Isolation Vs Integration

This title reminds me of Intimacy vs. Isolation, an Erik Erikson stage of psychosocial development not far removed from today's topic. Successful completion of this psychological stage leads to comfortable relationships and a sense of commitment, safety, and care within relationships. 

I'll start by saying that isolation training made perfect sense to me early on. My passion for fitness grew during a decade that cherished muscle cars that weren't hard to strip down and build back up stronger. This mentality led us to gyms that gleamed with machines that isolated muscles, believing the ideology that muscles made stronger in isolation worked better in concert. This, unfortunately, does not work. The decade left us with internally rotated shoulders, crappy knees, and broken hips. We essentially squatted and pressed our way into the Orthopedist's office.

Now, I believe it more beneficial to get the whole body moving. When that's not possible, isolation movements work, so they're not quite the antithesis of whole body movements. Whole body movements have flaws too. These movements need to make sense. I'm pointing at exercises like the single leg on an inverted Bosu curl into press. This exercise is excellent, if you clean windows, on one foot, on the bow of a ship sailing an angry sea, for a living. Whew, sometimes the sarcasm just flows.

I believe isolation training has a place in programs where significant muscular imbalances are found during assessment. But loading a weak muscle with sets on a machine doesn't help reintegrate it back into the collective. If a muscle is weak and underworked, there'a another problem right next door. That muscle's polar opposite is likely to be overworked. Strength interventions are only as valuable as the intervention for the overworked side. Think of a rely race runner that never lets go of the baton. Now you're dragging a runner. Moving this way is extremely inefficient and the brain won't have it, so it shuts it down.

Standing on an unstable surface, like an inverted Bosu, doesn't increase your ability to balance because the ankle is a mobile joint. Every time you destabilize it, the brain snaps into panic mode. If you train in panic, you get panic when an unstable surface out in the world threatens to topple you.

It also doesn't make much sense to isolate muscles like the hamstrings or inner and outer thighs since they're best at stabilizing. Not to mention, the brain checks out as soon as you sit on a machine because there's no threat to stabilization when you're on your butt. Every attempt to strengthen a muscle better suited for stabilization is counterintuitive. Moving the glutes through a hip hinge, as in a single leg deadlift, is a better way to get the hamstrings working correctly. A side lunge engages the inner and outer thigh muscles better than any machine.

Dr. Erikson observed that psychological isolation leads to a lack of intimacy and depression, the exact face I read on every person doing sets on a machine. Don't discount the fact that moving around and being a geek is what life is all about. When's the last time you swung on a swing? I try for once a week, because nothing in this world tickles my core like the height of a pendulum.

So get out, move, do a cartwheel. Allow the body to feel what it's like to integrate all it's musculature into one movement. Because if three sets of ten on a machine made these things better, you'd never get near it. I'd be on it.