increasingly isolation-focused.
And, to be honest, some of it really worked wonders! I especially found work for my serratus/pec minor and mid/lower traps REALLY made a difference in my performance.

I know the default answer is 'variety days' or 'later in the day', but does StrongFirst have any sort of 'system' for incorporating targeted work like that? Any kind of systematic recommendations for doing shoulder rotations or hanging shrugs?
Pavel, ages ago, published some addendums to EtK with a lot of exercises. Is 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps once a week on Variety Days still the go-to recommendation? Or is there any new insight?
Click to expand...
Maybe those having attended BuiltStrong could provide some insights, as it features some plans with assistance work.

The specialized variety lifts in this plan are still mostly compound lifts, but I think you could add different types of exercises, too:
www.strongfirst.com

If It Flies Right, It Looks Right: My Journey to a Bodybuilding Competition | StrongFirst

I proved my beliefs on the battlefield. I got on stage with competitive bodybuilders without training "bodybuilding." Here's the training plan I followed.
www.strongfirst.com
 
Bauer said:
Maybe those having attended BuiltStrong could provide some insights, as it features some plans with assistance work.

The specialized variety lifts in this plan are still mostly compound lifts, but I think you could add different types of exercises, too:
www.strongfirst.com

If It Flies Right, It Looks Right: My Journey to a Bodybuilding Competition | StrongFirst

I proved my beliefs on the battlefield. I got on stage with competitive bodybuilders without training "bodybuilding." Here's the training plan I followed.
www.strongfirst.com
Click to expand...
Awesome! Thank you!
I'd looked at the diet for this program, but I'd only glanced over the actual routine.
 
"Strong as you look" program (featured, at least partially, in Beyond Bodybuilding) did make an extensive use of isolation exercises. It was a pretty standard split and the general gist of it was beginning each day with a compound lift or two followed by several isolation exercises. For example, arm day from that program consists of: CG bench, barbell curl, dumbbell curl/triceps extension superset, barbell finger roll and straight arm wrist extension. You would train five or six days a week, taking care to not train related body parts (i.e. shoulders and chest) on consecutive days. Some isolation drills were recommended for standard hardstyle sets of five, other for higher reps (even 10 and beyond); I'm not sure about the reasoning behind that decision.

Two other programs from BB, "5x5x5 Mind Over Muscle" and "3 to 5", also come with a suggestion of using some isolation exercises - for the latter, the express recommendation is to choose three compound lifts and two relevant isolation exercises, the former comes with a list of example combinations that includes curls and side bends among other things.

In other parts of that book Pavel describes other isolation exercises, even some machine-based.

That said, BB is a quite old book from RKC time and I'm not sure if this kind of thinking still has currency at Strong First.
 
Last edited:
TimothyGander said:
"Strong as you look" program (featured, at least partially, in Beyond Bodybuilding) did make an extensive use of isolation exercises. It was a pretty standard split and the general gist of it was beginning each day with a compound lift or two followed by several isolation exercises. For example, arm day from that program consists of: CG bench, barbell curl, dumbbell curls/triceps extension superset, barbell finger roll and straight arm wrist extension. You would train five or six days a week, taking care to not train related body parts (i.e. shoulders and chest) on consecutive days. Some isolation drills were recommended for standard hardstyle sets of five, other for higher reps (even 10 and beyond); I'm not sure about the reasoning behind that decision.

Two other programs from BB, "5x5x5 Mind Over Muscle" and "3 to 5", also come with a suggestion of using some isolation exercises - for the latter, the express recommendation is to choose three compound lifts and two relevant isolation exercises, the former comes with a list of example combinations that includes curls and side bends among other things.

In other parts of that book Pavel describes other isolation exercises, even some machine-based.

That said, BB is a quite old book from RKC time and I'm not sure if this kind of thinking still has currency at Strong First.
Click to expand...
It is one of my favorite Pavel books, but some of the routines in there seemed more like rumor than real routines.
Fatigue Cycling was harder than the Bear. I think I burned out on that in like two weeks. I seem to remember it being very optimistic when it came to load increases. But that may have been because it had 15 rep squats (or something like that) when the most I ever did was 5 reps prior to that. That was many years ago though when I was a young buck with a year or two of training under my belt

That said, isolation exercises are great. But they kind of need a purpose behind them. I wouldn’t do them just to include them.
 
silveraw said:
It is one of my favorite Pavel books, but some of the routines in there seemed more like rumor than real routines.
Fatigue Cycling was harder than the Bear. I think I burned out on that in like two weeks. I seem to remember it being very optimistic when it came to load increases. But that may have been because it had 15 rep squats (or something like that) when the most I ever did was 5 reps prior to that. That was many years ago though when I was a young buck with a year or two of training under my belt

That said, isolation exercises are great. But they kind of need a purpose behind them. I wouldn’t do them just to include them.
Click to expand...
That's weird you had that experience with the fatigue cycle... I had probably the best barbell gains of my life on that routine my bench went from 265ish (lbs) to like 285 in 3 months lol

Had something like...
Bench
Trap bar DL
Weighted chins
Military presses
 
I did not think of hanging shrugs as isolation exercise.. GTG style programming works best for me for dead hangs and hanging shrugs.
 
rvaldrich said:
Howdy! I just returned and wrote about it elsewhere, but while I was away, I spent some time experimenting with various protocols, many of which were increasingly isolation-focused.
And, to be honest, some of it really worked wonders! I especially found work for my serratus/pec minor and mid/lower traps REALLY made a difference in my performance.

I know the default answer is 'variety days' or 'later in the day', but does StrongFirst have any sort of 'system' for incorporating targeted work like that? Any kind of systematic recommendations for doing shoulder rotations or hanging shrugs?
Pavel, ages ago, published some addendums to EtK with a lot of exercises. Is 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps once a week on Variety Days still the go-to recommendation? Or is there any new insight?
Click to expand...
Thanks for raising this. I've had a similar set of questions for a while!
 
Isolation work should have a purpose, and whenever possible it should be “de-isolated” by folding it into another movement to make it a quasi compound lift even if the add in is isometric. Eg, overhead tricep extensions done from a partial squat.
 
rvaldrich said:
Howdy! I just returned and wrote about it elsewhere, but while I was away, I spent some time experimenting with various protocols, many of which were increasingly isolation-focused.
And, to be honest, some of it really worked wonders! I especially found work for my serratus/pec minor and mid/lower traps REALLY made a difference in my performance.

I know the default answer is 'variety days' or 'later in the day', but does StrongFirst have any sort of 'system' for incorporating targeted work like that? Any kind of systematic recommendations for doing shoulder rotations or hanging shrugs?
Pavel, ages ago, published some addendums to EtK with a lot of exercises. Is 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps once a week on Variety Days still the go-to recommendation? Or is there any new insight?
Click to expand...
Not SF certified (I was RKC certified from after the split) so don't know about "strongfirst system".
Here's my interpretation on it:
What is the goal? What do we want to accomplish?
Bigger bicep? Short answer: Then look for 25 stimulating reps per training session, if possible take certain recovery aspects into consideration to being able to train the same muscle 1+ times a week.
Look into various muscle lengths (cycle them throughout the year).
Tip: Charles Poliquin had a great book on this that I think fits into SF-style methodology.

If the answer is "strength", what type of strength? And then that's a way different topic.
 
james_1127 said:
That's weird you had that experience with the fatigue cycle... I had probably the best barbell gains of my life on that routine my bench went from 265ish (lbs) to like 285 in 3 months lol

Had something like...
Bench
Trap bar DL
Weighted chins
Military presses
Click to expand...
The one I did was the big one from the book.
8 exercises each day, lots of 12+ sets with some rep maxes sprinkled in. Squat had a set of 15 followed by three more sets of twelve.
Not something that starting strength and pttp had prepared me for lol.
 
I'm mainly dips, pushups, chins, rows, swings & squats but add single joints for specific purposes:
GHR - speed
Calf raise - health
Skull crushers, curl and lateral raises - tank top season
 
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