Over the years, certain bodybuilding gurus have advocated isometric weight training over dynamic training. They claimed that isometric will give you the same or better muscle gains as dynamic, without the risk of injury or joint problems. Dynamic weight training is the “normal” way of lifting a weight. Isometric training is where you hold a heavy weight in place. For exampale, with isometric bench press you lower lower the weight half way to your chest and hold it till you get tired.

Most bodybuilders will quickly discount these people, but what does science say on the issue?

Summary of study:

A comprehensive research study came out 2 months ago from Göteborg University in Sweden. The study compared isometric training to dynamic training. They also compared it together with volume, frequency, and intensity variables. The method of analysis for finding research results, was to find correlations among dozens of previous studies.

What were the results of this comprehensive study? It found that when analyzing all the different studies, they could not find a statistically significant difference between the weight training routines in inducing muscle growth.

Final thoughts:

One must keep in mind this is a comprehensive study. Comparing studies to other studies, is not the same thing as doing one very large study. Every study is going to have specific variables that make it unique and lumping many studies together to draw conclusions, isn’t the most scientific way to do that. This is especially true in excercise science, which has many complex variables such as diet, genetics, routine, training experience, among each study group.

As a result, I am not ready to conclude that isometric is just as good as regular training for muscle gains just because of this study. It is very interesting results though, which certainly points to the possibility, that maybe the isometric advocates are not wrong afterall. I will wait for more research though before I make this conclusion.