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Isometrics, Then and Now I first heard about isometrics from the pages of Strength & Health, a magazine my father bought for me when he saw that I was interested in weight training at about age 15. My attention was grabbed by the Olympic lifting that was demonstrated in the magazine by some of the legendary lifters of the York team. I taught myself the Olympic lifts from its pages. Some years later I traveled across the country to train a week or so in the York gym.
Here's 178 lbs. Roy Hilligen from
the pages of the September 1953 Strength & Health But in the 1960’s Bob Hoffman, the editor and publisher - and the owner of York Barbell Company - was pushing a new form of exercise that was said to increase your strength for Olympic lifting. I, like so many others, was interested. It was isometrics. Unlike traditional weight training, this involved exerting maximum muscular effort against an immovable object (contracting muscle without movement). Weightlifters like Lou Riecke and Bill March were shown in the magazine using this method - and apparently improving. I approached Bob Hoffman at a national championship and asked him if I could get one of the isometric racks he was manufacturing and advertising in the magazine. His immediate reaction was that I would have to pay for it, that he wasn’t going to give it to me. I, of course, intended to pay for it. A month or so later the rack was set up in my training room behind our garage. The idea behind the rack as applied
to Olympic lifting was to increase strength along the vertical pathway
in the pulling and pushing motions which are necessary to get the bar from the ground
to the overhead position in the three Olympic lifts: the snatch, the clean and jerk - and at that
time the third lift, the press. In the Internet picture below you will see
that the holes for the spotter pins on the sides were only about an inch or two apart.
They were further apart on my rack.
An Internet photo (OldtimeStrongman.com) showing a similar type of rack It interested me for a while, but I lost interest when I found that training this way was awkward and was not producing results in my Olympic lifting. A big factor was that I was not satisfied because I could not measure progression with isometrics. I later learned that Riecke and others had been part of the first experimentation with steroids while using this method and I felt that this cast a shadow on their results and muddied the water about the value of isometrics. As time has gone on, however, isometrics has been championed by a number of fitness experts and strength coaches including Pavel Tsatsouline, who point to the accessibility, precision, efficiency, and safety of isometrics, among other things. Several years ago a gym chain advertised isometric machines. Other manufacturers offer isometric devices that they say measure effort. The credibility of isometrics is reflected in the October 2024 Cleveland Clinic Arthritis Advisor which recommends five isometric exercises as a starter routine for those who are new to exercise or others limited by arthritis or other motion sensitive movements which cause pain. The five exercises they recommended are planks, dead hangs, isometric biceps curls, glute bridges, and wall squats. Most of these are familiar exercises but you may not have thought of them as being isometric. The Arthritis Advisor explains that it is a way to exercise but move away from pain. "We're tensing the muscle, but we're not moving the joint through its range of movement," says Cleveland Clinic physical therapist Adam Dennison, DPT. This explains why isometrics can be beneficial if you have a high level of pain. "Most of the time, going through a range of motion is what provokes pain," says Dennison. "Isometrics enables you to use your muscle without pain." A recent Success Story on this website by Professor Dan Keating relates his use of isometrics in his recovery from rotator cuff surgery, see Success Stories 21. Benefits of Isometrics Dennison adds, "I think of isometrics as a stepping stone to get you to the next level of more traditional exercise. It's a safe way to get your muscles going again, to get you back to moving in general, and having trust again in exercise counsels the Arthritis Advisor. How to begin if you have pain Where to begin depends on what you can do without pain. "For people whose pain is 8, 9, or10 on a the pain scale, we might start at a very low intensity, say 25% of the contraction someone with no pain would do, for example," says Dennison. If you're not familiar with exercise, Dennison recommends working with a physical therapist and adds that once you're able to go all out, you can do traditional strength training every few days with rest built in. Most isometric exercises can be done every day. My take Many regular exercisers already do planks, but if you are limited by arthritis or other joint pain, give the Cleveland Clinic "5" a try, taking care to judge your capabilities to do so, and enlisting the help of a physical therapist if you have questions. These "5" are also good exercises for anybody to use if you want to train without equipment at home. My other suggestion is that machines can be a good way to train your whole body isometrically once you reach a stage of readiness. For instance, the leg extension machine can be held stationary at certain points along its arc without going through a full range of motion. Here I am doing the full exercise. Other machines can be used in a similar way.
Whether you are using isometrics as a stepping stone to more traditional exercise, as a recovery protocol after surgery, a method of training because of arthritis or a similar problem, a simple way to train at home, or a regular part of your training routine, it's a valuable tool. Comment on this article: FEEDBACK February 1, 2025 Ripped Enterprises, P.O. Box 51236, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87181-1236 Home | Products Index | Ripped Bks | Lean Adv. Bks | Lean For Life | Recommended Bks | |Consultations | Tapes | To Order | Feedback] Copyright © 2025 Clarence and Carol Bass. All rights reserved.
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