I am looking to change up my lifting style to see how my body will react. Has anyone incorperated static holds and isometric lifting into their routine? It so, how has it worked for you and do you have any recomendations?

-Thanks

Hey man,

In essence, an isometric hold is a zero range of motion lift. You generally build the most amount of muscle by doing full ROM on your exercises, but you can definitely switch it up and do partial ROM exercises or even isometrics. As long as you keeping tension and you are PROGRESSING then you will build strength and muscle. For example if you do a 30 second hold with 100lbs today, and after a month you can still do a 30 second hold but with 120lbs, you will have gained muscle and your body will react to it.

I would do one isometric exercise per workout either at the end of a workout (a finisher, to help bring more blood and nutrients in the muscle) or in the beginning of the workout (to help you create a pump and maybe have a better workout at least psychologically)

Hope this helped.
Kostas

I've used them for bench press and with a hex bar (trap bar). The key to getting full benefit from them is to use them at different positions in the lift. For bench press, you'll have to do this in a rack or with a cross-box. Set the pins 1 hole below your hold point. At the top of the motion you can go crazy heavy but be careful at the bottom and mid-point of the lift.

If you have a hex bar, you can absolutely nuke your quads, traps and shoulders with long static holds. Of all the pieces of equipment i've invested in over the years, the hex bar is the best. The one we have at our gym is terrible and it's usually being used up by the personal trainers who's clients can't safely deadlift anyways. A proper hex bar should weigh between 60-65 lbs and have a 86" span. The smaller ones suck.

I love static holds/isometrics! I do my sets as usual and my finishing move is an isometric hold of whatever kind of exercise I was just doing in my set. I hold until my form fails. In my experience I think the muscle shaping is better with holds at the end than just doing standard sets without isometrics. I never tried doing them first, I like the struggle of saving them for last ;)