The Kelsey Report

Eleven Pros and Cons of Weightlifting Machines

 

Whether you should train using an exercise machine, such as a leg press, or use free weights or bodyweight is an ongoing debate within the trainer /coaching world. if you’re not a trainer or a coach, you may not care.

But you should.

You’ll make better choices, reduce your risk of injury, and improve your outcome when you know more about the good and not so good things of exercise machines.

The Rise of The Machine

The birth of what we now know as resistance exercise machines was in the 1948 spearheaded by Arthur Jones and his Nautilus machine.

Jones’ “cam” system within the Nautilus machines delivered more uniform resistance throughout an arc of motion. He believed this provided a better “workout” over free weights since with a free weight the muscle effort varied as you moved. He also thought it would be safer since you could isolate muscles more easily and there was less risk of dropping a weight on your head or foot for example.

Following the Nautilus was Universal with the first “multi-station” gym that you often see in hotel fitness rooms.

Prior to the Nautilus and Universal devices, gyms were filled with “trainers”, human beings that watched you, coached you using free weights and, as a result, gym membership was small.

But, the machines changed all of that. Now, a gym owner no longer needed a trainer. Consumers could just hop on a machine, do their exercises, and be done. Gyms suddenly became huge facilities with equally huge numbers of members. Gym owners counted on members signing up and then not using their membership.

Since the Nautilus, there have a been a number of technical improvements in the resistance exercise machine industry but little has been written for consumers about how to decide if they should use a machine or not.

The Pros of Resistance Exercise Machines

Ease of use. Exercise machines make movements easier by isolating the body part or region. For example, a leg press machine removes the requirement of managing a barbell on your shoulders and a seated bicep curl doesn’t require you to control your trunk and hips. It’s also easier to adjust the load on the fly than a free weight.

Stability. Because resistance machines tend to isolate muscles by placing you, in most cases, in a seated position, your spinal stability is enhanced by the support of the device. For example, in a seated chest press machine, the support of the seat back and the counter pressure created by the movement (so when you push your hands out, your back pushes into the seat) helps stabilize the spine.

No weights can fall on you. That’s probably obvious but it’s still a valid point. Most articles written about resistance machines versus free weights will promote machines as being safer. That’s not entirely the case as I explain later.

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Increased Load. Muscles don’t know what tool you’re using. Muscles respond to load and/or speed over a certain range of motion. Machines allow you to lift more weight than you would be able to lift with a free weight because of the extra stability provided by the machine. For example, you might be able to leg press 300 lbs but with a barbell, you’re likely to find 300 lbs to be a pipe dream. Yes, they are different movements so that’s part of the issue but the barbell requires you to balance the load which makes a squat much more difficult to perform.

Train alone. Again, this is mostly a safety issue if compared to free weights at higher loads. About the last thing you want to do is go for a bench press personal record alone. You could end up with a very serious injury if your hand slips, you fatigue too fast, or you just drop the weight mid-way.

The Cons of Machines

Too much stability. Machines can make you overly confident because of the stability. You push or lift too much weight because you can. Also, not having to control your body as much means less need for spinal muscles to do their job. it may work okay at first but over time, your body will need to be exposed to more varied loads and stability requirements.

One dimensional. Real world motion is three dimensional and although no weight lifting drill can exactly duplicate real world activities or sports (whereas some drills can replicate real world activities like a side hop), free weights provide one benefit that few people know about: training of the muscle-fascia system. The fascia is a connective tissue that envelopes and connects muscle to other muscles, ligaments, tendons, and bone. In order for the fascia to remain healthy and strong, it must be exposed to variations in loads, speeds, angles, and movements. ((Myers. T Fascial Fitness: Training in the NeuroMyoFascial Web. 2011 by IDEA Health & Fitness Inc))

Inconvenient. Machines require you to go to a gym and then there’s the problem of how crowded the gym might be and waiting for the machine to be free.

Forced movements. Machines constrain your movement to a specific path and usually that means you’re unable to move the way the body was designed. That’s not a huge problem until you start increasing the load and then you may find more issues with joint injuries.

Forced training. When you use machines, you usually will find it almost impossible to do what’s often called a “circuit” – perform one exercise then move to the next until you finish the sequence and start over. When it’s busy, you’ll be forced to complete your sets on each machine before leaving the device.

Lower energy demand. Exercises that use more of your body at one time,  an emphasis on multiple body parts, large range of motion and variations in loads and speeds, force you to expend a lot of energy so you get a lot done in short amount of time. Machines don’t require as much energy expenditure since you’re moving so much less mass.

What to Do?

My advice –  stop thinking about exercise as a way to shape your body part by part and start thinking about it as a means to a healthier, longer life. Learn how to build to strength you can use in your life. Learn how you move and how to improve your movement.

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Lacey says

I learned this lesson the hard way. I trained for a backpacking trip using a machine… Let me tell you, there is a BIG difference between lifting 40lbs on a machine and lifting and putting on a 40lb backpack. I was alone on the trail, besides the dogs, and the first few days I had to resort to some funny tricks to get that pack on. Now, I use a 40lb backpack to train for a backpacking trip.

For the everyday type of strength I need (pushing a wheelbarrow, lifting a bag of sand, digging up old foundation shrubs…) machines just don’t make any sense.

    DD Kelsey says

    Lacey – thanks for your comments on this. I think you’ve pointed out one of the most important things when it comes to exercise / training – why are you doing it? If it’s to lose fat, there are lots of options but if it’s to perform better, then machines generally won’t get you there which you discovered and nicely pointed out. Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts.

    Omar says

    I learned the same lesson…Have you ever tried the squat-and-flip-the-pack-over-your-head method of putting the pack on? I have water, canned food, books and towels in my training pack. What’s in yours?

    Hey, I just realized I haven’t been doing Fusion with”super circuits”…main reason…when I get the weight stack in the gym, I don’t want to give it up…

      DD Kelsey says

      Yep – the downside of almost every gym on the planet – they’re built for “body building” and muscle isolation routines and not for function. So, you can’t rotate from one device to another – like a weight stack/pulley – because there aren’t enough of them.

        Lacey says

        Thanks dk! That was exactly the sort of info I needed.

      Lacey says

      My method was put the pack flat on the ground, straps up, and then lie down on it, attach it and then, looking much like a turtle stuck on his back, try to roll over and stand up 🙂 It made me laugh so hard that I got the weekies, making it ever more difficult! I use old coke/juice/milk jug with water and/or sand. THAT is another lesson I learned the hard way – if I’m taking a training hike, my load needs to be dump-able, in case it’s too much weight, I turn an ankle, or need to also carry a dog out.

      Exactly, DK! I don’t care if I look like I have muscles, I just want and need to be strong enough to do what I love. Which leads to a question I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time. A question of balance: I do a LOT of heavy yard work, and I do some just about every day. How do I know when I have worked my body enough for one day, and when I can also go for a run/fusion/HIIT? I don’t want to do too much and get injured, nor do I want to skip a workout if I don’t have to. Any indicators?

        DD Kelsey says

        Hi Lacey – Thanks for the question – a good one.

        A tool that is often used by researchers in determining work load is something called the Rating of Perceived Exertion. This is a numerical scale from 6 to 20. At the low end of the scale, your perceived effort is very, very light and at the high end it would be very, very hard. Now, usually this is correlated with heart rate. You multiply the PRE number by 10 and your heart rate should be within +- 10 BPM of that number. So, for example, you might rate the work at an 11. Multiplied by 10 gives you 110. So your heart rate would be between 100 and 120.

        But for what you’re talking about it might be more difficult to match heart rate with the work since yard work can often span several hours at a relatively low HR. So, you have two options I think. One is to change the RPE to 1-10 and choose a number at the mid-point of your work or training session and then right after. Right it down. When you have three days in a row of numbers at 7 or higher, it’s time to take a break from the HIIT or Fusion or for that matter, the intensity of the yard work. The other option is something called a Bioforce HeartRate Variability measurement. This is a tool that detects very small changes in your resting heart rate. You record it each morning (it transmits the data to an iPhone) and it will tell you how hard you’ve worked because your resting HR will go up every so slightly. You won’t be able to detect it but the technology will. This is used in Mixed martial Arts training a lot to
        help fighter avoid over training.

        Hope this helps.

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