I’ve spoken a bunch on the greatness of compound movements and how the body should be trained like it moves. Movement on and off the field requires coordination of multiple muscles in response to various stimuli. The body more closely resembles a symphony– dozens of musicians, all performing in concert, following a sophisticated piece of music, than a 3 piece rock band performing a 3 chord song. Your strength and conditioning training should be more like a concert at Carnegie Hall than a jam at Bucky’s bar and grill. I have no problem with the latter and am all for indulging a little every now and then, but for the athlete and for performance, don’t spend the bulk of your time on 3 chord, 3 instrument exercises.
I continue to emphasize multi joint multi plane complex exercises that teach and train your body to work as a whole rather than robotic single joint single plane curls and extensions.
Balance your training to balance your body. Guilty pleasure exercises like curls, flies of all types, and extensions, like a catchy top 40 song, have their place. They feel good, are fun, and give you a brief ego boost with that short lived “pump.” More importantly they help bring balance to the body and solidify weaker links. At Strive Performance we want to keep these movements in their proper place, not dismissed. Everybody needs a steady dose of explosive multi-joint focused, body control developing, speed producing, and performance enhancing work with a sprinkle of single joint, muscle balancing, blood pumping fun.
Compound lifts: variations of the Clean, Snatch, Jerk, as well as, Dead lift, Squat, Pull ups, Dips, and Press variations.
Single Joint lifts: flys (chest and shoulder), curls (bicep and hamstring), extensions (tricep and quadricep)
“As long as there are meat heads spending 20 minutes hogging the dumbbells and performing all sorts of curls in the way, as long as there are girls doing endless crunches on exercise balls, and as long as there is someone taking up space and 30 minutes doing cable crossovers, there will be a need for me to continue to stamp out ignorance.” Kyle Harrell
One Comment to “Single joint and Multiple joint lifts”
Great information. I am a pilates instructor and find many coorelations in your approach to pilates. I am trying to get my clients to understand that core strength is achieved through the application of progressive,compound movements. Once obtained, balance and strength allow ease and efficient movement in all areas. Progressing exercises as strength and precision improves through the continued repetition of each exercies results in optimal physical conditioning.
I am struggling with interesting athletes who think that Pilates is for dancers or women alone. I just completed my MS in exercise science and have NASM credentials, but am curious about your thoughts. regarding the method as a valid approach to athletic conditioning.
Again, very informative and well written blog.
Susan Mayo