We’ve all seen him; he’s a regular in just about every gym ever. You know, the overweight guy in the corner of the gym, admiring his arms in the mirror while doing his tenth set of bicep curls? True, his arms are bigger than my head – but then, so is his gut. Sadly, he’s the latest casualty of many who have gotten bad weight-loss advice from somewhere and end up wondering why they never see the results they want. The answer’s really pretty simple. While isolation exercises absolutely have their advantages in a weight-lifting routine, weight loss is not one of them. If you’re looking for a simple, easy way to lose weight, compound lifts – exercises that work several muscle groups at a time – are the answer.
Functionally, the human body is not designed to use any one muscle in isolation. Even in the so-called “isolation” exercises. Take for instance, your arms. Chances are you can identify at least two of the muscles in your arm right away: the biceps and the triceps. But did you realize there are actually 8 muscles in your upper arm alone, with over 20 in your forearm? These all work together in concert to accomplish the day-to-day tasks you and I generally take for granted. Of these, a proper bicep curl works about 9 of them.
But compare this to the pull-up, which is a compound exercise. While you still work all the same muscles the bicep curl does, when you do a pull-up you also incorporate the muscles of your shoulder and the supporting shoulder girdle in order to perform the exercise. Plus, it forces you to engage the muscles of your core, legs, and back in order to keep yourself stable throughout. This makes the pull-up, functionally, a full-body exercise. Do you see how this translates into quicker, easier weight loss? It’s simple: when you use more muscles, your body has to burn more calories.
And as true as this is for upper-body exercises, the effect is far more magnified with lower-body exercises. The bigger a muscle is, the more calories are burned when you engage it. That’s one of the reasons the squat (compound) is often hailed as superior to the leg press (isolation): researchers have found that it leads higher levels of quad, glute, calf, and hamstring activity, as well as more engagement of the back and core. With all that extra work comes a correspondingly huge increase in the number of calories you burn.
All said and done, what’s most important is that you’re getting out there and burning those calories to begin with. And if it takes bicep curls to get you off the couch and in the gym, keep at them! But if you’re looking for maximum weight loss in the shortest time possible, then compound exercises are the way to go. And while you might never have biceps quite as massive as that one guy, you can bet you’re still going to look a whole lot better in the mirror.