The trainer’s secret to maximizing the results of your physical exercise …

So you’ve made a commitment to a consistent exercise regimen. You’re sweating away, working hard for results in your physical fitness that will also benefit your health.

Question: Using the scale at the right, how effective do you want each exercise movement to be?

Would you settle for 25 percent effective?

Okay, how about 30 percent effective?

Alright, would 40 percent effective be satisfactory to you?

Chances are, you answered, no, no, and no.

If you’re going to put in the work, and really be diligent about exercising, you want to get the most possible out of every repetition of every exercise.

Most people don’t.

Not even close.

But the ability to maximize the results of your physical fitness is something you can accomplish. It isn’t hard, and the good news is, it’s not really a secret; instead it’s a well-known fact any competent Personal Trainer knows. Oddly, though, it’s a golden nugget of fitness training that is often not taught, although it should be a fundamental understanding with anyone dedicating themselves to a lifestyle of exercise for physical fitness.

So let me share with you the secret, which is to understand, and then routinely practice, the value of the isometric hold with fundamentally correct concentric and eccentric movements.

Huh???

Let me explain, and let’s use as an example the bicep curl exercise:

When doing a bicep curl, you have three key movements (illustrated above): The concentric movement is when you curl the dumbbell upward; the eccentric movement is when you elongate the muscle by “uncurling” the arm or returning to the start position. But what is routinely missed is the valuable isometric hold “not moving”), which is when you have curled the bicep up and stop at the completion of the upward concentric movement.

What people aren’t often taught is the value of holding the muscle at full tension in the isometric position for just a count of “one-thousand-one.”

Here’s what usually happens. A person doing a bicep curl “throws,” forces, or pushes the weight up rather than using the muscle in a pull, and then immediately allows gravity to pull the weight back to the start position with little or no resistance. Doing a bicep curl this ways sends the “effectiveness scale” for that movement crashing downward – the form and technique are so wrong there’s little effectiveness in doing the exercise.

To do the movement with correct form and technique, and to maximize the effectiveness of the exercise (drive the scale upward), you: first, using the muscle, pull the weight up to the isometric hold position; hold in the isometric position just for a count of “one-thousand-one” — that’s just a second, but in that hold, you maximize the flexion of the muscle; then control the resistance of gravity’s pull to return the arm to the start position.

By proper form and technique of the concentric and eccentric movements, and especially capturing that isometric hold, you maximize the effectiveness of the exercise.

For example, using this proper form and technique with a bicep curl exercise provides at least three key benefits: it increases muscle growth, provides better mind-muscle connection, and improves muscle strength.

This “secret” of making sure to capture the isometric hold while using proper form and technique with your concentric and eccentric movements is valid for all exercises, not just for a bicep curl; it’s form and technique you want for any kind of exercise. For example, note the different movements — and the isometric hold — in squats shown below:

Another way to think about this is that you want to be sure you have a “full range of movement” — a complete concentric movement, then capture the isometric hold for a count of “one-thousand-one,” then a full eccentric movement.

Some people get most of the concentric and eccentric movements right (to some degree), but still miss the isometric movement, and thus send their “effectiveness scale” rating for that movement and exercise sliding downward. If you really want to maximize the results of your exercises, learning proper form and technique of these movements, to include the isometric hold, isn’t hard to do, but you will find it is harder to exercise with proper form and technique than it is when slopping out movements. In fact, when teaching proper form and technique, and especially focusing on capturing the isometric hold, my fitness training clients routinely had to lighten their weights in order to do the movement (and capture the hold) effectively.

But more effective results are worth doing your exercises correctly.

Scotty