LIST OF ISOLATION EXERCISES – 50+ EXERCISES (Video)

List of Isolation Exercises

Although the world of weightlifting would have you believe isolation exercises have no place in any legit workout, I beg to differ.

Hear me out.

Isolation exercises should have a place in every workout program, and here’s why:
Isolation exercises help you fix muscle imbalances. For example, squats (a compound exercise) primarily build your quads, but they also build your hamstrings. Doing only squats, your quads will grow much stronger than your hamstrings, and this can lead to injury.

Adding an isolation exercise, like hamstring curls, can help you focus on building your hamstring to be in balance with your quads.

Isolation exercises help you to target specific muscles while resting others. For example, if you wanted a chest workout but worked your triceps and shoulders recently, you wouldn’t want to bench press. Instead, you could do an isolation exercise like chest flyes to focus mostly on your pecs.

Isolation exercises can help you recover from injuries. For example, if you injured your hamstrings, you could do an isolation exercise like leg extensions to focus on your quads without further hurting your hamstring injury.

Below you’ll find a complete list of isolation exercises.

I’ve organized the exercises by muscle group to help you build your own workouts.

Includes 50 compound exercises not included in this post.

LIST OF ISOLATION EXERCISES

Each exercise is linked to a YouTube video or how-to article so you can learn the proper form.

CHEST ISOLATION EXERCISES

Dumbbell Flyes
Decline Dumbbell Flyes
Incline Dumbbell Flyes
Cable Crossovers
Bodyweight Flyes
Butterfly Machine
Cable Iron Cross
Flat Bench Cable Flyes
Incline Cable Flyes
Decline Cable Flyes
Single-Arm Cable Crossover
Low Cable Crossover
Single-Arm Dumbbell Bench Press
Cable Chest Press
Incline Cable Chest Press
Decline Cable Chest Press

SHOULDERS ISOLATION EXERCISES

Barbell Shrug
Dumbbell Shrug
Reverse Flyes Machine
Reverse Flyes
Dumbbell Lateral Raise
Dumbbell Front Raise
One-Arm Front Cable Raise
One-Arm Lateral Cable Raise
Car Drivers

BACK ISOLATION EXERCISES

Cable Straight-Arm Pulldown
Seated Back Extension
Dumbbell Row

BICEPS ISOLATION EXERCISES

Concentration Curls
Incline Dumbbell Curls
Hammer Curls
Incline Hammer Curls
Barbell Curl
EZ-Bar Curl
Preacher Curls
Machine Bicep Curls
Cable Curls
Overhead Cable Curls

TRICEPS ISOLATION EXERCISES

Tricep Pushdown
Tricep Kickback
Dumbbell Skullcrushers
Barbell Skullcrushers
Cable Overhead Tricep Extension
Machine Triceps Extension
Machine Dips

LEGS ISOLATION EXERCISES

Hamstring Curls
Lying Leg Curls
Leg Extensions
Calf Raises
One-Legged Cable Kickback

ISOLATION EXERCISES VS. COMPOUND EXERCISES



Exercises are categorized as either isolation (involving a single muscle group) or compound (involving more than one muscle group).

You can see the difference when you compare two exercises—like the squat and the calf raise. When you do a calf raise, you only engage your calves. But when you squat, you engage your core, glutes, quads, hamstrings, and other small muscles.

This is why many argue that compound weight-lifting exercises are more efficient. It only takes 5-7 compound exercises to stimulate all the major muscles, and you have to do 15-20 isolation exercises to engage the same muscles.

But that doesn’t mean isolation exercises are inferior! They just have a different place in your workouts: they’re great for recovery, target toning, and correcting muscle imbalances. Isolation exercises should be a part of every workout and are wonderful complements to compound weight lifting exercises.

TOP ISOLATION EXERCISES FOR GLUTES



Isolation exercises for glutes have been trending lately. Athletes, especially competitive bodybuilders, often need to tone their butt but don’t necessarily want to build their hamstrings or quads further.

Lifter knows what it takes to get big: you do a healthy mix of compound and isolation exercises, but for some reason, they don’t apply the same logic to their glutes. When it comes to glute training, isolation exercises have an important place in creating a balanced lower body.

So I went ahead and made a list of glute-specific isolation exercises to make things simple for you

ISOLATION EXERCISES FOR GLUTES:

Barbell Glute Bridge
One-Legged Glute Bridge
Anterior Leaning Lunges
Single-Leg RDLs
Glute Kickback
One-Legged Cable Kickbacks

Regardless of your goal, it’s important to include isolation exercises for glutes to balance out your bigger muscles. Whenever you’re doing squats, deadlifts, and leg press exercises, the emphasis is never on your glutes, so your glutes will always be behind if you don’t give them specific attention.

It’s not vanity…it’s just survival.

CONCLUSION

Start incorporating these isolation exercises into your workout routine to enhance your survival fitness.

Focus mostly on compound exercises, but make sure to find balance with these isolation exercises.

Now go out and secure your survival – get lifting!

Survival of the fittest.

IF YOU HAVE ANY OTHER EXERCISES YOU’D LIKE ADDED TO THIS LIST OF ISOLATION EXERCISES, THEN LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!