Doing isolation before compunds

Have a quick question! Do you believe doing isolation exercises ie flys before bench press? I've seen a few people doing this and wondered what people thought about it

I've always read that compounds should be the first lift of your workout. This is most likely a form of micromanaging though

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Originally Posted by justo

Have a quick question! Do you believe doing isolation exercises ie flys before bench press? I've seen a few people doing this and wondered what people thought about it

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what they are doing is pre-fatiguing the chest so that when they bench press the pecs give out before the triceps which in turn works the muscle to failure...for some peeps the triceps tire before the pec muscles...

I totally agree with ghetto on this. I always do incline flys before incline bench. Due to my age i use dummbells or cables to save my shoulders from injury. Upper chest is the hardest part to develop and i feel it works best to tax the chest before tri's. i don't do it on back, such as working bi's before back tho. Sometimes i do leg extensions before pressing movements, but most bodyparts isolation before not the best.

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Originally Posted by ghettoboyd

what they are doing is pre-fatiguing the chest so that when they bench press the pecs give out before the triceps which in turn works the muscle to failure...for some peeps the triceps tire before the pec muscles...

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Agree with above. Many guys are shoulder dominant when they bench and it can help in these situations. It's simply another form of training that you should experiment with and add to your repertoire. The Mentzer brothers were huge proponents of this style training. It was mostly done in superset fashion where they would do the isolation to ultimate failure with maximum weight immediately followed by the compound in the same fashion. It'll crush you if done correctly. It's also a viable option when you are working around an injury as it allows you to fatigue a muscle with less weight on the compound movement.

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Originally Posted by kelkel

Agree with above. Many guys are shoulder dominant when they bench and it can help in these situations. It's simply another form of training that you should experiment with and add to your repertoire. The Mentzer brothers were huge proponents of this style training. It was mostly done in superset fashion where they would do the isolation to ultimate failure with maximum weight immediately followed by the compound in the same fashion. It'll crush you if done correctly. It's also a viable option when you are working around an injury as it allows you to fatigue a muscle with less weight on the compound movement.

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Yep I know many of guys who complain about front delts getting the blunt of the work from flat or incline barbell press. Of course proper form helps but some are so shoulder dominant they take the blunt of the work.