Calisthenics can be a very potent discipline for building muscle mass. The inherent simplicity and efficiency of bodyweight training make it easier to stick with a consistent program. Basic progressive techniques also make it easy to push your muscles to very high intensity.
However, one potential downside many falsely assign to calisthenics is the lack of isolation exercises. It’s true that most calisthenic training involves basic compound exercises, like push-ups and squats, but single-joint exercises like bicep curls and chest flys are also easy to include in your training. All you need is a simple set of suspension straps and the following three training strategies.
Of course, These are not true “isolation” exercises because you’re not trying to make one muscle work and the other ones turn off. You still want to use as much of your muscles as possible. For example, if you’re doing your bicep curls you still want to engage your back and your lats, and all of the other muscles in your posterior chain. So bodyweight isolation training is more about creating an emphasis on a particular muscle rather than in isolation.
Strategy #1 Isolation as a pre-exhaust
The first way that I like to approach using isolation exercises is to use them as more of a pre-exhaust strategy. For example, let’s say you’ve got a series of chest flies and tricep extensions and you hit several sets of that to make the muscles all warm and toasty. Once they’re starting to accumulate a decent amount of fatigue in the muscles you then use compound movements, Like push-ups or dips as a finisher.
This approach has the benefit of hitting individual muscles to create a little bit more fatigue when they’re fresh. It’s useful if you feel that those exercises are a little sensitive on your joints and you can really work the compound movements without needing high levels of resistance.
#3 Using isolation exercises along with compound exercises
Lastly, you can use isolation exercises by integrating them with your compound movements. This is a particularly handy way to really hit the muscles if you are finding that your compound movements and your isolation movements place a different emphasis on various muscles.
One of my favorite examples of doing this is practicing your handstand work or handstand push-ups along with chest flies and tricep extensions. Each movement places a bit more emphasis in different parts of your push chain, so they’re not really interfering with the training of each muscle group. It’s just getting kind of an all-around effect.
Strategy #2 Isolation exercises as a finisher
The yin to the young of that approach is to use the isolation exercises after your compound techniques as the finisher. This approach has the benefit of putting the heavy strength exercises in the beginning when you’re fresh so you can work on the more advanced progressive techniques like the one-arm push-ups. You can focus on improving your technique and really push yourself to a new level of performance. Afterward, you switch to the isolation movements to finish off each muscle at a time.
I use this approach in my brand new Push Pull Squat workout program which is all about dialing in the workouts and the techniques that are going to have the biggest bang for the buck in developing your physique.
In conclusion, you can take a bodybuilding approach to your calisthenics training through either of these three methods. Any of them can work very well for strengthening weak links and spurring new growth in lagging muscles.
PS. I also highly recommend NOSSK suspension straps for such isolation exercises.
