Weight training is perhaps one of the toughest, and most dangerous types of personal developement around, so making sure you get it right, and keep it safe is always important. All I'm gonna do is just briefly cover the issues of Isotonic, Isokenetic & Isometric weight training, and hopefully give you a little more target in your weight training - and hopefully get you thinking about what you really want to achieve.




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ISOMETRIC
Isometric weight training is the tension of a muscle, without movement at a joint. For instance, if you were to lift a 20kg dumbell, and keep your arm contracted, and not make the 'usual' tension and relaxation method, and instead just keep it held steady, it would be isometric weight training. A good way of remembering it is remember Isometal training, metal being a solid, as in solid arm, the arm does not move.
This has it's advantages and it's draw backs.
The main advantage is that it improves the ability to push or pull something, or hold it steady. This is especially useful for certain profeshions, sports or martial arts. It is also often thought to be 'quick to do', and be less painful mentally and physically than isotonic weight training. Finally, and perhaps one of the greatest advantages of Isometric training is that it is cheap, easy to do, and can be done just about anywere.

The disadvantages are a somewhat large drawback, if you do not take into consideration before hand the sport that you wish to train for. The main disadvantage is that it only builds up muscle at the angle that the arm is tensed at. This can cause problems if you tranfer your training to the 'streets', because you will loose your strength until the point that you reach your 'trained angle'. Another major problem, and something that we must stress the importance of considering, is that when you train in this manner, it restricts the blood flow to that muscle, and restricts the blood flow back to the heart. This can be especially dangerous if you have heart problems.

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ISOTONIC
Isotonic is the most common form of weight training. It is Isotonic training when the muscle contracts and then relaxes over the full flexion of the joint. This is the most common type of training, and is most probably the type of lifting that you are most fimiliar with.

The advantages are that you can train the entire muscle, at all angels, giving you an improved overall strength. It is also great for training yourself for specific sports, such as judo, discuss or javelling.

The disadvantages are that it can make the muscle sore, (get over it!), and it does not train the muscle evenly.

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ISOKENETIC
Isokenitic training is when the muscle strengthens and relaxes at a constant speed and weight. For this type of training, you need special equipment that detects when the muscle is speeding up and slowing down, and that can then adjust the weights of strain to compensate for this. Guess what - it aint cheap!

The advantage is that it builds up muscle very quickly, and evenly throughout the entire muscle, the major drawback however is that it is incredibly expensive, and so only specialist gyms can afford it.
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The type of weight training that you do depends entirely on your motive for training. We've stuck togeather a quick list of sports that are best suited to different training.

ISOMETRIC
+Possibly some style's of Judo, boxing maybe..

ISOKENETIC & ISOTONIC

+Most sports, and general everyday use. All sports are best suited to either of these types of weight's training.

Just remember to make sure you know what you want to achieve when you start off, and remember that it takes time, so be patient. Always make sure you are aware of safety!

ty for this! I'm still in high school and ive been lifting ever since i was a freshman. People keep saying that weight lifting will stunt your growth but thats all fiction. I believed that and i stopped doing it since about halfway through my sophomore year. I've been lifting hard over the summer and ive gotten very big. You just need to dedicate yourself to this kind of stuff. There's more to know than just picking up some dumbells and doing repetitions....

I'm gonna look into this stuff and check it out!