The sticking point is the point in your lift where the weight feels the heaviest, there’s an increase in the resistance and you feel “stuck”. Isometric exercises ensure that your muscles are under tension the entire time the exercise is being performed, because you are holding one position, making them great exercises for improving strength or endurance depending on how long you maintain the position. Putting your muscles under periods of stress increases muscle strength and size.

This is the period of time where your muscles are working the hardest, which is where we see increases in strength or endurance. Time under tension is the amount of time that your muscles are under stress in an exercise. This makes isometric training useful for training specific ranges of motion, so it is also important to remember to train isometrics at a variety of angles, otherwise you will only get strong in one position. If you hold a bicep curl at 20 degrees, 45 degrees, 90 degrees, and 120 degrees, your bicep will get stronger in all of those positions. Isometric exercises facilitate strength gains at the angles that you perform them, so if you have your elbow at a 90 degree angle and hold a bicep curl with resistance, your bicep will get stronger but it gets stronger in that 90 degree position. This is also good to keep in mind on days that you’re feeling sore or on days where your joints hurt more than usual isometrics can be a good substitution for your usual resistance training routine even if you’re feeling limited on any given day. This can be done for every muscle in your body which means you can get stronger regardless of what your mobility is like. Just about anyone can safely perform pain-free isometric exercises for example: if bending your knees causes pain, you can still train your quadriceps without standing up by straightening your knee and tightening your thighs. Since isometric exercises are performed in one specific position at a time, they are a great way to increase strength without moving into painful ranges of motion, making them excellent exercises for rehabilitation, warm-ups, and injury prevention.

Traditionally used for rehabilitation, isometric exercises can be used for a variety of different goals such as warm up and muscle activation, corrective and accessory exercise, or increasing strength at the “sticking point.” Here are a few reasons why isometric exercises could be beneficial to you and how to easily incorporate them into your own programming. Isometric exercise can be described as a strong contraction of your muscle with or without resistance as your joint(s) stay still. If you’re looking for a simple, yet highly effective way to add corrective strength to your exercise plan, isometric exercises could be the way to go.

When to use isometric exercises