Context 

For starting or improving in strength and fitness it takes wisdom in determining what type of exercise will benefit us the most in our journey. Choosing the right exercise, movement, or modality comes down to a few things. 

• Learning Curve: How long will it take me to learn this? Can I hit the ground running or will it take some time until I see benefit from this? What’s the likelihood of injury?

• Time: How long with this take me to execute? Do I have to account for transit time to and from the location in order to train? Will I have to set up a bunch of equipment like bars, resistance bands, plates, etc? 

• Frequency: How often should I train this? Can I do it every day or will it be smarter to space it out to every other day or just do it twice a week? How long can I sustain this type of workout? 

• Energy Expenditure: How exhausting will this be? Will I be drained as I come into work and go through most of my morning in a daze? Do I have to psyche myself up before working out? I know of some who take pre-workout before their session. Should I have to research and find out what is the best product? 

• Recovery: Will this make me sore for the next few days? Will this impair my ability to do other tasks over the next week? Will my recovery period hurt my progress in the long run? 

• Progress Measurement: Am I improving? Is this working? Maybe I should try something else. 

• Cost: How much is this going to take out of my wallet? Eggs keep getting expensive and my lease went up yet again!!!!

Resolution

These factors, I’ve listed above as well as many others are why I believe overcoming isometrics(Pushing or pulling against an immovable object) is beneficial for almost anybody. I’ve covered overcoming isometrics in previous posts and will cover it a great deal in the future possibly till the end of time.

Now and in the future, I’ll provide more of a plethora of various overcoming isometrics you can do at home and with very little equipment. 

In this post, I’ll focus on mainly the pressing muscles, Chest, Triceps, and Shoulders. The exercises I’m about to show you are a small fraction of the overcoming isometrics you can use for pressing movements. If you have a good imagination you can probably come up with your own. 

Exercise Library 

1 - Narrow Chest Press: a chest press exercise that can be performed with zero equipment. You can use just your hands and press inward/slowly breathing out for a total of six to eight seconds. 

If you wish to turn it up a bit you can place a weight in between your hands and hold it in place. This will work your front shoulders as well as you having to keep your arms and the weight upright. The benefit of this is that it gives you a measurement of how hard you are pressing. To keep the weight from falling your chest and arms will have to press powerfully. If you can do a 5lb plate one month and you can do a 10Ib plate the next with ease then you are doing it right. 

With all overcoming isometrics it’s important to cover a full range of motion as you can as training a muscle at different lengths has its benefits. 

So you want to do something narrow with just your hands, then move to a wider object like a pillar, fridge, bookshelf,  and then on to what I have below 

2 - Doorway Chest Fly: as long as you have a doorway you have a way to get a good stretch out of your chest while performing an overcoming isometric. Depending on how wide or how big you are you may have to have your arms at a slight downward angle. If this is the case for you you can perform an isometric in the downward position and then do an isometric press in the upward position with your hands/arms overhead still in a v-like pose.

Here to deal with the narrow doorway I have bent my arms upward to perform this isometric which is also an option.

Of course, if you don’t have a nicely spaced doorway and there are some perfectly spaced pillars in your general vicinity use those. 

3 - BTB Tricep Extension: This exercise I have mentioned elsewhere but here are some better pictures of it. You are grabbing the towel and pulling outwards at three different joint angles. How close you bring your hands together on the first contraction is up to you. Starting with your hands just on the outside of your head is good enough as the closer you get them the more likely your triceps will be sore the next day. 

4 - Towel Tricep Extension: If you have a long enough towel you can perform a tricep extension using a towel. Keep in mind when you first start off with this one, your triceps will be somewhat sore after performing this in the lower position but it won’t last for long and will go away after a few sessions. 

If you don’t have a towel that’s long enough you can also just hold the other end with your non-pressing hand as I’ll show below.  

5 - Towel Shoulder Press: A shoulder pressing isometric but be mindful of the hand position.

Keep it like this…

Not this…

For the latter will make it more like the tricep extension and the former will bring your shoulder more into play. 

6  - Tricep Press Down: Keeping your hand in a fist press down and switch to the other arm once you are done. Can be performed either standing or at your desk. 

7 - Forward Shoulder Towel Pull: A front raise for your shoulders. Keep in mind the more rotation there is in your palm away from the floor the more you’ll bring your bicep into the exercise which is what I’m doing here. If I were to just stay focused on my shoulder I’ll rotate my palm so that it’s facing the ground. 

8 - Lateral Shoulder Raise With A Towel: Same as the above but off to the side. 

9 - Lateral Shoulder Raise with a wall or in a doorway: Can be performed if you’re in a rush as there’s no way to get the full range of motion. If you’re performing overcoming isometrics it’s best to prioritize the stretched position first to get the most benefit in terms of strength and tendon building. But if you have time try and get the full range of motion in your workout though.  

Maneuver PlaN

The metabolic cost of overcoming isometrics if performing them for less than 10 seconds of contractions is very low. So if you want to combine them with whatever routine you are doing for added strength I would encourage it. Remember all you need is one contraction in each position/joint angle for benefit. 

However, overcoming isometrics can be wonderful by itself. Sometimes I’ll do them throughout my day to keep my energy up and in this way they’re just as good as a cup of coffee if you do them right. 

Wrap Up 

Go ahead, give these isometrics a try, and let me know what you think.

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