Isolation Exercises – When to use them.

Isolation exercises are going to be incredibly useful for muscles that don’t achieve maximal activation in compound exercises; this is often the case with muscles that cross two joints, like the rectus femoris (middle quad muscle). When muscles cross two joints, they can perform joint actions at both joints. When these actions occur at the same time, we often get active insufficiency in which the muscle won’t be able to produce much force. If a muscle can’t produce much force, it won’t experience much tension and won’t grow from that exercise. Therefore, use isolation exercises in your training to target tricky muscles like the rectus femoris!
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▪️ Source: Ema, R., Sakaguchi, M., Akagi, R., & Kawakami, Y. (2016). Unique activation of the quadriceps femoris during single-and multi-joint exercises. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 116(5), 1031-1041.