Isometrics

[scotty1]

Hi

Just been hanging around on the Dragons List, reading a thread on Isometrics, wanted clarification on a few things.
1) What effect do isometrics have on your body, both aesthetically and functionally?

2)Is holding an isometric position from more than 12-15 secs bad for your heart? Are you taking blood from your heart and likely to pass out?

Is standing and tensing all the muscles in your body an acceptable isometric position?

Cheers boys and girls:)

[scotty1]

Thanks Guohen, as I thought.

What does your name mean? Never heard it before.

[Jamesbond_007]

Guohen:
What you said about isometrics is very interesting. I have never heard that (but I don't know that much about isometrics at all). I was wondering what you mean by isometrics because I know of 2 ways to do them. Do you mean tensing your muscles as hard as you can or do you mean pushing or pulling against an immovable object for about 15-20 secs? I just started to incorperate iscometrics in my workout routine. Mainly the later way of doing it by pushing or pulling against an immovable object. I am doing this because I know Bruce Lee used to do it to gain strength and it was really big in the 70s. I always thought this way would build muscle strength (not size, but strength), but does it really give more bennifit to the tendons? Or does the first way I described give more bennifit to the tendons?

Thanks

[IronFist]

1) What effect do isometrics have on your body, both aesthetically and functionally?

As you said, it depends on if you mean pushing against an immovable object, or tensing your muscles against each other.

2)Is holding an isometric position from more than 12-15 secs bad for your heart? Are you taking blood from your heart and likely to pass out?

I hope not, considering I used to do Stone Warrior, which is a non stop dynamic tension form, for 30-35 minutes a day. I'd say you're safe at 12-15 seconds. Do NOT hold your breath and you'll be safe. I forgot to mention that. Holding breath = increased blood pressure and a bunch of other bad things. Breathe breathe breathe!

Is standing and tensing all the muscles in your body an acceptable isometric position?

That's what isometric means. What position are you in. isometrics build strength in that position. If you just stand and tense the muscles you will get stronger in that position.

IronFist

[red5angel]

I do mine even differently. I have a set of isometric excsrsises taht I do. Each one involves moving a certain limb or body part at a medium speed while resisting as much as possible.
For an easy example, pretend you are curling a dumbell. I sit down on a chair, put my elbow on my knee and do 10-15 curls, resisting or flexing in both directions.

[Ka]

Iron Fist where did you get the Stone Warrior Form from?
I interested in finding more about it.
Thanks

[ZhouJiaQuan]

are there any good websites that show(in picture and writing) different isometric excercises. I have the art of expressing the human body book and it desribes them but i have a hard time picturing waht the exercises should look like?

Thanks.
Wally

[IronFist]

Originally posted by ZhouJiaQuan
are there any good websites that show(in picture and writing) different isometric excercises. I have the art of expressing the human body book and it desribes them but i have a hard time picturing waht the exercises should look like?


Yeah, that's what sucks about "The Art of Expressing the Human Body." There's no pics to match the exercises.

If you get Arnold's Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding (the new, black and silver one) it's got multiple pictures of every single exercise in it. That's the best part of the book. The training programs aren't the best, the history and pictures and background info is cool, but the exercise description and pictures is supreme.

IronFist

[IronFist]

Originally posted by red5angel
I do mine even differently. I have a set of isometric excsrsises taht I do. Each one involves moving a certain limb or body part at a medium speed while resisting as much as possible.
For an easy example, pretend you are curling a dumbell. I sit down on a chair, put my elbow on my knee and do 10-15 curls, resisting or flexing in both directions.

In case you didn't know, doing it in this method is working the biceps and triceps equally. When there is no weight that you're working against, you cannot flex just one muscle. In other words, when you isometrically flex something against nothing (as in like, "look at my bicep", it's antagonist muscle will flex with it 100% of the time.

Here is a test: flex your bicep and feel your tricep contract with it. Do you know how to flex your pecs? Put one hand on your lats while flexing your pecs. See, they work too.

Now do this, go push against a wall or something so that your chest flexes. Now feel your lats, see, they don't come into play unless you consciously flex them, too, because there is an actual force working against your chest.

So, if you are doing moving isometrics against no real weight, you are working antagonist muscles.

I'm sure most people already knew this, but it's funny because when I was doing Stone Warrior I did not know this.

So unless you're applying some sort of physical resistance, your triceps are also getting a workout during your isometric bicep curls :)

And if you guys all knew this already sorry for wasting bandwidth :)

IronFist

[IronFist]

Originally posted by Ka
Iron Fist where did you get the Stone Warrior Form from?
I interested in finding more about it.
Thanks

I got it from Green Dragon's catalog. They're not that good at sending out catalogs though, I got on in 1998 and then I requested another a few years later, and then I requested another during Christmas of last year and still I haven't heard anything from them. I also sent them a letter requesting to be on their continued mailing list and never got a catalog from that either.

Maybe if you're a new name on their list you'll get one tho. If you get one do you wanna photocopy it for me? :) :) :)

IronFist

[ZhouJiaQuan]

Ive actually been thinking about picking up that book(after hearing numerous people refer to it as the bible, haha). But now im definetly going to go pick it up at the bookstore tomorrow.

Much Appreciation,
Wally

[IronFist]

Get the paper back version, it's only $25 as opposed to the hardcover one which is $50.

Just don't take the suggested training schedules in there too seriously.

IronFist

[scotty1]

You're saying that (more wasted bandwidth) the isometrics w/out resistance work both muscles, say bis and tris. Surely that's better than pusing against something and only working one side?