Isometric Training

Remember when you were in middle school and you chanted the rhyme "We must, we must, we must increase our bust!" while pushing your hands together in a prayer position as hard as possible? You were doing an isometric exercise, pushing against an immovable object in the hope that doing so would increase your muscular size. In an isometric exercise your muscles are contracting, but there is no joint movement. Because the joint isn't moving, your muscles will not strengthen through a full range of motion. They will get strong in the position at which they are held, but not at other positions (unless you train at those positions too).

You would want to incorporate isometric exercises if you were training for strong woman and power lifting competitions. Many strong woman events, like the truck push, include isometric components. Isometrics also help power lifters get through the sticking points in their dynamic exercises-- points at which they have trouble pushing through or completing a movement for a full lockout. Of course, isometrics can benefit anyone's sticking point by strengthening the muscles at a particular range of motion (see the section on isometrics in chapter 13).