isolation or compound

what are the pros and cons of isolation and compound excercises
i would have thought isolation would be better for building mass but lets see

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Well, here's my thoughts on the topic.  Isolation exercises help develop the targeted muscle, strengthening it.  You can put more weights for isolation exercises.
 
Compound exercises are meant more to burn calories and work on movements.  You can't put as much weight for these exercises.
 
Ex of isolation:  Bicep curls
Ex of compound:  Squats with military press

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Mrpacman, I think you have the wrong idea of compound movements.
An isolation movement is an exercise that completely isolates the target muscle for work- Bicep curls aren't really an isolation movement, since that's a general term- But preacher curls are definitely an isolation exercise, since they force the bicep to do all the work by keeping the elbow still. There's no way any other muscle can help move the weight in a real isolation exercise, which also means that you'll be forced to lift less weight because you're using less total muscle.
Compound movements, on the other hand, are exercises that involve many muscle groups- Squats being an excellent example- Many muscles work together to move the weight in this exercise, which allows you to lift more weight than with an isolation exercise. Look at it this way- An isolation movement for the quads would be leg extensions. With the positioning of the legs on the bench and under the bar, the only muscle that can move the weight is the quadricep. On the other hand, even though squats target the quads, and quads do most of the work during this movement, it does recruit many other muscles- Hamstrings, calves, lower back, upper back, etc- All to varying degrees. But since there is more muscle working together, naturally you're going to be able to squat more weight than you could move on the leg extension. A lot more.
As for the benefits, some people believe that isolation helps the target muscle grow because it forces that muscle to do more work. Others believe that compound is better because the more weight handled by that muscle, the more gains you'll see- Personally, I prefer compound movements simply because they do tend to work hard to get at muscles that don't really get targeted that well in other movements, but I think it's a good idea to incorporate both types of exercise into your training for best results.

pac like cpl said, you got it confused.
 
 
isolation you CANT use nearly as much weight because you isolate the muscle.  therefore since you are using much less weight, you are not overloading the muscle which in turn causes less muscle growth.
 
compound on the other hand you can use much heavier weight and it incorporates stabilizer muscles to help lift the weight but creates the most overload causing maximum hypertrophy

Ohh...my bad.   Was thinking the wrong thing..

Lifting is life!!...the rest are just details...

Bulk, Cut, and repeat!

thanks all
i have wanted to know that for a while

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Compound = Bench press
 
Isolation = DB Flye

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