WORKOUT RULE No. 1: MUSCLE ISOLATION

The foundation of any workout routine is isolating the target muscle. When it comes to body transformation—sculpting and enlarging your physique, otherwise known as bodybuilding—we need to learn how to isolate the TARGET muscle.

The target muscle is that muscle which a particular exercise or machine is designed to work in isolation. You can’t efficiently isolate a target muscle if you are bound and determined to lift heavy at any cost. 

As an example, watching people on a chest press machine, or on a bench press bench using free weights, it is clear that MOST people are misusing their shoulder muscles to do a significant portion of the work. Chest exercises are not called “shoulder exercises” for the obvious reason that chest exercises are designed to work, build and sculpt your chest. 

To figure out how to go about learning to isolate the pecs in this case you'll find it easier to remove the emphasis you are currently placing on your shoulders—most likely you’re doing so out of fear of dropping the too-heavy weight you’ve taken on—and transfer 100% effort to your pectorals. Re-learning movements to make them more rewarding means backing off on the poundages so you can concentrate on the actual mechanics of the movement.

The problem so many people in the gym have is that they are ego-lifters; their goal is “how much weight can I lift so as to impress others?” —which might be all right if you are a powerlifter. However to sculpt, build and shape your individual muscles (calfs, biceps, quads, etc.), it’s not about how much weight you can move. But rather it’s about performing the exercise by utilizing the target muscle in ISOLATION, while employing the heaviest weight that still allows you to use PROPER STRICT FORM. When we lose proper form we end up just spinning our wheels.

Even after 50 years in the gym, if my mind wanders as I perform a set, there goes my form. It takes as much mental energy as it does physical energy to properly complete a productive set, to achieve the results that you originally set out to achieve.