CAN ISOMETRICS DO IT ALL?

No, Not all. Isometrics can develop your muscles. An isometric exercise aims to increase the size and strength of muscles by tensing one set of muscles against another, or against an immovable object. Though your body is immobile, the intensity of effort can make the affected muscles grow.

Isometrics are well suited to shaping parts of the body, the reason they are more suited for men, like flabby stomach muscles (this of course for women too). Also under a physician's direction they have a therapeutic use in keeping immobilized parts of the body from atrophying, such as limbs encased in plaster casts as a result of fractures. Isometrics require very little time-eight seconds is tops for each exercise.

Isometrics have been grossly oversold. They are no answer to all your exercise needs. They not only fail to help develop your cardiovascular system, but also can dangerously raise the blood pressure and are often harmful to patients of heart disease. They develop specific muscle area, but in no way prepare you for exertion requiring increased heart-lung reserve. They are not as effortless as claimed. A brief round of isometrics can be as exhausting as a much longer stint of vigorous exercise. Keeping at them is difficult because they're boring and produce very slow results. Strength built through isometrics is quickly lost if you do not maintain an isometrics program.

Please be skeptical of books with titles like Five Minutes a Day to Keep Fit or videos purporting to teach you "How to Exercise Without Moving a Muscle". Isometrics gadgets like exercise bars and stretching devices are unnecessary. All the isometrics equipment you need is your own body or a readily available object like a wall or a doorjamb.