I Want To Get Fitter!

[Esaias]

And yes, I'm a big fan of full body, heavy, compound lifts. (Heavy of course is relative to your actual strength, not relative to Arnold's...)

The only isolation work I bother with is curls (because... c'mon, who doesn't do heavy barbell curls?), maybe wrist curls if I think my forearms are lagging, and then whatever that isolation movement is that stabs a piece of rare grilled ribeye steak and brings it to my mouth.

Isolation work is really for either helping out a weak spot that's interfering with a compound lift, or "shaping" some part you think is lagging.

I prefer full body workouts because I just don't respond well mentally or physically to 45 minutes of "chest work", for example. Plus, if my whole body isn't nuked I just don't feel like I've actually worked out. Lots of people argue incessantly about which split routine is best, which full-body routine is best, isolation vs compounds, etc etc etc. Kind of like christians arguing about doctrine, come to think of it... Anyway, I'm a big believer that most of that debate is irrelevant, just about anything will work as long as certain basic parameters are met, and your diet and resting is taken care of. And stress, stress is like Kyptonite, it will zap your gainz. Cortisol, bad juju.

It's really whatever works for you. Once a person has been lifting for about 6 months to a year, they start modifying their workout anyway to personalise it, and after a year or so they're usually doing their own thing because they've discovered how THEY respond to exercise.

Ignore all the magazine workouts though, they are designed to give you busy work that doesn't work so you'll buy supplements thinking that's the missing secret key ingredient to looking like a genetic drug-addled freak in less than a year.