Which Workout Is Better For Beginners? Compound or Isolation?

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 Now that you have started to eat well, eat healthy & in proper quantities. You have either joined a gym or setup your own at home. You have the basic knowledge of how muscles are built & also the basic gym terms. Its time to finally hit the gym & start lifting. But before I proceed further, here are my 2 cents on which exercises should a beginner do so as to get maximum benefits & gains. This is entirely my opinion & is also backed by this Lifehacker article as well.

 Beginners must start with compound exercises & not the isolation exercises. At least for first 3 months, they must only focus on compound exercises. Compound exercises will get you stronger & also improve your overall body. Its very easy to get lured into doing dumbbell or barbell curls (from all those movies & photos on fitness magazines) but they are isolation workouts. They will only work one muscle group. Isolation or combination of isolation & compound exercises is meant for advanced bodybuilders. Compound exercises take less time & have overall greater results for a beginner. I myself did isolation for 6 months when I had just begun & I never made any gains. I started compound workouts & it resulted in much more muscle gains & body strength. Don't believe me? See the photos below. One is of 2013. Another is current photo. 



Please remember that muscle growth or hypertrophy may or may to be directly proportional to strength. Your aim, as a beginner, must be both getting stronger & muscular. With this in mind, lets start our first routine :-) 

 Well, I will be explaining the workout routines in subsequent posts because it will get quite lengthy & boring if I stuff everything in one single post. So, watch out for my next post(s) & you will be getting stronger & muscular in little time :-)

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