Isometric Exercises: Bodybuilding Secrets From The Strong Men Of Yesteryear
Arts EntertainmentsBefore Charles Atlas, also known as Angelo Siciliano, became famous by promoting his exercise course called … Dynamic Tension, there have been many strong men of yesteryear who used body weight (isotonic) and isometric exercises.
One of these individuals was Alexander Zass, better known as “The Amazing Samson.”
(Zass, born in Poland, lived most of his life in Russia and later as a circus performer he lived in Britain after 1924).
The important thing to note about Alexander Zass was how he developed his belief in the application of isometric exercise. Or as he called it “Maximum Tension”. He believed that this training protocol was superior to any other of the normal training programs used by the strongman of his day and that it included the use of weights in the development of physical strength.
He understood that isometric exercises not only develop muscle strength, but also strengthen tendons and ligaments that are crucial to building strength.
The amazing Samson, who was also heralded as “The World’s Strongest Living Man”, was quoted as saying, “My first goal was to develop the underlying connective tissues rather than the superficial muscles” (Taken from His Instruction Manual – Systems and Samson’s methods).
He further explained: “I always wanted to develop the strength of the tendons … without tendons, you have no control over the muscles and the body … the development of the tendons is the strength of my secret. it will savagely stop horses, but tendons will and will. “
Alexander Zass further stated in his training manual that bodybuilder-type muscles were simply an illusion when it came to strength. Although it did not discourage students from building muscle size, it did teach them the practice of tensing muscles one at a time, then bundling the muscles and tensing as many as possible, all at the same time.
In the use of isometric exercises, he described 3 different methods, and they are the following:
Free style
In freestyle, you don’t use gadgets or appliances, you just do freehand isometrics. Usually he only uses his own body.
Wall exercises
In this method, you are using a wall, or even a tree, to provide resistance rather than your own body or body weight.
Isometric exercise device
This is the ideal or best way to do isometric exercises. The downsides to freestyle and wall exercises is that there is no effective way to measure strength gains.
And how do you know that you are using 100% or even 70% power in this exercise? That’s where an isometric exercise device like the Tensolator or Bully Xtreme comes into play.
These types of muscle-building contraction devices will not only allow you to measure your strength gains, but will generally give you more variety in the type and amount of isometric exercises you can perform.
The biggest appeal of isometry is that with a few simple movements and not a long time you can do a full body workout, at home, in your office, or on the go!