For the past two years, I’ve started to favor isolation exercises over compound exercises for a few reasons. I favor isolation exercises its basically one muscle that you’re stimulating and if pushed near absolute failure, there will be a favorable adaptation versus in compound exercises, usually it’s the weakest link and any muscles that are near failure will be the ones that be stimulated enough to grow muscle and get stronger. The disadvantage of doing isolations are that there are a lot of muscle groups/ a lot of exercises which is an inconvience time wise and that if you don’t exercise that weakest muscle of the compound exercise that you’re focused on, then the compound exercise will still stagnate since the weakest link hasn’t progressed. One example of this is that I did a few months of isolation exercises except for front delt exercises due to a few injuries and by the time I found cable front raises by Bench Press was still the same even though my 1RM went from 240 to 300.
A month or ago, I was browsing for a front delt exercise and came across a Youtube video from John Meadows regarding Incline Front Raises. To me, that sounded biomechanically perfect. In a 30 degree incline using dumbbells, the hardest part of the exercise will be when the arms are parallel to the floor and the front delt will more stretched/lengthened compared to standing front raises where the hardest part is when the muscle in shortened (meaning that there’s less potential for microtears). This movement is basically a straight arm version of Incline Press. Before making this exercise my main exercise for a few weeks, I did a few weeks of Bench Press on squat rack for safety purposes and had Close Grip Bench Press for a day which I’ll use as before exercise.
How it affected the Close Grip Bench Press
The front delts has for the longest time been a weak point in my bench press and decided to exclusively use Incline Front Raises for a week / 3 sessions to see if it will make a favorable difference in the bench presses. Comparing two days of Bench Press, Day 1: (6/21/24) 185lbs x 6 reps; 215.1 1 rep max, and, Day 2: (6/24/24) 180lbs x 7 reps; 216.9, the rate of progression is (216.9-215.1)/215.1 = .0083682 => .83% / session. I was relatively confident, but not sure that 3 days of front Delt raise was going to increase a rep of Close Grip Bench Press.
The 3 days of Incline Front Raises were:
- (7/12/24) 22.5lbs x 18 ; 35.7 1RM
- (7/14/24) 22.5lbs x 18 or 19 ; 35.7-36.9 1RM
- (7/16/24) 22.5lbs x 19; 36.9 1RM
The rate of progression from these days are (36.9-35.7)/35.7 => 3.36% ; avg: 1.12% / session
The assumed rate of progression of 3 days of Bench Press are .83% * 3 = 2.49%
Because I did a 3.36% increase on my front raise. I figured to test my Close Grip Bench Press (CGBP) to see if I was able to add a rep mathematically speaking. 220 * 1.0336 is 227.392. According to the 1RM calculator website : https://21plusrepmax.com/, 11 reps from 227 as 1RM is 165.71 so theoratically I should be able to do 11 instead of 10 reps of 165lbs. At the pace of Bench Press, the estimate 1RM would have been, 220 * 1.0249 = 225.478lbs which is barely below 226lbs.
On 7/19/24, I managed to barely do 11 reps of 165lbs, same weight as last time.
Caveat: I took a 12 day break and beforehand on (7/5/24), my Incline Front Raise was 25lbs x 14 reps; 36.8 1RM which was about a week after I did my first Close Grip Bench Press on (6/28/24) @ 165lbs x 10 reps; 220lb 1 rep max. When I did my first Incline Front Raises on (7/12/24), either I got weaker of my front delts respond better on low reps.
There are few reasons, maybe in combination, why I was able to add a rep of CGBP after a few days of Incline Front Raises. 1) Motor Skill aspect of getting more efficient on the exercise even though the bench press would have progressed in less than 3% over 3 days. I’ve also done 5-7 days worth of bench pressing since Late May so I can’t imagine there being that much of a motor skill adaptation at this point. 2) The Incline Front Raises did improve despite having lower 1RM than when it was 25lbs, maybe the possibility that the 1RM would have been higher if I did 25lbs. 3) Having a +10% improvement in the lateral head tricep exercise Single Arm Tricep Pushdowns.
I would guess that doing Incline Front Raises is a worthwhile isolation exercise because the odds of adding a rep of to a 165lb Close Grip Bench Press in the very next session would be low, maybe unless it’s newbie gains. At this point, this is my favorite Front Delt exercise due to muscle being challenged at its lengthened position instead of it being challenged at its shortened position of the front delt, therefore having a higher chance of inducing adaptation due to higher likelihood of microtears. This is not to say sticking to compound exercises is a waste of time because even though the estimated 1RM of Close Grip Bench Press was below 226 at 225.478lbs, there’s was a solid chance that adding a rep in CGBP could have happened. 226 – 225.478 = .522 which is plenty less than the increase per session of bench press at 1.8 at the time; that’s basically triple of what’s needed to “push” past the 226 1RM and add the rep. All in all, the incline front raise [1.12%] was 30% faster than the bench presss [.83%] per session. 30% a day isn’t much, but it can add up if done over weeks or months. At this point based on this post, it’s either faster gains doing isolation exercises or time efficiency doing compounds and it depends on personal preference and circumstance.