Are EMG's useful for determining an exercise's effectiveness?

[John6]

I'm just curious because I saw some list the other day and isolation exercises seemed to score a lot higher than the big compound "mass building" exercises.

[judge-mental]

Well you have to look in the research and see if they describe the form used exactly, what weight (RM) etc. if they do then EMG is very usefull to extrapolate from, other wise its just more wasted paper.

[exnihilo]

Isolation exercises are mostly a waste of time. If you're grossly misproportioned (like me ) and are want to say build your delts and arms more in comparison to your chest and back for instance, the addition of an isolation exercise for that area should help it grow. Just don't go crazy, more than ~2-3 sets will be counter productive for most people, if you're doing a couple of heavy compound exercises that hit it indirectly.

EMGs, while interesting, are really pretty useless - your form will deviate because your body structure is different and the exercise has a different groove for you. Your best bet is to go by what feels the best.