Okay, so obviously for more functional strength you should be doing compound movements, but i have a question about isolation exercises. How do isolation exercises carry over into overall strength and the major lifts? Lets take the bench press as an example, we know that the 3 main muscles working in the bench press are the anterior deltoid, chest and triceps, but what if you train them individually? If you do cable flys, tricep extensions and front raises all with progressive overload and strength training paramaters (around 6 reps) will your bench increase? For the martial art im training, i have tests in order to get to a higher rank for which i have to be able to do a certain amount of push ups. Now, i noticed that with push ups my bench was increasing and vice-versa, but if i stop doing those and do decline + incline dumbbell press or the 3 exercises i mentioned before will my push ups still increase? It's said that muscles dont understand what exercise they're doing and that they only understand their roles (the body part that they're moving) so by that logic training them individually should carry over into the compound lifts, right? If my anterior deltoids can preform shoulder flexion better, my chest can preform humeral flexion better and my triceps can push better, then should i be able to bench more/do more push ups?

Mihajlo,

The reason compund exercises build strength better than isolation exercises is because you train the muscles and the nervous system TOGETHER not individually. Bench press involves your pecs, shoulders, all upper back muscles, trapezius, triceps, abs, serratus anterior, and lats. It is more than just your anterior deltoids, pecs, and triceps as many people incorrectly assume. Compund lifts "teach" the muscles to contract in unison to lift the weight. Isolation exercises only focus on the individual muscle. Increasing strength in compound movements is the sum of all parts working together. You can't achieve this from isolation work. Push-ups are a compound movement which proves my point which is why doing them postively affected your bench press.

Isolation work is good to address indivdual weaknesses a muscle may have or size/symmetry issues. However, just because you train them individually does not mean it will have a dramatic impact on a movement that requires multiple muscles working together.

John

Thanks again for the great answer Jim :)