machines are great... in my book!

[brisk walk]

i really laugh to myself when someone tries to tell beginners that machines are worthless and that you must stick to free weights.


just my opinion here......but Hammer puts out fantastic equipment.....as does Icarian......and Flex......ect.......where do these so called gurus get off telling people that machines are not effective at building a physique????


what say you????

 

[btech]

i really laugh to myself when someone tries to tell beginners that machines are worthless and that you must stick to free weights.


just my opinion here......but Hammer puts out fantastic equipment.....as does Icarian......and Flex......ect.......where do these so called gurus get off telling people that machines are not effective at building a physique????


what say you????

I'm sure they mean that machines are not THE MOST effective in terms of building up muscles.

What's great about freeweights is that a 225 lb barbell is the same everywhere you go, whereas every machine is different in terms of load, etc.

Me personally, I'm also interested in functional strength, and I am not an advanced lifter by any means, so why tinker with a HammerStrength shoulder press when I still have room for improvement on a Military Press?

 

[trenseter]

machines suck! jk i try to stay away from machines, you can do just about everything without machines!i do use the cables for certain exercises.

 

[Tom]

i love machines. just another bodybuilding myth that you can't develop a great physique if you don't use free weights. contracting a muscle under resistance causes growth. muscle fibers don't know if you are using a barbell or a machine. if they are subjected to tension they respond.

 

[Dog-Slime]

i love machines. just another bodybuilding myth that you can't develop a great physique if you don't use free weights. contracting a muscle under resistance causes growth. muscle fibers don't know if you are using a barbell or a machine. if they are subjected to tension they respond.

True but most machines have you on some sort of guided path and this causes you to not use stabilizing muscles and this is where the dont use the machines tidbit comes from. Less stabilizing muscles used means yeah you can bench 400 on the machine but maybe only 300 in real world even if machine is made to give the same resistance. Cuz your stabilizing muscles wont be as strong. You can get big on machine or freeweights but if you want FUNCTIONAL strength I suggest staying away from most machines that aren't pulley based (or in some other way made to allow use of stabilizing muscles).

 

[HOTROCKS]

Both to do a good job.
Free weights for a good range of motion .

 

[Flex2019]

For me it depends on the movement and what I'm trying to accomplish. Machines definitely have their place in my training.

 

[ericraven2003]

machines suck! jk i try to stay away from machines, you can do just about everything without machines!i do use the cables for certain exercises.

Huh. There is as much a place for machines as for free weights. I would always use them in combination.

 

[Jello]

True but most machines have you on some sort of guided path and this causes you to not use stabilizing muscles and this is where the dont use the machines tidbit comes from. Less stabilizing muscles used means yeah you can bench 400 on the machine but maybe only 300 in real world even if machine is made to give the same resistance. Cuz your stabilizing muscles wont be as strong. You can get big on machine or freeweights but if you want FUNCTIONAL strength I suggest staying away from most machines that aren't pulley based (or in some other way made to allow use of stabilizing muscles).

But that is also where the benefit with machines comes in. They allow you to target a specific muscle and not worry about the stabilizers related to them getting tired before the target muscle does.

Free weight movements make up the core of my routines but I do include a lot of machine work also.

 

[CBRXX]

I use a couple of the hammer machines in my gym. The smith machine I always use for military presses though. The racks at my gym torque the crap out of my shoulders when lifting off and returning the weight to the hooks.

 

[Dog-Slime]

But that is also where the benefit with machines comes in. They allow you to target a specific muscle and not worry about the stabilizers related to them getting tired before the target muscle does.

Free weight movements make up the core of my routines but I do include a lot of machine work also.

Yeah when just trying to build muscle I would use real weights to start out and then use a machine just to really breakdown whatever I was using. But for functional strength and core strength you can't JUST rely on machines. I was just saying I think thats where the dont use machines saying came from was guys were using JUST machines and not getting as good of results as guys using just freeweights or both.