FREE WEIGHTS OR MACHINES??

                FREE WEIGHTS OR MACHINES??

Free weights and machines are just tools to place stress and tension on your muscles.   we use barbells, dumbbells, machines, leverage equipment, manual resistance, and body weight exercises.  This provides variety psychologically and physically, allowing us to use change as a motivator.
  Your muscles cannot tell where the tension comes from.  It is far more important the way the tools are used.  Your passion, effort and intensity will determine your results, not the equipment.

Each type of equipment has advantages and disadvantages.  Free weights are cheap, low maintenance, and readily available.  Dumbbells and barbells are versatile and can be used for many exercises.  The barbell, as we know it, was developed in 1902.  Before this time, people interested in exercise used fixed weights and kettle bells that could not be easily adjusted for varying degrees of resistance.  Compared to anything before it, the barbell was a stroke of genius.  But the barbell is not without limitations.  There are some exercises that cannot be done with free weights that can be done with a machine.  How would you do a leg curl with a barbell?  Another disadvantage is that free weights provide resistance in only one direction - straight down - while your muscles move in a rotary fashion, producing areas in the movement that are heavier or lighter than they should be.  A properly designed machine can provide balanced rotary resistance throughout a much greater range of motion than a free weight.

  A good machine can do anything that a free weight can do except develop the skills of performing that particular exercise with a free weight.  While lifting weights, some of the strength increases are a direct result of your nervous system becoming more coordinated at doing that particular exercise.
  The more difficult the exercise is to learn or balance, the greater the amount of neurological contribution to the initial strength gains.  If you are competitive powerlifter or weight lifter, then you must use a free weight in the exercises in which you compete in order to be as skilled as possible in that event.  If you are not a competitive lifter, then it doesn't matter.

  We don't do  "a lot" of bench pressing , only because we can get better results in less time doing other things.  We do bench press though, because many players like to and it can be a productive exercise.  We just don't spend thirty minutes doing it.  Occasionally, we have athletes who are finished playing who want to get "good" at the exercise.  They begin spending time bench pressing, using a routine from their favorite muscle magazine.  Initially they are able to increase their weights every workout.
They might even begin to say, "Man, I wish we had used this routine our whole career.  Think how strong we would be."
  Six weeks later, their bench is up twenty pounds and they are not making any more progress.  This is the same thought process that runs through the head of every beginning lifter who makes a five pound increases each of his first eight workouts and figures at that rate he will be bench 400 pounds in six months.

What happens is this: 

The lifter's skill level in that particular exercise has caught up to his strength level.  The initial neurological adaptations take place very fast compared to actual functional strength increases.  One trick new strength coaches use when they first come into a program is to "test" the players to see "how much" they lift.    They will choose exercises that the athletes have not done,  have not done often,  have not done in a long time, or have not trained in the fashion that the new coach tests (e.g., one rep max. instead of repetitions).  He will then test them eight weeks later and show a huge "increase" in "strength" in order to make himself look good.  This is called "pushing numbers" and is neither difficult to do nor the best way to train athletes.

Weight Machines – Pros and Cons

Pros

• Easy to learn and use – Most machines have a picture demonstrating its use, which for most machines is pretty self explanatory. This makes them easy to use on their own or with other machines to create your own circuit. If hiring a personal trainer is out of your budget, they are easy to figure out by simply watching the person ahead of you.
• Isolate muscle groups more efficiently – Since most of your body is pretty stable on most machines you are able to target the larger muscle groups more efficiently. This is beneficial to those who have a solid foundation and are looking to improve their physique by building biggermuscles. This can be the preferred method for some bodybuilder types.
• Allow you to train with heavier weights without assistance – If you are fairly inexperienced with proper technique when using free weights, it may be difficult to add resistance. Some machines will allow you to slap on extra weight without risk of injury. This may also be useful if you are pressing or squatting without a partner or spotter. (Note: proper technique is paramount before you need to worry about adding weight. Train smart.)
• May be useful for elderly populations and/or rehab – For someone that has a really low level of fitness and/or is recovering from an injury, machines may be the tool to get their strength up quickly and safely. Since machines isolate it may also be easier to work around certain injuries.

Cons

• Non-functional – Although machines will make you bigger and stronger, they don’t train complete human movement patterns (See: primal movement patterns) that are necessary to, well, move. Perhaps the worst machine is the Smith Machine which locks you into place for heavy exercises like squats and bench and doesn’t take into account different body types, which is a recipe for disaster. Weight machines just don’t translate well into strength and fitness for daily activities, not to mention athletics.
• Neglect smaller stabilizing muscles – Since you are isolating target muscle groups, the important stabilizing muscle groups around the joints take a back seat. If you neglect these smaller muscles for too long, you run the risk of chronic injury and poor posture.
• May cause injury directly and indirectly – Although safer to use with lower levels of skill, it is still possible to use too much weight and enough poor form to cause a serious injury. Overloading the same movement day in and day out is also an easy way to set yourself up for an overuse injury. Form is important and like anything else the danger is in the dose!
• Fill up during peak hours – If you have ever worked out in a commercial gym during peak hours you may have noticed that every machine in the place seems to be filled up. Instead of waiting for that guy that has been on the machine bench press for 20 minutes to get up, head over to the free weight area for some more breathing room.

Who Should Use Weight Machines?

• Beginner – Someone who is very new to the gym and doesn’t know how to properly utilize the free weights just yet. Even though there are pictures on the machines I recommend asking for a personal trainer’s advice for proper use.
• Bodybuilders – When size and aesthetics is your main goal there is a lot of efficacy to using machines to pump up those muscles! For a better more well-rounded physique I do recommend a combination of both weight machines and free weights though.
• Rehab – Machines may be an easy way to rehab an injury if you don’t have a physical therapist or trainer to work with you. Once you are feeling better it may be better to move to bodyweight exercises and take preventative measures.

Free Weights – Pros and Cons

Pros

• Allow you to train functional movements – This could be a topic on its own, but basically free-weights and bodyweight exercises have greater carryover to what you do in real life such as daily activities as well as athletics.
• You can use full range of motion – You have complete freedom to move around rather than being locked into a specific range of motion or pattern. This allows your body to do what it is naturally built to do, move.
• Place a greater demand on stabilizing muscles – Using free weights will activate more synergistic stabilizing muscles while you are training. Will help to keep your joints healthy and fully operational when done properly!
• More bang for your buck exercises – If you have limited time to train and want to get a lot accomplished with few exercises then free-weights are the way to go. My two favorites are deadlifts and Turkish get-ups. There isn’t a muscle in your body that doesn’t get worked with these two alone!
• Allow for endless variation – With machines you are really limited to what you can do depending on what is available. With free weights, all you need is one dumbbell and you can do hundreds of different exercise variations. One of my favorite circuits to do is to choose one dumbbell and do as many exercises as possible for time. Press, squat lunge, swing and carry are just a few!
• Train anywhere – Learning how to train with free-weights or body weight allows you to literally train anywhere since machines aren’t always available. When I go on vacation and travel by car it is easy to bring a kettlebell, some bands and a TRX to get in some quality training.
• Less expensive – Free weights are the way to go if you don’t have access to a gym since they are much less expensive than machines. You can easily build a killer home gym for under $200!

Cons

• Takes some skill to learn proper technique – Free weight exercises have a higher learning curve than machines and you may need someone to show you proper technique. Having a trainer show you or reading a book on weight training may be the way to go. Take your time and try to avoid creating bad habits by copying others that have bad form (e.g. Youtube).
• Greater risk of injury when not done properly – When using bad form it is easy to move a bodypart or joint out of proper alignment and tweak something. This can cause injury so make sure you know what you are doing and use the appropriate weight.
• Need a spotter to lift heavy weight on squat or bench press exercises – Some exercises are difficult to improve on if you don’t have a training partner or which may slow down progress. At the very least you can ask a trainer to check your form and maybe give you a quick spot. There is nothing wrong with asking for help.

Who Should Use Free Weights?

• Most people – Pretty much anybody can benefit from using free weights properly to build a strong and lean body using a good program like the one here at BuiltLean. It is important to build functional strength and muscle to be able to do the things you enjoy and stay active later in life!
• Athletes – To compete at high levels and remain injury-free, athletes’ bodies have to move synergistically and the best way to achieve this is to train the same way. A combination of free weights and bodyweight exercises is the way to go!
• Bodybuilders – The best way to get bigger is to get stronger and the best way to get stronger is through free weights. Once you build up your strength, you can add in some weight machines to isolate and ‘build’ specific muscle groups. I recommend the bulk (no pun intended) of bodybuilding training to come from free weights but it is ok to add in some isolated machine work too!
• Rehab – Free weights may speed up the rehab process by adding in functional movements to get you moving and feeling better. They may also help you get back to the condition you were in before your injury much faster than using machines would.