In the post featuring my current workout routine, I mentioned that most of the exercises I’m doing are compound exercises. In this post, I want to explain in more detail what compound exercises are and how they are different from isolation exercises.
Muscles and Joints
A compound exercise is any kind of weight-lifting exercise that involves two or more joints in motion. In other words, when you are doing one of these exercises, the movements involve several joints and therefore several muscles as well.
With an isolation exercise, on the other hand, you’re generally only moving one joint.
Here’s an example of an isolation exercise vs. a compound exercise:
Isolation: Bicep Curls
When doing a bicep curl, the elbow is the only moving joint and the exercises stresses only the bicep and no other muscles.
Compound: Bench Press
The bench press is a compound exercise, because it involves moving your shoulders as well as your elbows. Therefore, it also stresses more than one muscle, in this case, the pectorals (chest), triceps and the deltoids (shoulders).
Benefits of Compound Exercises
Saves Time
Take three compound exercises: Deadlifts, inclined bench presses and pull-ups. If you do those three exercises, that’s almost a full-body workout, right there. You’ll have worked almost every muscle in your body from just those three exercises.
If you do three isolation exercises, however, you’ll have worked only three muscles and no more. And it will have taken about the same amount of time. Of course, the isolation exercises stress each targeted muscle more intensely, but if you’re short on time, it’s advisable to stick with compound exercises.
Functional Strength
Doing bicep curls makes you stronger in one way and one way only: It makes you stronger at doing bicep curls. Isolating a single muscle and moving it against resistance is “unnatural”. Think about it: Practically every movement against resistance that you do “in real life” involves several muscle groups. When you pick up something heavy, you probably squat down, grab a hold of it and lift it up using your legs, arms and back. If you have to push a heavy object, you probably lean forward and push with your legs, shoulders and arms, contracting the muscles around your torso for stabilization.
Compound exercises are more closely related to movements you might need “in real life” and can therefore have a real benefit apart from pumping up your muscles. For most of us, improving strength for manual labour isn’t important at all (and we’re lucky that it’s so). For me personally, functional strength is important because I train martial arts and doing compound exercises can make me a stronger and more dangerous opponent.
Gets Your Heart Pumping
Doing compound exercises will get your heart-rate up and especially if you chain sets together as supersets, your workout will have a certain cardio-aspect to it. If you’re looking to burn more calories and cut down on fat, this is obviously a very good thing.
Another side-effect of this may be that you get a greater hormonal response, since you’re working larger muscle-groups. In theory, stress to your muscles releases Testosterone and other hormones essential to muscle growth. And more stress to more muscles means more hormones. Basically, it’s natural doping. 
