GenXXLSports for the Real World Athlete (and Weekend Warrior)
Free Weights as Compared to Machines
Actually, both of them – weight machines and free weights – are good in their own way, to be used rather than compared. Yet we can pick out some distinguishing features. The first point to consider is safety. Weight-training injuries are mostly sustained on the following four occasions:
- When maximum stress is more than you can bear.
- When you overexert yourself or jerk trying to lift the weight.
- When the weight goes astray.
- When the weight balance breaks.
While the first two are equally applicable to machines and free weights, machines provide better safety in the case of the other two. Weights don’t fall down all the way, and machines offer better possibilities to regain your balance should you suddenly feel overtaxed.
Still, safety is not such a big issue. Machines being certainly safer, free weights are hardly any more dangerous if you observe basic rules and don’t skip warming-up and stretching. To have a bystander is also a good way to ensure your safety.
When we consider stabilization, free weights are definitely better – you have to stabilize the resistance from the beginning of your movement to the end, which is not the case with machines. Lifting the dumbbells, for example, you balance them all the way up and then all the way down, every movement making your shoulder girdle muscles work. It is for this reason that many people prefer dumbbells and barbells to machines. While you move along with the contraption, you lose on the stabilization effect, and consequently, attain lesser muscle volume and strength.
And then again, you shouldn’t overplay this point. The additional strain of having to balance the weight can prevent you from going heavier. That’s why most trainers go for barbell bench presses, for it implies less struggle to maintain balance and enables one to wield a greater weight.
Another practical point is operation. Few contraptions are complicated and these require but a bit of experience. Generally machine workout feels somehow easier and smoother.
Free weights are more cumbersome in terms of weight adjustment. You have to shuffle around with sliding plates or go searching for just the right dumbbells when it’s a matter of moving pins with a machine.
Workout also requires versatility. Here free weights are far superior to machines that settle you into a preset motion and preclude any variations whatever. You can move around a bit attempting to engage your muscles in a slightly different fashion, but there’s nothing you can do to the path the weight travels.
Free weights show themselves as truly free here, allowing for all kinds of trajectories, side laterals, extensions, and giving your muscles all kinds of strain you can think of.
Height may cause problems with machines as well. If your height is outside average, you can find some machines definitely uncomfortable as badly fitted for your individual specifications. Also, some bodybuilders who are capable of going heavier than most find the standard weight stacks too light to serve their purpose.
Using both? Most bodybuilders are likely to tell us that free weights are to be preferred over machines. Iron is almost traditionally recognized as the best training facility since times immemorial. And it is still perfectly tangible – free weights are quite sufficient for an excellent upper-body buildup.
On the other hand your hamstrings, thighs and calves will feel perfectly developed with the machine workout. A well-equipped gym will undoubtedly guarantee a thorough training of all the muscles in your body and will be the best bet in case you should be placed in a position to choose either free or machines.
But this is what hopefully you won’t ever have to do. So take advantage of both means of body workout and get the most of each for the better points it can boast of.
Source of the image: fitnesswithweights.com.
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