Around here, we’re mostly interested in overall fitness and functional strength. By that, we mean that we’re looking to develop the kind of strength useful in everyday life, the kind that helps you move boxes of stuff, lift heavy things, and climb up stuff.

Ok, the last one may not be an every-day thing but it is fun.

To develop this kind of strength, you want to look at full body exercises or compound – exercises which use multiple muscle groups at once, such as a squat, rather than isolation exercises which focus on a specific muscle group, like a curl.

When you get to use your body outside of exercise, you will almost never be using one body group in isolation. Almost every action you will undertake will require the use of several muscle groups working together, so it really makes more sense to train them together.

This isn’t just for convenience, although it does make getting a good all over workout much faster than working different groups in isolation. Training full body lets you get used to controlling different groups at the same time, as well as strengthening smaller muscles which tend to get overlooked in isolation training.

Since these small muscles do all sorts of useful things like helping you maintain your balance, neglecting them isn’t a great idea.

This kind of training also teaches you to control multiple muscle groups together. Since your neuro-muscular system has a significant say in how much strength you can apply anywhere, this is really something you want to happen!

While full body training is our preferred kind, there are a few situations where isolation training is useful.

For starters, if you are training for a sport and need to train for some specific action, then yes, you really want to focus on what you are using there. Even so, this should be part of your overall plan, not your whole plan. Bruce Lee’s training plans were mostly full-body, although he would include a few isolation exercises (about one in six) in his weight training routine as they were specifically useful to his martial arts training.

You might also want to use some isolation training to work on muscles you’re not training otherwise. The neck muscles, for example, are only indirectly involved in most exercises, so if you want to strengthen them, it helps to give them some individual attention.

Finally, isolation exercises are important to target a specific area when dealing with an injury. Focusing on the interested part allows you to strengthen it in a controlled exercise, which is essential for its recovery. Make sure you do this under advice from a physiotherapist though – piling random stresses on top of an injury is not going to help!

In summary, if you’re looking for functional strength, full body exercises should receive the bulk of your attention and isolation exercises should be used to support them when needed.  As usual, remember your purpose for training, and adapt your routine to get you there.

Cover photo: A variety of 19th Century exercise machines, source unknown.