Copyright © 2012 Legendary Strength. All Rights Reserved.
Prepared as a Gift for Friends
of Ben Bergman
11 Reasons You
Must Do Isometrics
if You Desire
Strength, Speed and
to be Super Human
By Bud Jeffries
Copyright © 2012 Legendary Strength. All Rights Reserved.
Reason #1
Help you fix holes in your strength
One thing that’s very important to me is to have a complete strength. When I say that I mean a complete range of strength and endurance, ranging from long term cardiovascular endurance, to short intense endurance, to high maximum strength, to real world strength, to individual muscular strength, to strongman based or non linear type exercises, to flowing exercises, to odd angle strength and everything in between.
One of the things I found as I began to experiment and look at isometrics more closely is that I was extremely strong in most of these places, but I didn’t feel that my ability to hold weight, especially a heavy weight still. Or even just to hold my body in certain isometric positions wasn’t as strong as it should be. I certainly didn’t have the strength or strength endurance to hold it for long periods of time in those positions.
Hello, I’m Bud Jeffries and I’ve probably done more with isometrics then just about anyone else alive.
I felt like that was a hole or a weakness in my strength, that was something I should correct. That’s one of those things that if you leave gaps it comes back to haunt you. The ability to pick something up once is fine, but what if you have to pick up something heavy and hold it to save yourself or someone else or simply to test yourself for true strength? It is a mental toughness builder, but it’s an actual physical skill that most of us are somewhat lacking in comparatively.
Unless you’ve done a tremendous amount of isometric training you won’t know or be able to express every bit of power that you have in that particular way without this training. Don’t let there be holes in your strength, because it’s easy to have them and miss them and
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it’s easy to not understand that they’re there unless you’ve experimented with all different kinds of strength. This ranges from moving heavy weights fast or slow, to moving extremely light weights fast, to holding light or heavy weights or body positions in absolute still or isometric style training. Isometrics are a great way to train your body and you should be doing it.
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Reason #2
Isometrics add muscle to even me!
Everybody has genetic advantages and disadvantages and I admittedly grow muscle fairly easily, but I’ve been training a long time. I’m a grizzled veteran. I’m not somebody who at the drop of a hat, no matter how hard they train, grows an excessive amount of muscle. Plus, I keep my nutrition fairly lean these days and I’m constantly keeping my weight down and cutting more weight. It’s not easy to put muscle on a frame that’s been through every possible type of strength training war that there is in trying to add muscle. Yet I find it amazing that muscle is adding to my frame and to other parts of my body from using the isometrics training that I’d never conceived of and it’s happening very quickly.
The more and deeper I experiment with some of the weighted variations of isometrics and play with the time period we hold the position, the faster the muscle seems to grow. This is pretty amazing considering it’s happening to a guy with 24 years of training experience who has already trained as hard and heavy as anyone else living and is already a big person. With isometrics training you can quickly add muscle, because of the depth of stimulation you get and at the same time, without a tremendous amount of muscle soreness. I found that it’s extremely effective, much more effective than many of the things I’ve tried in the past, such as exceptionally heavy negatives or certain brutal rep schemes, to really add muscle quickly without much damage or wear and tear. I believe the concentration of effort, for instance one 30-second heavy held isometric is equivalent to very high repetition sets with that same heavy weight, because you can work in multiple range of motions and in strong and weak ranges of motion, you can add muscle extremely quickly.
Both professional strongmen, Dennis Rogers and
Mike “The Machine” Bruce are big fans of isometrics.
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Why not fill out your frame and its useable muscle? Muscle that’s conditioned and functional at the same time, which is another huge portion behind the training concepts of what we do. There’s no point in adding muscle that doesn’t have the horsepower to back it up. However these isometrics, especially the weighted ones for heavy and extended holds, grow amazing functional muscles quickly. Experience isometric muscle growth now by making sure you get Extreme Power Isometric Training DVDs today!
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Reason #3
Isometrics turn your strength on
One of the crazy benefits of isometric training especially in the experiments we’ve been doing and the way we apply it is an immediate boost of strength. I’ve been able to demonstrate this with myself as well as in a workshop format and other trainees that I use, in getting an immediate boost in strength.
Why does this happen? I’m not sure you can explain every factor, but here are several. I believe it teaches the body to work in the exact groove that you want to get strong in and it teaches the body to work as hard as possible in that groove either in a specific sticking point or to simply contract harder than normal because you can push through a weight or non-moving isometric style contraction harder than you can with a normal implement. It teaches you to unify your body behind an implement or behind a barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell or whatever you wish to lift and it teaches you to actually use every bit of fiber that you have by being able to forcibly contract.
There are many isometric press variations that can instantly
increase your pressing power.
It’s essentially the same thing you’d get from an overload by turning your neurological system on or opening up the synapses and nerve firing pathways to a much higher level except it can be applied with other implements and very specific patterns. This does some amazing stuff. I’ve watched people press barbells, kettlebells and dumbbells they’ve never been able to lift or press them faster and easier than they’ve ever done. Snatch faster than they’ve ever done, curl faster and stronger, be stronger in jumping, running motions, squatting motions, pulling motions.
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It’s a pretty amazing thing because you can apply it to any specific pattern you wish to get better up and you turn the volume up to your muscles messages to how hard they can contract. Once you do that you get stronger, once you get that strength, you can train harder and you get perpetually stronger. It’s a build on top of each other type of exercise. It’s simple and quick to do and can be applied to multiple types of training paradigms for a basic lift or for a totally unusual angle of strength that people have never seen that you can quickly get an immediate strength boost by training them if you just learn how.
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Reason #4
Isometrics make you Faster!
This is a pretty amazing benefit of isometrics that I had known about for a while, but never really deeply explored until I decided to delve into every venue and every possibility that there was in training. It’s convinced me more and more that this is a lacking type of training for many sports and specific activities. Isometrics has gotten a bad rap from a sad historic overview that really didn’t take into consideration the advantage of how powerful this training could be.
I had an experience where I tried to pull a bus, and this is explained extensively in our Extreme Power for Isometrics DVDs, but I tried to pull the bus, however could not move it because of a crazy situation with the ground. I spent a large amount of time pulling isometrically, trying to move what was essentially an immoveable object. We then moved the bus to where I could actually pull the vehicle and I moved it faster than I had ever moved it as though it were literally made of air.
Why? Because I had gained absolute, 100% contraction in the very specific pattern I was using for the feat. I essentially then got stronger, my nerves got stronger, my firing pattern got better and my speed went up. I believe this was because of the nervous stimulation and the total ability for my muscles to reach a higher level of contraction, therefore both strength and speed almost immediately increased.
One isometric drill increased Adrienne’s sled push speed immediately afterwards
I demonstrated this with multiple people at the workshop in Tallahassee and it’s all shown on the DVDs. I’ve done this with other people who train with me privately, with myself and with my son. It’s pretty amazing to immediately be able to get faster in a lift, in a bodyweight movement, in your hand speed for punching power, in grappling, to get faster
Copyright © 2012 Legendary Strength. All Rights Reserved.
in strongman movements, to get faster in sprinting and running movements, all with an almost immediate response. It’s a great way to jump start your speed for other events, for strongman, or for just general training or for competition. There are amazing ways to achieve gains plus its super simple and quick to do.
You owe it to yourself to get the Extreme Power for Isometrics DVDs and it’s something with which you can make yourself lightening fast. I believe it’s one of the secrets to Bruce Lee’s and the Shaolin training with their extreme speed and explosiveness with the ability to jump high, punch psychotically fast. This isometric training for speed is all explored in the DVDs as well. I know it made me much faster than normal with my hand speed. You can achieve this too if you simply learn how to apply it. It’s a simple technique. You just need to watch it done a few times till you understand how to do it and then apply it to yourself. It’s an amazing benefit you can get very quickly.
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Reason #5
It’s probably the only truly sport specific strength work
There’s been an argument within the Olympic lifting, HIT and sports communities, martial arts and weightlifting groups about the efficiency of lifting or training for sport: If you do a specific movement that mimics a sport are you actually going to get a weighted movement or are you going to get better at that sport or is it going to mess up your nerve patterns or your specific technical pattern?
It’s been relatively established that there are a few movements that, because they are similar in nature but not exactly in the sport specific pattern, that they give you a better general ability but not more specific to the sport. It is believed that you must play the specific sport to gain the nerve patterns and ability. That’s why people who grapple or box can hit very hard or wrestle and be very strong in those positions, even if they don’t train much in other strength movements, because they spend so much time at high-level contraction in those specific moves.
They can’t, however, generally transfer that to other arenas. It’s also why some people who’ve gained strength in certain types of strength, especially if it’s done in an isolated training fashion or machine based training, in the weight room but haven’t gotten good on the field or playing mat to improve their performance during the sport. It’s the reason that martial artists, for quite some time, didn’t really believe in lifting weights, because they didn’t see actual improvement in their art.
I believe isometrics can solve much of this problem. It may be, and if you really look at the martial arts from around the world and certain sport training, you’ll see that isometrics are the only way to duplicate a sport specific pattern without messing that pattern up and actually become stronger in that specific range of motion while you get better at your sport in that particular way.
Let me elaborate – If you take a baseball pitcher, and this is a classic example of this specific training pattern, and have him throw heavier weighted baseballs, you do not create a better, faster pitcher. All you do is create a messed up nerve pattern, becoming slower and losing control in the pitching.
If you were to take that same pitcher and train each individual phase of his pitching pattern in the exact motion that he uses with a ball, but in an isometric contraction, not with a weight, but against an immoveable object or force – you can exactly mimic that pattern and force for the body to contract at 100%. Lay every bit of leverage into every piece of that pattern without messing up the pattern, because it doesn’t work at off speeds, you’d only actually be pitching with a regular baseball so there’s no slow down – It’s only actually teaching the body to contract at the very nerve pattern, ranges and speeds without throwing it off.
The same applies to kicking, punching, specific strongman movements, or running
Copyright © 2012 Legendary Strength. All Rights Reserved.
movements. They don’t always get better if you try to mimic them with weights, but if you want to get better at sport specific patterns, figuring out an isometric training program and exercise that exactly mimics those patterns and movement without interfering with the speed of the movement or trying to hold weight in an awkward fashion, can create an amazing sport specific gain.
Yes, with isometrics you could train this exact move without the detrimental slowing
effects of throwing a weighted ball.
This has huge implications for football, throwers, grapplers, boxers, martial artists and in fact has been done for centuries in martial arts. You can get some pretty amazing ideas in how to train this in our Extreme Power for Isometrics DVDs and it’s explained further where can see, first hand, how to do it.
Copyright © 2012 Legendary Strength. All Rights Reserved.
Reason #6
Isometrics give real world strength
One of the primary experimenters and I believe proponents, as well as someone who has been pushing isometrics forward in the last 30 years is a guy named Steve Justa. In the ad copy for Extreme Power for Isometrics, my business partner Logan wrote, “Learn what the Nebraska Wildman taught Bud about isometrics.” He did teach me quite a bit. I have learned from him and he has done some amazing personal level research and experimentation in that capacity.
Steve Justa, author of Rock, Iron, Steel, is insanely strong and
has done isometrics of all variations over his lifetime.
One of the things he talked about was having a real-world job bucking hay/custom hay baling for farmers in the Nebraska area. If you’ve never worked with hay – it can be tough job, especially if you’re not used to lifting things, lifting and throwing things in weird ways– it’s a very awkward job. Most of the strength in the real world means exactly that – picking things up in an awkward manner, things that aren’t meant to be picked up by humans. It’s why we do strongman training. Steve talked about the very specificity of this job: Picking up different shapes, weights and size bales on unstable surfaces, moving it for longer periods of time all day long.
A man he worked with there had incredible muscular development and muscular hardness from this type of work. Steve was training and doing a lot of heavy lifting at the time and thought he should be able to really man-handle these bales. On a one-to-one basis he could throw a bale as good as anyone else, but he became tired quickly and he just wasn’t able to translate it as powerfully as he thought, considering the power he could apply to balanced lifting exercises. He began to experiment with what he would call “power aerobic
Copyright © 2012 Legendary Strength. All Rights Reserved.
isometrics.” It’s one of the types of isometrics we talk about and one that I’ve experimented with, which is an extended series of time, angles and efforts over a long period of time, moving from body part to body part and muscle to muscle to create both an aerobic effect, as well as a muscular one. Suddenly the hay baling became easy.
Why? Most of the work you do in the real world requires that extended muscular contraction. The task may not be a simple half-second muscular contraction. It requires it in odd angles. It may not be a balanced lifting environment. It may be against something that doesn’t want to be lifted or at a totally disadvantageous angle, but when you learn to apply full power to those angles for extended periods of time you’ll get the amazing aerobic benefit of the right type of isometric. Also if you do it within the way this course is put together, by mixing them with aerobic or other strength exercises making it at least as, if not more than aerobically challenging.
Isometrics is one of the best and easiest ways to build unique, real world strength. It’s the kind of strength that translates to grappling, striking or lifting at many angles, in a way that most people don’t ever have. You see most of the angles you use in grappling are odd angles. That’s why grapplers attack at odd angles to keep you out of your strength and off balance. You can get strong in many different directions.
I had experiences in my life like Steve’s that lead me to strongman training and now to isometrics to being able to conquer a level and angle or a type of strength that I didn’t feel was good enough. That’s why we do this and why you should be using isometrics as well. It’s why you should be learning about them and training them. Make sure you pick up Extreme Power for Isometrics and learn how to get real world strong, to train in angles that no one else does, to train in ways no one else does to have something no one else has which is unconquerable real world strength.
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Reason #7
Great strongmen use isometrics today and have used it in the past
One of the amazing things people don’t really know about, because they don’t truly study the methods of the old time strongman, is their use of isometrics. Strongman has come back into popularity, but even most of the materials that push the old time strongmen today don’t really delve into some of the most awesome methods they used. Most of the old time strongmen were true showmen and they did amazing feats of steel bending and they often trained in very Spartan environments. The effectiveness of the exercises of isometrics lead them to the use of this training method to be a massive part of their regimens.
Alexander Zass was one of the major proponents of this and was considered the “Iron bar bending King.” He escaped from prison camp four times. He used the bars and chains he was in to train isometrically to maintain and even build his strength when he was a prisoner and was really a pretty amazing human being, able to do some ridiculous steel bending feats. He’s just one of the great examples as there are many others inclusive of the Mighty Atom, who is probably one of the best well known today of the old time strongman along with guys like Arthur Saxon and Herman Goerner.
Alexander Zass, the Amazing Samson, supports an steel beam by his mouth. He was one
of the biggest proponents of isometrics and his results speak for themselves.
Many modern strongmen use them today. Dennis Rogers, one of the most well known
Copyright © 2012 Legendary Strength. All Rights Reserved.
strongmen in the world today, is a big proponent of isometrics for steel bending and the type of strength necessary to do strength feats which is also real world strength. I don’t care what anyone says – If you can bend a 12” crescent wrench as easily as a wire coat hanger, you’re freakin’ strong in a very real sense of the expression. One of the things that Dennis has done and teaches to others who want to learn his craft, is isometrics for that kind of training.
Isometrics are used still in the training of powerlifting. I’ve seen Louis Simmons recommend certain isometrics movements such as abdominal isos for improving your squat and deadlift. It’s massively well received in martial arts and grappling circles today and many of the other strongmen you don’t even know do quite a bit. Strongmen such as Aaron MacKenzie, who is in the old time strongman performing world and is known by the nickname, “Mighty Mac.” Aaron is probably one of the closest successors to Dennis from being a smaller guy, but being incredibly powerful and talented at the feats such as wrench bending, card tearing, short steel bending, etc. Aaron told me very specifically once how he trained to be able to do 100 reps of handstand pushups in one day which was one of his goals, by doing 3 positions isometrics of handstand pushups. I’ll share more about that with you at another time possibly in upcoming book on isometrics. Then there’s the man I spoke of already, Steve Justa, who does his own brand of strongman inclusive of the old time stuff and is a massive proponent of isometrics.
That’s just a few and I would name myself in that group. The more I experiment with it the more impressed I get with the isometrics as far as the development and power you can get. If the best people in the world, the strongest guys around, use a technique and it’s pretty wide spread it’s probably pretty smart. That’s why you should be studying about and learning about isometrics. If you want the strength of the best guys in the world, then you have to train in at least some of things that they do. That’s what they do, that’s how they get awesome and that’s how you can too. Make sure you pick up Extreme Power for Isometrics.
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Reason #8
Isometrics are a great fat burning exercise.
This is something that most people have never thought about with isometrics, because they haven’t experimented with the right type or style and they haven’t really been in contact with someone who’s done a lot with isometrics because it’s not a widely known technique anymore. It’s something that was relegated to the past or to simplistic exercises that are for amateurs, but actually it’s a very advanced technique when you do it the right way. The first person I ever heard talk about this is someone we’ve already spoken off who’s had a huge influence in this work – Steve Justa.
When I met Steve in person I was shocked by his leanness and hardness that he displayed for someone who does no conventional bodybuilding, and even though he’s moved toward eating a more natural diet, doesn’t eat anything special at all. However he, like me, was a huge guy, 360+ pounds and rehabbed his body from Type 2 diabetes, back to healthy again with a massive use of isometrics. There’s more to know about this story which you can learn about in the DVDs and Steve’s interview on our site.
He began to talk about it in his book and I never really paid much attention until I started to experiment it for myself. I noticed this fat loss and found it to be an amazing thing. I noticed the other people who really did a lot of isometrics and the parts of their bodies they really hammered with isometrics was very ripped, lean and hardened beyond measure. You can see this demonstrated in Dennis Rogers’ forearms, or Eric Vining’s sides or Slim Farman’s arms or the Shaolin monks’ legs, Steve Justa and now me. You see incredible development in the areas that they really work thoroughly with isometrics and a significant part of it is fat burning. In fact this may be the only style of fat burning exercise that might literally potentially burn sight specific fat.
Are isometrics better then this for fat burning? My answer is YES!
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Almost all fat burning is a systemic issue. In other words, when you do exercises, it burns fat preferentially to the areas of your body that are hormonally geared to burn fat and it burns it in an all-over body basis. However if you do isometrics, you will see, and I can wake up and demonstrate this day after day, that the part of the body I really hammered with isometrics would immediately look leaner for the next day and days after. Plus the muscular development would be phenomenal. Steve talked about it being impossible for fat to stay on a muscle that was thoroughly exercised with isometrics and he’s a very lean guy considering what he does! Bruce Lee, as an example, is basically the epitome of super ripped and was a huge proponent of isometrics and I’m beginning to see why.
In this real experiment with myself I’m leaning out more than I ever have, at a higher bodyweight with some amazing results! I think one of the things necessary to do this that people don’t talk about is in an extended isometric. The old school isometrics were often very short and they were great for building power and if you pile up a lot of them it becomes a similar volume effect and does burn quite a bit of fat, but an extended isometric that goes for 30 seconds or 60 seconds or longer or for multiple sets of those seems to have a tremendous fat burning effect.
I believe it’s possible, and I can’t back this up scientifically, but this is my theory – The density of an isometric exercise held for a long period of time is so incredibly demanding on the muscle and so likened to extremely high repetitions, quickly passing through the energy cycles faster than normal exercise into an area that pulls fat directly from a muscle as well as systemically. Nothing is truly isolated or systemic in a fat burning or muscle building standpoint and I don’t mean that, but I believe that the absolute, locked down extended contractions may access fat out of a muscle and pure fat burning for energy hormones, especially because of the differing aerobic pathways it may take as well in a more effective way than other types of training. Whatever the case may be as to “why,” you can demonstrate 100% in the real world that it is a killer fat burner.
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Reason #9
They’re easily adapted for strength and endurance.
Isometric training may be the most easily adaptable exercise you ever do. You can adapt it for specific groove, sticking point or for any particular exercise or any angle you may need strength in. So what do you do to train this? You simply apply a couple of different uses. One of the primary ways I like to do isometrics is in a power rack. It’s one of the only pieces of equipment every actually designed to be used for isometrics, so if you use a power rack you can immediately adapt the weight up and down, set the pins to confine your range of motion to do one of the several types of yielding, holding or extended or max isometrics. You can also change that very quickly, adding weight up and down or changing the range of motion or the time period.
You want to get strong? You do a very hard lock down isometric for short periods of time with as much weight as possible. If you’re not going to use weight, if you use a different exercise, use the maximum amount of exertion you can possibly do. If you want to train better for endurance you extend the time period by adjusting the weight down, extending the time or extending the angle.
Here are a couple of things to think about: Dennis Rogers advocates a 6-10 second isometric with a couple of seconds ramping up, 6-5 seconds at 100% max effort isometric and then another 3-4 seconds at 50% isometric afterward to get the most benefit out of your steel bending isometric or your pure strength builder. That’s close to the all time recommendations from both York and other people who’ve done research on isometrics in regards to the, “how.” 6-12 seconds seems to be the time period for maximum power.
That can be with weight or applying intensity. You can adjust that up and down with the percent of intensity especially if you’re not using a weighted isometric. An amazing thing we’ve been experimenting with is light weight in a power rack isometric, but maintained at max intensity for extended period of time. You literally push away off the pin or hold it and push away to a 2nd pin with a moderate to light weight, driving it as hard as you can and continue that as long as possible. If you do that with a max weight you’ll limit yourself to that 6-10 second phase, but if you do it with a lighter weight you may get into the 30-60 second phase. Then you can mix that with other conditioning exercises or move from isometric to isometric without stopping, going for either long holds or repetitive stacked up short holds that can easily build massive levels of muscular and aerobic levels of endurance. Don’t kid yourself, even though you’re not moving, the aerobics are much more intense than you think both from an actual pathway standpoint and from a lung and heart rate, breathing standpoint.
Another way to jump into this is a the way John Brookfield has used it in hand training styles – To use a non-moving exercise and adjust the weight up and down by changing how you grip or the lever you use on the exercise to go from heavier or lighter in your effort. If you’re using a non-weighted isometric simply go from 50% to 100% effort back and forth, but not stopping the isometric, always maintaining some level of tension just
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going back and forth. This is a great way to adapt quickly for both strength and endurance
and it pays in off massive dividends.
John Brookfield, another legendary strongman and proponent of isometric movements.
Are you detecting a pattern here?
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Reason #10
You can work at angles you just can’t reach any other way
One of the things I learned about in strength and have trained, is that there are multiple types of strength and most of the training that most people do, especially in the weight lifting world, is a very balanced type of training. Even if you use implements that have an odd balance such as the kettlebell, it generally tends to be a whole body unified straight up and down, or linear, or an efficient angle. One of the things you learn while experimenting with strength is that in the real world it doesn’t always come at those angles. It pulls you out of line, pulls you into your worst center of gravity, your worst leverage. It’s very hard to train those things safely. Isometrics gives you the ability to do that very quickly, easily and safely.
Bud shows Ryan Pitts of Strongergrip how to build very odd
angle strength. This exercise has to be felt to understand the power.
Its one thing to deadlift and an orthodox deadlift done the right way should be kept close to the body, close to the center of gravity. It’s another thing to lift the weight or actually bring the weight far away from the body such as 6-12” away from the body as you begin to pull it up or further. You may not be able to lift much weight this way, but you can quickly and easily train angles like that with almost no extra set up time or effort by simply pulling against a bar that won’t move, set at different ranges of motion or height to do that. You can also train in a million quick and easy changes to go in and out of your strongest ranges to get those tough to reach angles – The kind of things that are trained in grappling and martial arts all over the world to give you strength in ways where you are generally vulnerable.
You can also train by pushing your arms and legs out to different directions that they don’t normally get pushed to give yourself that protective type of strength. Not something that would hurt you or something you could load safely with other weight, but something that will allow your body to maximize its ability to use its
Copyright © 2012 Legendary Strength. All Rights Reserved.
strength as well as to build its strength in other directions. It’s a simple, quick, easy way to build amazing strength in angles most people never thought of. That’s one of the keys to building super strength. Steve Justa talked about building strength in those minor muscles that you may have no other way of reaching. When you can strengthen every little muscle along the chain then you’ve made those big prime mover muscles stronger. They’re normally limited by the weakness of those smaller muscles and you may not find those in conventional exercises and they’ll limit you in your other array of possible strength quests. He believed it’s why, after extended isometric training, he was able to lift things heavier than normal even though he hadn’t lifted a heavy weight because he’d found a way to strengthen muscles that were rarely or never touched in a regular lifting motion. In strengthening those he opened the gate and strengthened the chain for the big muscles to play. You can get super strong with these isometrics and do it in amazing ways. Make sure you pick up Extreme Power with Isometrics.
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Reason #11
Isometrics are Easy On and Can Rehab Your Joints
I spent 16 years trying to squat 1,000lbs and after I finally succeeded I decided to lose weight and get back to a leaner version of myself. I began to experiment with different exercises and started running. Running at 300lbs may not be the greatest thing you can do, but everyone should have that skill. I simply took a mis-step one day and ended up with an injury that has plagued me for several years. I experimented with multiple things to bring it back to health and finally just in the last bit have regained the ability to squat from the bottom position, having all my muscles fire in sequence and feel comfortable about not further damaging the joint.
Two of the exercises I spent an extensive time period working on for rehabbing my knee are isometric holds done in yoga style from Eischen’s yoga (such as front warrior held for extended time), and wall sit isometrics held with both bodyweight and weight. Both of these seemed to build my joints and knee back to where it doesn’t hurt, it stays in line on a regular basis and I can lift things I haven’t been able to for the last three years, because things became stronger.
The isometric exercises don’t bother my knee, which is crucial. I’ve got a lot of miles on me and even though I function better than much of the world, having engaged in thousands of hours of crazy and possibly damaging training, I have little to no damage, because I’ve found ways to stop the problems.
Isometrics are great for dealing with previous injuries.
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The isometrics seem to be developing muscle in me in a way that’s extremely joint friendly, to help me get back to full squats that helped me in other ways, such as upper body muscles and working around sore spots or injuries from grappling and other things I’ve done that build those muscles in a way that doesn’t cause pain. Isometrics can be some of the best rehab and pre-hab you can do with many ways to do it and you can train a massive amount of strain, strength, endurance and volume with little or no joint damage and always getting them perfectly aligned for the exercises you want to do. It’s very joint friendly with very little problem for a tremendous amount of pay off in what you can possible get out of the training.
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I hope you’ve enjoyed this special report. If you’d like a whole lot more information on isometrics including hundreds of exercises, drills and variations to train with be sure to check out my newest 3 DVD set at the link below.
God bless,
Bud Jeffries
www.strongerman.com/go/isometrics-bb/
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