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How should you use isometric exercises in your routine? By working your core in this way, you’ll be able to fire all of the muscles and keep your body stable when you do the other movements-think lunges or even running-that require your core to be engaged and sturdy too. Think about your core: Doing a plank for an extended period of time trains your entire core to activate and stay strong and stable in this contracted position. This is what makes them great for improving stability. The resulting microscopic tears in the muscle will repair after exercise-which is why giving your body time to recover is so important-and ultimately end up building themselves up a little stronger than before. With concentric and eccentric exercises, especially on the eccentric part, the muscle fiber is broken down, explains Nelson. Isometric exercises can help build strength, but in a slightly different way than concentric and eccentric movements do. (It’s also an easy way to make an exercise feel harder when you aren’t able to add additional weight to the move.) What are the benefits of isometric exercises? Holding any of your favorite nonisometric exercises in one specific spot-usually either the most challenging part of the exercise, or the moment just before you change direction-is also a simple way to add an isometric component to whatever you’re doing. Other examples of isometric exercises include wall sits, calf raises, and hollow-body holds. If you paused halfway through and held the position at the top of the move, when your arm was at 90 degrees, that would be the isometric phase. When you straighten your elbow and lower the weight down, that’s the eccentric portion.
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When you bend your elbow and curl the weight up, that’s the concentric portion. The same can apply to a biceps curl, if you add a hold to the move. In between that, when you stop and pause at the bottom? That’s the isometric phase. And when you push the weight back and your muscles contract, you’re in the concentric phrase. For example, in a squat, when you lower the weight down and your muscles lengthen, you’re in the eccentric phase. Nelson, Ph.D., CSCS, a Minnesota-based exercise physiologist, tells SELF. “People forget that there’s an isometric action in almost every exercise,” Mike T.