Get Stronger Without Moving a Muscle

Is lifting weights overrated? Sure, walk into any gym in the world and you'll see all the cool people lifting weights, so most people think that's the only way to get strong. But . . . what if I were to tell you there was another way to get strong, where you wouldn’t have to lift a thing?

Alright, maybe I’m being a little facetious here. You definitely should lift weights to improve muscle size, strength and power. However, there is another way that can you improve some those attributes without technically lifting any weights and it's actually safer on your muscles, joints and tendons: isometrics.

There are three types of muscular contractions: Concentric, when the muscle contracts and lifts; Eccentric, when the muscle lengthens and lowers; and lastly isometric, when force is applied, but there is no shortening or lengthening of the muscle.

Yielding and Overcoming and the two types of contractions.  Yeilding isometrics are where you hold a position, like doing a plank or a wall sit.  Overcoming isometrics occur when you exert maximum force on an immovable object, like trying to move your car when its left in park.

In a typical exercise, you’ll perform all three: eccentric contraction as you lower your body, an isometric is you hold the bottom position and a concentric action to stand back up.

The most common isometric you’ll do in the gym is a yielding isometric – a lot of people like to hold the mid position of an exercise to get a little pump.  But it’s pretty rare to see an overcoming isometric, which is a shame because if used correctly – they can be a joint friendly way to increase maximal force production, which can help you break through plateaus or even train after in injury.

Safe Alternative to Lifting Weights for In-season Training or Injured Athletes

As I mentioned earlier, concentric and eccentric contractions involve muscle shortening and lengthening, which cancreate tissue inflammation due to the sliding actions of tissues – this is what causes the micro tears and eventual muscle soreness that’s associated with weight training.  Although this is a good thing, technically, because that's how you build muscle; it also means that you could be sorer if you're really trying to push the limits to gain strength.

Isometrics on the other hand are the only contraction that doesn't increase an inflammatory mediator release, which means you can slot them into your programs without making you sore. If you're coming back from an injury, these are good options and are widely utilized by rehab professionals.

They would also be beneficial for anyone who wants to improve or maintain strength and power while tapering for an event like running a marathon or any athlete who is in season and wants to mitigate muscle soreness and possible inflammation.

Yielding Isometrics

Yielding isometrics are great for building strength, balance and stability. You can use them with just about any body weight exercise, like holding the bottom of a lunge or the top of a chin up. Front and side planks are also widely used as well and are great for improving core strength, endurance and stability.

The key to any true yielding isometric is to keep as still as possible and fight gravity as much as you can – if you're constantly repositioning yourself, you lose the yielding isometric contraction and any benefit of doing the exercise.

RKC Plank

Super long planks are bullshit, because people move too much to hold for linger.  Instead, use an RKC plank where you create whole body tension for short intervals.  I also really love lunge holds over wall sits.  Aside from not being able to lean against a wall, you will improve single leg balance and stability.

Split Squat Hold

Split squat holds are a great alternative to the classic wall sit (yawn). These have way more bang for your buck, as they will actually help build balance and single leg stability. You can do them on thier own, or do them while you do a cable row or press for an total body exercise.

Overcoming Isometrics

As I mentioned, overcoming isometrics are rarely seen in the gym, but they offer a great training stimulus to improve strength and power. The easiest way to do them is with a power rack that has adjustable pins, because you can not only have a way to set up something impossible to move, but you can also adjust height so you can train different joint angles which can help with sticking points in an exercise.  If a barbell is too heavy, you can alternatively use a really thick dowel.

The duration and intensity depend on your goal. Strength and power objectives should focus on maximum drive in short bursts.  Endurance or rehab focused objectives should do lighter contractions for longer.

Barbell Pin Squat

I like the behind the back barbell pin squat for improving either the squat or vertical jump. You could pair this exercise before doing either a squat jump, box jump or even a barbell back squat to take advantage of post activation potentiation, which improves power. 

The set up is pretty easy, set the pins to an angle you want to challenge.  If you want to improve your back squat and have a hard time standing up from the bottom position, set the pin to challenge that joint angle.  If you want to improve your vertical, set the pins a little higher, to the start position you would use for a box jump.

Pin Bench Press

Pin Bench Presses are also really great exercises to improve pressing power. If you've been benching for a while, you'll likely know what position you struggle with, so set the pins to that height and start crushing your bench PR's.

So hopefully I have convinced you to add in some isometrics into your program. There are benefits to adding both types, and I think a well rounded program should utilize both, especially if your goal is to increase strength and power. That being said, they're not the most exciting exercises, so you may not want to do whole workouts of them, although there are some trainers that do.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments if you have any questions or if you think I'm full of shit.

References:

(1) Taken from the Functional Range Conditioning lectures from Dr. Andreo Spina on www.fucntionalanatomyseminars.com when I took the course, but are not publicly available.