Balance between muscle contractions (concentric/eccentric/isometric)

[Jan Ermanowicz]

Hello,
At first i want to thanks all the couches for spreedning their knowleague.

How to asses if some body lack a isometric strength ?

Im aware of concentric to eccentric ratios and how to use them but what about isometric?

Thanks, John.

[Ryan Faehnle]

It's hard to assign ratios for strength deficit testing when using isometrics because isometric strength is joint-angle specific. It's also fairly difficult to measure how much tension you are creating in an isometric contraction outside of an exercise science lab because you would need a force plate, a dynamometer, or a strain-gauge transducer to do it properly. I wouldn't worry much about it unless you are doing it for research purposes, in which case, get in the lab and make sure you have the proper tools!

[Jance Footit]

Ryan is correct. The only testing of isometrics I am aware of in relation to performance are the following
Grip testing - dynomometer
Isometric pulling force at the top of extension (think rack pull at the hip) - correlated to power development
Top ROM in the squat - again to measure power and force development
And top ROM in the bench press for same reasons above.
Other than that, like Ryan said, you are going to have a different isometric strength ability at almost every degree of change in the joint (bottom of bench press vs top of bench press). So the data is so large that is is irrelevant. It won't correlate with anything except what happens at that exact moment of flexion in the joint.

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