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Mass Building vs Shaping

To Shape, Shape and Build, or to Just Build?

As a general rule, all exercises produce three main results for an area of the body that is to be worked.

Shaping:

Shaping (isolation) exercises work by separating the muscle away from the surrounding muscles by working on that one muscle in its entirety in order to give the illusion that the muscle is shapely.

For absolute beginners the idea is to start off by using a maximum of 50% of their 1 rpm in order to allow the bones, joints, muscles, ligaments and tendons to adapt and become stronger, ready to go progressively heavier in the future. As always, it is a case of safety first. Any more than 50% will either immediately injure or cause longer term problems as the body is not yet strong enough to cope with the stresses of the exercise. With shaping exercises there is far less leverage, so if you do go heavy you put a lot of stress on the joints.

Shaping And Building:

These exercise concentrate on the larger heads of a muscle group which then gives you more leverage potential so that you can lift more weight and therefore achieve more results. In addition, the illusion of shaping is achieved by separating one muscle from another. For example, in the Overhead Tricep Extension using the EZ bar, the work is placed onto the bigger Long and Medial heads with the work going in more towards the elbow giving the separation between the Long and Medial head down at the bottom, and hence the illusion of the muscles having shape.

With regards exercises for the Lats or the chest, the illusion of shape is achieved by stretching out the Lats or chest which untangles the muscle fibres and makes them longer.

Building:

In these exercises all the work is placed mainly on the one muscle, or evenly distributed on all the heads of the muscles, as is the case with muscles such as the Triceps or Deltoids e.t.c. Building exercises offer the most leverage potential so that you can lift more weight and therefore achieve more results.

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