Have you joined the gym; your trainer is going to put together a routine but you still do not know what type of body you are looking for? Don’t know whether to focus on fitness or bodybuilding? Let’s analyze then Bodybuilding exercises vs fitness exercises
Well, as we have already seen the differences in cardiovascular training between athletes and fitness practitioner’s vs athletes dedicated to the world of bodybuilding.
Today I will continue to mark differences between these two disciplines but this time focusing on the type of training, which although they have much in common, depending on the discipline you do you will see that there is a great difference in base.
EXERCISES IN BODYBUILDING
Broadly speaking (and without taking into account other factors) the world of bodybuilding is based on two types of exercises in an attempt to “develop your weaknesses”, bodybuilders will incorporate compound exercises and isolation exercises into their routines.
Exercises such as DUMBBELL OPENINGS, THE CONCENTRATED BICEPS CURL or LEG EXTENSIONS, are a basic part of the exercise repertoire of a bodybuilder.
While they are excellent for developing these muscles, many of these exercises do little to stimulate the metabolism and promote an integral change in our body.
Also, since these isolation exercises work only on a small area at a time, you must do many different exercises to get a full workout of that muscle, which in turn leads to a greater time commitment.
Here you can learn more about compound and isolation exercises: COMPOUND AND ISOLATION EXERCISES
EXERCISES IN FITNESS
This group of athletes, on the other hand, are more focused on the harmonious appearance of the body and its bodily function. Disciplines such as functional training or CrossFit point in this direction.
And since the body wasn’t designed to engage every muscle and/or movement pattern in isolation, they rarely perform isolation exercises like bodybuilders do.
Instead, they focus on exercises or movements that involve several muscle areas at the same time, just like what would happen during a sporting event for example.
These exercises have a huge metabolic cost and speed up metabolism much more than in bodybuilding.
AND WHAT KIND OF TRAINING ARE YOU GOING TO DO?
As you see THE APPROACH of each discipline is totally different, however this should not be taken as two opposite realities, it is not that it is black or white, there are grays and, in those grays, you enter and the type of body you want to have in terms of structure and muscle capacity.
There are times when an isolation exercise can be used effectively to complement the training of a certain sport greatly improving the results and performance in that sport.
In other cases, a comprehensive workout helps improve flexibility and highlight muscle tone from isolated workouts.
In short? It is up to you to see where you will shift the balance when planning a workout, talk to your coach and always make a long-term planning and thinking about the objectives you want to achieve.