Training of abdominal muscles, calf and arms has always been controversial in the fitness industry:
Some people believe that compound movements can also exercise these small muscle groups, so there is no need for isolated training;
while another person believes that all muscle groups should be treated equally, so isolated training for small muscle groups is essential.
The following article will discuss whether these three typical small muscle isolated training is necessary.
Do you need to train your abdominal muscles in isolation?
Opposition to abdominal muscle training is quite popular among some fitness enthusiasts, but the author believes that abdominal muscle training is necessary in many scenarios. In response to some common arguments, the author will refute them one by one.
Argument 1: High-weight multi-joint composite movements have already had a high core participation. These movements are enough to obtain beautiful abdominal muscles, so there is no need for abdominal muscle training.
refute: First of all, the abdominal muscles play a stable role in the compound movement, which is not enough to trigger the hypertrophy effect, so they cannot bring about the separation like the washboard.
Secondly, because the abdominal muscles are highly involved in the compound movements, we should do some targeted training.
Of course, the core training required for people of different body shapes to perform compound movements is also different. The longer the trunk, the higher the strength requirements for transverse abdominal muscles , external oblique muscles and lower back. Individuals with shorter trunks and longer lower limbs do not need so much training for abdominal muscles.
Argument 2: Everyone has abdominal muscles, and whether the abdominal muscles are visible is a problem of body fat. A thin man can see his abdominal muscles even without training.
refute: The thin abs are like the fat girl's giant breasts. Although they exist, they are meaningless. Indeed, everyone has abdominal muscles, just like everyone has chest muscles, but are they developed enough? In reality, many professional bodybuilders have low body fat, but do not have abdominal muscle resolution.
Abdominal muscle resolution is partially affected by genetic factors, but it can also be improved through training. By increasing the thickness of rectus abdominal muscles through targeted abdominal muscle training (preferably adding some weight), the gap between muscle fibers and tendon tissue can be expanded, making the abdominal muscle scale deeper, and allowing you to have visible abdominal muscles at higher body fat.
To be fair, some people are indeed "gifted" and can have beautiful abdominal muscles with a slight fat loss, but the idea of "no one needs to practice abdomen" is unreliable.
Argument 3: If you have high body fat, why do you need to practice your abdomen? Anyway, I can't see the abdominal muscles.
refute: with high body fat, training in abdomen may not bring intuitive visual progress. But training abdomen should not be considered for visual effects. Abdominal training can also improve the performance of compound movements and reduce back pain.
Argument 4: Curl training will not improve the strength performance of the compound movement, because the force mode of the abdominal muscles and the compound movement are different, and it may even reduce the strength performance of the compound movement.
Refute: I admit that the contraction activities of the abdominal muscles during various crunches training are different from those during compound training.
But not everyone has the ability to control and actively contract the abdominal muscles and find the feeling of maintaining stability in the trunk.
We are more about building feelings through isolated training, learning to control the abdominal muscles and enhancing their contraction and stability abilities.
Do you need to train your calf in isolation?
In my sports career, I never train my calves. In my more than 20 years of coaching career, I rarely let my students train their calves in isolation, including some top bodybuilders.
The following three reasons for me to do this:
. Among all muscles, the growth potential of calf muscles is almost the lowest. It is not impossible to develop a larger calves, but the muscle growth space in the calves is quite small.
Whether you can develop a tower-like calf depends largely on the length of the muscle abdomen/tendon.Only those who are born with muscles and abdominal have this condition.
Very few sprinters have huge calves, because long tendons and short abdomen are advantages for sprinting. Sprinters have amazing training volumes of calf training, but the genetic gene of determines that they will not have huge calf.
. In addition to squat deadlift, practice a large number of compound movements (such as high pulling, pushing and drag sleds, etc.), and cooperate with explosive training such as jumping and sprinting, which is enough to maximize the development of the growth potential of the calf. If you cannot develop decent calves from these trainings, no matter how many isolated movements you do, it will be of no help.
3. One of the main purposes of isolated training is to establish myocardial connections and improve muscle extreme contraction ability - but compared with abdominal muscles, most people can properly contract the calf muscles . Because we all have rich experience in using the calf: walking, standing, running, and jumping.
That is to say, if you perform calf isolation training, it can indeed make it bigger and stronger, but the gain is very limited. It is better to allocate the training volume to other actions with greater benefits.
Do you need to train your arms in isolation?
Bodybuilder must have heard of the saying "no need to train your arms in isolation". Such a training concept is very popular among " minimalist " coaches. The logic of not practicing arms is that if daily life already includes a lot of push and pull training, it has already brought enough stimulation to biceps and triceps .
Some scientific evidence seems to support this concept-compound movements are activated in the same degree as isolated movements. (For example, vertical pulling movements are similar to bicep curls activation of bicep bracelets; parallel bar flexor arm bracelets are also better than many isolated movements; bench presses and variations are similar to flexion and extension of cervical back arm.)
However, please consider the following points:
-Muscle "activation" does not mean more muscle tone or more stimulation.
-Muscle "activated", which only means that the motor unit has been activated, but whether the muscles continue to maintain tension when they are stretched is also the key point. To achieve the ideal muscle hypertrophy effect, it is necessary to produce as much tension as possible while elongating the muscles. Taking pull-up and high pull-down as an example, the biceps will never be in an ideal stretched state. To fully stretch the biceps, your arms should be on both sides of the body and behind the midline of the body (such as lying on your back and curling the diagonally). In a vertical pulling action, your arms are above the body, preventing the biceps from stretching completely.
The length of limbs of different people will also cause deviations.
Individuals with short limbs use their arms more when doing pulling and pushing actions, while individuals with long limbs are the opposite. It is unwise to completely abandon arm isolation training. You need to weigh it yourself and find the best solution for you based on your body structure, muscle condition and training level.
Whether to train small muscle groups, two key factors you must consider
-What are your training goals?
-How to reasonably allocate training volume?
Everyone's body's ability to withstand training pressure is limited, and you cannot blindly arrange a large amount of indiscriminate training volume for each muscle. Therefore, you need to carefully consider how to allocate a limited amount of training:
If the main goal is strength or athletic performance, does not require a lot of isolated training. You should focus on compound movements (squat, pull, push), while isolated movements are only used to strengthen certain strength shortcomings.
If the main goal is muscle hypertrophy or visual effect, then doing compound movements alone cannot meet the requirements. The capacity of isolated movements needs to be allocated according to the degree of development of each muscle group.
Only those who are born with muscles and abdominal have this condition.Very few sprinters have huge calves, because long tendons and short abdomen are advantages for sprinting. Sprinters have amazing training volumes of calf training, but the genetic gene of determines that they will not have huge calf.
. In addition to squat deadlift, practice a large number of compound movements (such as high pulling, pushing and drag sleds, etc.), and cooperate with explosive training such as jumping and sprinting, which is enough to maximize the development of the growth potential of the calf. If you cannot develop decent calves from these trainings, no matter how many isolated movements you do, it will be of no help.
3. One of the main purposes of isolated training is to establish myocardial connections and improve muscle extreme contraction ability - but compared with abdominal muscles, most people can properly contract the calf muscles . Because we all have rich experience in using the calf: walking, standing, running, and jumping.
That is to say, if you perform calf isolation training, it can indeed make it bigger and stronger, but the gain is very limited. It is better to allocate the training volume to other actions with greater benefits.
Do you need to train your arms in isolation?
Bodybuilder must have heard of the saying "no need to train your arms in isolation". Such a training concept is very popular among " minimalist " coaches. The logic of not practicing arms is that if daily life already includes a lot of push and pull training, it has already brought enough stimulation to biceps and triceps .
Some scientific evidence seems to support this concept-compound movements are activated in the same degree as isolated movements. (For example, vertical pulling movements are similar to bicep curls activation of bicep bracelets; parallel bar flexor arm bracelets are also better than many isolated movements; bench presses and variations are similar to flexion and extension of cervical back arm.)
However, please consider the following points:
-Muscle "activation" does not mean more muscle tone or more stimulation.
-Muscle "activated", which only means that the motor unit has been activated, but whether the muscles continue to maintain tension when they are stretched is also the key point. To achieve the ideal muscle hypertrophy effect, it is necessary to produce as much tension as possible while elongating the muscles. Taking pull-up and high pull-down as an example, the biceps will never be in an ideal stretched state. To fully stretch the biceps, your arms should be on both sides of the body and behind the midline of the body (such as lying on your back and curling the diagonally). In a vertical pulling action, your arms are above the body, preventing the biceps from stretching completely.
The length of limbs of different people will also cause deviations.
Individuals with short limbs use their arms more when doing pulling and pushing actions, while individuals with long limbs are the opposite. It is unwise to completely abandon arm isolation training. You need to weigh it yourself and find the best solution for you based on your body structure, muscle condition and training level.
Whether to train small muscle groups, two key factors you must consider
-What are your training goals?
-How to reasonably allocate training volume?
Everyone's body's ability to withstand training pressure is limited, and you cannot blindly arrange a large amount of indiscriminate training volume for each muscle. Therefore, you need to carefully consider how to allocate a limited amount of training:
If the main goal is strength or athletic performance, does not require a lot of isolated training. You should focus on compound movements (squat, pull, push), while isolated movements are only used to strengthen certain strength shortcomings.
If the main goal is muscle hypertrophy or visual effect, then doing compound movements alone cannot meet the requirements. The capacity of isolated movements needs to be allocated according to the degree of development of each muscle group.
