Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1782: When Machines Are Better Than Free Weights

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin compare free weights with machines and highlight the instances when machines are better than free weights. Why Mind Pump is NOT anti-machines. (2:10) The history of workout equipment. (3:38) Why the guys mostly advocate for free weights over machines. (10:25) #1 – Strength carryover. (10:37) #2 – The free weights follow the person. (15:51) #3 – Stability component. (21:12) #4 – Build more muscle and burn more body fat. (24:48) When Machines Are Better Than Free Weights. #1 – Doesn't challenge stability. (26:52) #2 – Target/isolate specific areas. (30:30) #3 – Novelty. (34:55) #4 – Some exercises are ineffective with free weights. (35:23) #5 – Priming benefits. (37:28) #6 – Some exercises are superior to free weights. (39:22) #7 – Easy volume and less stress on the body. (40:53) #8 – Allows you to have an adjustable resistance curve. (43:32) Mind Pump’s favorite machines. (48:30) Related Links/Products Mentioned March Promotion: Limited Time Power Bundle! MAPS Strong and MAPS Powerlift for the low price of $79.99 Visit Seed for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code “MINDPUMP” at checkout for 15% off your first month’s supply of Seed’s DS-01 Daily Synbiotic** Dr. Gustav Zander’s Victorian-Era Exercise Machines Made the Bowflex Look Like Child’s Play The Colorado Experiment: Fact or Fiction The History of the Smith Machine - Physical Culture Study History of Universal Gym Equipment MAPS Aesthetic Why Can’t I Feel the Right Muscles Working? - Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we talk about when machines are actually better for you than free weights. So we're huge proponents of free weights, but there are times when machines are better

and when you should choose them to train your body. So that's what we talk about in today's episode. Now this episode is brought to you by one of our favorite sponsors, seed. Seed is the leader in the industry when it comes to probiotics. And I don't mean that lightly. I literally mean they are the leaders.

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So here's what we did. Maps power lift and maps strong, both very popular workout programs. We put them together in a bundle called the Maps Power Bundle. Normally, we'd retail at close to $300, but right now, you can get them both in the bundle for $79.99. That's it. One-time payment. When this promotion is over, we're not going to bring it back probably for another year. So take advantage if you're interested in building strength, functional movement, muscle, and burning body fat. Again, it's the Maps Power Bundle, and you can find it at mapsmarch.com. I got a DM the other day from someone

that kind of misunderstands our position on exercises and exercise equipment. So in the past, we've been mischaracterized as like being anti-cardial, which we're not tremendous value there. But another one that I get is that like being anti-cardial, which we're not tremendous value there. But another one that I get is that we're anti-machine that we don't like machines at all that they're a waste of time, that there's no value, which is totally not true at all. Machines have a place.

I love robots. Everybody knows that. But that kind of machine. Not only do they have their place, I believe they're times when they're superior. Yes. So, it just depends on the context. I think that's anything we say, this is just social media world now. Like you say a statement and then someone's gonna take it

out of context and then, oh, I can't believe you guys are anti-cardio. Oh, I can be anti-machines. It's like, no, we're trying to teach the audience, the hierarchy of things. And many times free weights are far more superior for most people, but there are always exceptions of the rule, and there is absolutely times

where I had clients where we spent more time on machines than we did for you. Yeah, so when you're talking to the average person, it's usually the conversation, usually has to go around that, right? You're using, you're depending too much on machines, you're not getting the value you can get at a free weights. But that doesn't, again, like you said, Adam,

that does not mean there's no value. And in some cases, machines are actually superior. I find tremendous value with machines in certain circumstances. Now, I think we should go back a little bit and kind of talk just very briefly on the history of equipment. Obviously, the first forms of resistance training

equipment or strength training were free weights. People lifted heavy things. Dumbbells and barbells and kettlebells actually was what dumbbells used to look like. That's what people used first. Machines came a little bit later and they were an attempt to create something superior to weights in terms of results and safety. And so you saw them start to invent things. And back in the day, there weren't big machine manufacturers. In fact, I don't know if you guys knew this, but you know, Joe Gold, who started Gold's gym, most of the equipment that they had in Gold's gym, he made. This is how he became. So it was, was either Arthur Jones was the first Arthur Jones, not Nautilus, and that was the first

like a company commercial. Yeah, okay, so who do you know who was responsible for like the first machines? I don't know the very first machines, but I do know Joe Gold was known for the machines that he co-made and put in his gyms. So like low cable pulley row and a cable crossover and he would design them, put them together, put them in a gyms. So like low cable, pulley row, and a cable crossover, and he would design them, put them together, put them into gyms. And this obviously gave them an advantage

over other gyms at the time, which there wasn't much competition. Well, also too, I mean, with the rise of bodybuilding, wasn't it? The focus of it was, how can we create an exercise machine that can really help to kind of refine and target these muscle groups because like that, it was starting to kind of segment down to, I want to build and develop my delts, you know, a little more specifically. I want to, you know, kind of hyper focus on certain areas of my body more. And then, you know, as a result of that, they started to get it like, innovate and create a lot of these types of machines. I thought that didn't happen until later.

I was under the impression that the original introduction to machines to the general population was primarily for like rehab and physical therapy. It was designed to be a safer way to train. And that was the original introduction. That was when that's how they were, I guess, maybe first broadly used, but commercially it was like Arthur Jones, Nautilus Equipment.

When it was more popularized with the general public. Oh, look, Doug pulled up some really old machine pictures. Now, and I think these are the 1940s and 50s, and maybe even a little bit before. The thing is though, these were not widely used at all. Now, to be fair, neither were free weights, but even among the population of people that use free weights, machines were extremely rare.

Well, you saw gyms with kettlebells, ropes, and yeah, Indian clubs and things like that, where it was more of like a gymnasium where everybody was climbing on ladders and doing things like that, like way back in the 20s, 30s, 40s. Actually, have you ever seen videos of some of the first popular weight loss machines?

Yeah, the, yeah, they shake the hell out of your, it's like a, like a, like a, a, like a conveyor belt thing wrapped around your waist. You know my grandma owned one? No way. It's what a God. When we were kids, we, and I don't know where they, what they did with this.

In fact, I should have. You know what he's talking about, right, Doug? That conveyor belt looking thing that made- Yeah, right. It's the famous commercial, although if it's Maxwell or has the guy with the goggles on in the leather helmet, and he's like this big fat guy, and it's like shaking, and then a cannonball hits him.

Oh, that's right. I don't remember that. Yeah, so my grandma had one, and I remember you turned it on, exactly what it was, it was like a canvas kind of belt. And it went, and if you put it around your waist, I think the theory was it shook the fat. Talk your body. Yeah.

They also have to shake it out of you. They also have these roller machines. So you would stand, and they would have these rollers, and they would roll up and down your thighs, or up and down, and it was like, to smooth out your fat. Like if you were a piece of clay, I guess. It was such a year, whatever.

It was pretty interesting. I found these vintage photos and they're from the 1800s. Oh yeah. So there was this guy named Gustav Zander or Zander from Stockholm. And this was back in the, you know, 1865. And you can see some of these things are fairly legit machines. Some of them are kind of crazy, but for example, this one, look at that.

That's a curl machine. Curl machine. Yeah. And now, again, these were, I mean, free weights were unpopular. This is even more. Like nobody had access to this kind of stuff. Yeah, super novel. I actually did not know this existed back then. Maybe Doug, you could look up commercial gym equipment, like first popular commercial gym equipment.

So that's definitely Arthur Jones. Well, he did was Arthur Jones went to performance muscle building route. And he became somewhat popular through his Colorado experiment, which I brought him out, brought up on the show before. Yeah, yeah. He took Casey Vieter, who at the time,

super genetically gifted bodybuilder. I think he won Mr. Universe America, which back then was a big bodybuilding competition at the age of like 18. And Casey Vider had come to him totally deconditioned, lost lots of muscle, he had no illness, I don't remember what it was. And Arthur Jones said, I'm going to train you just purely on notless equipment. And he also had other people in there. And we're going to look at your results throughout the process. Now, he also employed the super high intensity train technique

where he would train you to failure and beyond very low volume, but it was like balls of all type crazy. Anyway, the results that people got were insane, still disputed today. I forgot how much muscle KC fighter gained in a month. It was like, It sounds like impossible. But nonetheless, that kind of got things a little popular. And then in still in the 70s,

you didn't have a lot of bodybuilders using machines, except for maybe a low cable pulley row and maybe cable crossover. Otherwise, they didn't use machines. The 80s, you started to see more machines. And a lot of it had to do with the commercialization of gyms. So you go to a gym and machines looked sleek and advanced.

Then of course they used machines to attract women, which were, that's a big portion of the consumer population. Hey, these aren't gonna make you bulky. Like bodybuilders use these machines. Or are they a big consumer back then? Women, they were a big consumer base, consumer base, that gyms were not tapping into. Oh, that's what you mean by that. I thought you meant like they were a big consumer base, consumer base, that gyms were not tapping into.

Oh, that's what you mean by that. I thought you meant like they were a big consumer within gyms already. No, no, it's what kind of started to attract. There's a lot of things that played a role. You used to put purple and pink mats. Exactly. So stupid.

Well, I mean, a Robys class is exploded. That was a lot of women. Because I mean, they were smart. They looked at the consumer base and said, we're just attracting dudes. We're not going to make much money. There's a lot of reasons why gyms took off and became a successful, potential, successful business model. But that was one of them.

We were able to attract women to our facilities and the ones that did that well did the best. And so that's kind of how machines came into the fray and more and more people started using them. But I do, before we get into why or when machines are better than free weights, we should talk about why just quickly free weights, we often praise them above machines. Now, for me, one of the main reasons why I tend to advocate for free weights more often is the carryover that you get from the strength that you get in the gym with free weights carries over more so to the real world than machines. And mainly because free weights, when you're moving things or lifting things in the real

world, it's always free. You're never lifting something on a track or with a cable. It's always a couch, a box, your kid, and free weights are more like that than machines are, and you see more carryover. Like if you get stronger with a barbell squat or an overhead press, you're gonna see that carryover the real world more than you will.

Yeah, it'd be nice if things are real world were nicely balanced and followed a track and predictable and all those types of things. But in reality, I mean, your body has to do all kinds of things to pull off some of these movements to be able to stabilize, to not rotate, to get the action out of the muscle, to lift. And so it is a different experience. And it is something that's very valuable in terms of translating towards real world strength and then also like athletic pursuits, but I mean machines definitely

fit a gap that that's there in terms of being able to add volume, apply more safe ways of loading, you know, that type of thing. Did you guys know what like was the first like, you know, that type of thing. Did you guys know what, like, was the first, like, you know, machine that got really, really popular of all the machines, like, was there like a late, like, what did the leg press come? And then that kind of blew everybody's mind. Because we're looking at stuff that goes all the way back

in 1800, and that obviously wasn't popular. Wasn't even popular in the 40s and 50s. And then all of a sudden, Arthur Jones comes, starts to build them in the gym and stuff, they get really popular. Were there like a couple of them that really started to take off? I can only base it off of what I know

from the bodybuilding routines of the 70s. That's when machines started to kind of come in. And it was let pull down low cable, pully row, cable crossovers were the most commonly used machines. I'm gonna lay press probably, right? Lay press is a little bit, but that started coming later. I mean, bodybuilders in the 70s all squatted.

I mean, they all did barbell squats on, I believe it's Zincan. Well, why are you on the Smith machine? I've said something that I haven't fact checked myself. I've been on the Smith machine for a long time. I've been on the Smith machine for a long time. I've been on the Smith machine for a long time. I've been on the Smith machine for a long time. I've been on the Smith machine for a long time. I've been on the Smith machine for a long time.

I've been on the Smith machine for a long time. I've been on the Smith machine for a long time. I, and then the other one is this guy named, I believe it, Zinkin. Well, why you're on the Smith machine? I have, I've said something that I don't, I haven't fact checked myself for about, and I had, I was told, or I remember either, being told or reading a long time ago that originally Smith machines were designed for upper body only. Interesting. Oh, I don't know. For the reasons that you said, exactly what you said, but the original intent was purely for upper body. Interesting. I know Jacqueline had some of the first gyms. In fact, he had a couple here in the Bay Area if I'm not mistaken. Oh, really? Yeah, he did.

I think it was called Grecian. I think that might have been one of his gyms. I don't know if you guys have heard that. Here's him on a Smith machine right there. Look at that. Do you want to squat? Now, Jacqueline is, I mean, he's the godfather of a fitness. That's Jacqueline right there? Yes. Oh, that's a young Jacqueline right there. By the way, if anybody's never heard of him, look him up. In his 50s, he said, a world record and push-ups and pull-ups.

The thing was a thousand each, that nobody touched for decades. Yeah. In his 70s, he swam from San Francisco to Alcatraz. Four out of a boat with his T-T. Pulling 70 people on on boat on on row boats with his teeth hands and feet shackled and it's on video by the way you can look this up so so insane another name that comes up is Harold Zinken who created the Universal Machine. Oh there you go that's the one

that was in every that's the high school is that the cable one that has or the one that has the yes CD row the military press. Universal. So on each side, there's a station. Yeah, I do remember a circuit. That was at my high school. Those were so crappy. They were so crappy. They were the worst machines of all time.

They were so dumb, so bad. But yeah, so the carryover is one of the main reasons, because consider this, we all trained for the most part, at least 90% maybe correct me if I'm wrong with you guys, but 90% of our clients were everyday people. They weren't fitness fanatics or bodybuilders or athletes. And everyday people, they like to look good, they want to be fit, but they don't want to be strong in the gym and then weaken the real world. That's a terrible, that's almost like a waste of time. Like, okay, I'm strong in the gym, that's nice. But then when I go lift the couch or a box,

I hurt myself from that strong. Like, I want that to carry over into the real world because I don't know about you guys, but when my clients would come back and say, man, Sal, I was moving and I felt so strong while I was moving or, you know, I had a female client once tell me that she put her suitcase in the overhead compartment

for the first time. And she felt so good about that. Or, you know, I was playing with my kids the first time and she felt so good about that or You know, I was playing with my kids at the park and I felt so stable. I haven't felt like that a long time So free weights just give you that carryover and it's mainly because the world is made up of free Objects and so when you're moving objects in the real world It's more closely related to free weights, which is what makes it

You know my strong opinion one of the reasons why you get such good carryover, you know. The next thing I would say is this. Now, and this is what's, this is an interesting part of free weights. We talk a lot about safety with machines. Here's where machines can get dangerous, and I've seen people hurt themselves on machines because of this. When you're using a machine, you have to follow the path of the machine. So if your taller or shorter or your range of motion is compromised for some particular

reason and you're pushing or pulling or twisting on a machine that's on a track, you have to follow the track. If that track is inappropriate for your body, that becomes a problem. Free weights, I could train someone that's three feet tall, seven feet tall, someone who's got long arms, short arms, and whatever. The free weights follow the person and that makes free weights super valuable. Probably one of the reasons why free weights in bands are more often used in physical therapy than, you know. Well, I think that's the most valid critique

of the Smith machine, in my opinion. Like, I mean, there's, we've talked about the Smith machine before and using it for upper body, not so bad because you can do things like a military press or something that where you're pretty much staying in the same path, but doing something like a squat

or a lower body exercise, like, you know, your spine doesn't look like that. You're not going straight up and now. Yeah, and so, and you can't, the, like, when you do a free body exercise, like, you know, your spine doesn't look like that. You're not going straight up and down. Yeah, and so, and you can't, like, when you do a free weight squat, the bar path, yes, we're, we're, we're targeting it to be as close to straight up and down as possible with the, it's not realistic. It's unnatural. Yeah.

Yeah, so you end up forming your body into an unnatural position just to follow the track. And that's been a big critique of mine of it. Also too, it's just, I mean, from just kind of one of those perspectives, it's a lot easier in terms of like a bench press because you're taking away a lot of the stabilizing mechanisms that have to push. You just push. So, which is great, you know, for somebody that might have issues or injuries or things that are inhibiting that from happening, but at the same time, like you have to know

what you're working with and the reason why you're doing it is everything. Yeah, the two leg exercises that I would, not often, but I may have done a few times with a Smith machine would be a modified squat, look more like a hax squat because of the bar path. You're under the bar, your feet are out in front of you. So you're going straight up and down with your back, your feet are in front of us like more like a hax squat. And then the other one would be a stationary lunge because again, the bar goes up and down and sometimes I would use it to teach someone had a lunch and they would hold onto the Smith machine for balance

when doing it, but like a squat or like try deadlifting on us, you can't. Deadlift on a Smith machine just doesn't work. Well, you can, it's just, it doesn't work. It's not gonna be a deadlift. I mean, people do, there's a lot of people that do that. So, I mean, I always feel for the plan of fitness people. There's a lot of, plan of fitness does not have any barbells.

So you can't just go over and do deadlift, there's not like a deadlift platform there or anything. So, you know, you have people that are even following mouse programs that have a planet fitness and then so they've had to make that modification and use the Smith machine. So, yeah, I've never been a real fan of that. You know, as a kid, I was tall, I was 63, right?

So I remember going to the gym and... I'm fitting, right? Yeah, like, you know, like some gyms have like were the, would it be like colored, were my knee joint and were my ankle? And so you can kind of, you can kind of line it up and nothing ever lined up right for me because I just didn't have that average body type

that the machines were built for. I remember talking to, Oh, I can't remember his name. He was one of the founders of Hammer Strength. And we were talking about machines. And Hammer Strength took the market by storm. Another machine plate loaded. Yeah, I actually really enjoyed Hammer Strength.

Well, what they do with Hammer Strength is they tried, they combined. They tried to make a machine kind of. Yeah, they tried to make it emulate free weights in many ways. And it became very popular. But I remember talking to him and he said, you know tried to make a machine kind of. Yeah, they tried to make it emulate free weights in many ways. And it became very popular. But I remember talking to him and he said, you know, here's a deal of machines.

A lot of people don't know this, but they're designed for a five nine male who weighs around 170 pounds. That makes a lot of sense. I was gonna bring that up because like, I'd have clients that were a bitch on the shorter side or you know, over six foot. And it was just like such a pain to try and conform

their body to try and make it work. It's just, regardless of how many notches they had to kind of pull the pads out to help you stabilize it. Oh, it didn't work. There were machines that had to hand the bar to a client because they couldn't get to it because they were too small or too short.

So yeah, that becomes an issue. And again, they're designed for the average person. So there's a bit of limitation there. And if you're outside of that, then what happens is the machine is designed to be perfect for a particular size. So then it becomes less and less perfect because your size doesn't necessarily fit to it. And so this is why, again, like for example, like some of the worst ones, like one of the worst ones is,

you ever do the seeded tricep extension, which if you fit in the machine, I'm gonna tell you something, it's a great tricep exercise. Rarely do I ever fit. My arms are too big. My arms are way up here. I'm getting in there and it's all weird.

Shoulders are too broad to fit in the thing. Yeah, so it just didn't work, but you know, with free weights, it doesn't matter how long my arms are or how wide my shoulders are. It follows my body, and so use properly, it can be more appropriate. The other thing that free weights give you that you can't really get from machines is the stability component.

Totally. Which I would make the case, especially as a trainer, training a new client would make the argument. And this is where probably most of our argument comes from of why it freeways are so superior. Because most clients that we train, the very kind of first phase you're in, is stability. Just learning how to balance. Yes, stability is kind of the foundation of programming for clients. And so they have to, they have to learn that first. And you, if you go straight into machines, you don't get that. And I think that is a very limiting factor

for a lot of people starting out. It's a great point because the thought process for a trainer initially when you have a beginner is that you wanna go with the safest type of a workout. And machines do provide that. However, it's not addressing a lot of these glaring issues that you're seeing in their movement patterns. And, you know, free weights are much better at that in terms of like having to face those types of challenges for their muscles and for their joints. And

it's critical that you do that then because then we build upon that and we get stronger or more muscular. And if we don't address we build upon that and we get stronger, more muscular. And if we don't address those imbalances and issues and dysfunction, it's going to really result in a bigger issue down the road. Would you guys make the case that you actually increase your risk of injury by getting strong without addressing stability for too? Of course. Yep.

Because now you've got more force capability with the same or slightly better or even worse stability than before. So now the risk of injury, like let me put it this way, if I had the stability of a 15 year old kid with my ability to produce force, I'm going to hurt myself. What's like having a terrible steering or suspension and then giving a car an additional 200 horsepower. 200 horsepower and thinking that it's not gonna increase the real price. Totally, totally.

I remember learning this, so when you first become a trainer, I'm sure you guys remember this. There's a lot of lessons you learn because of the mistakes you make with your clients. I had this kid that I trained, this 15 year old kid, it was one of my first clients, and I'll never forget him,

because he eventually became a personal trainer. But anyway, I thought he's a kid, and if you've ever trained a teenager, they have the worst ability, especially overhead pressing. And part of it's because they're young, part of it's just they're growing so fast, they're like clumsy, puppies, you've just, yeah, like young drafts.

Yeah, and you have them try and hold the lightest dumbbell overhead that they can definitely lift, but they can't balance it. It's like all over the place. So I had this kid do machine overhead presses and we did it for like two months and his strength went up quite a bit. And then I thought to myself, now it's safe to go to dumbbells

because I mistakenly thought strong around the machine then we moved to dumbbells. We went and we went light. I remember we went moved to dumbbells. And we went light. I remember we went light to dumbbells and I luckily caught it. He almost dropped a dumbbell on his face because he could push it up, but he didn't have the stability. So he went like this.

Especially at the end range like that. Yeah, and I remember it went like this and he was gonna drop it on his head and I caught it real quick. And I remember thinking like, man, you could press. That's weird. Yeah, I remember how much it was. Well, you could press a hundred pounds on the machine, but these ten pound dumbbells are gonna drop on your head. And then I remember thinking like, man, you can press. That's weird. Yeah, I don't remember how much it was. Well, you can press 100 pounds on the machine,

but these 10 pound dumbbells you're gonna drop on your head. And then I remember thinking like, oh, he can push it, because if I held his wrist, so he didn't, you could probably lift twice as much, but it was the lack of stability. And that's what free weights give you along. So whatever you lift with a free weight,

as you get stronger, you're also gonna build this stability to be able to do that exercise because it's free. So that's the thing. And then the last one, this one's the controversial part. But we make this argument all the time. Because of the factors we listed before and because of factors, we don't yet understand. We haven't yet identified.

Free weights tend to build more muscle and as a side effect, tend to burn more body fat. And this, there's stuff I can, there's reasons I can explain why and then there's reasons I can't. Like it's hard for me to explain why a barbell squat or a barbell bench press or a barbell row, just in my experience training clients and myself and training lots of people, just makes people stronger and build more muscle than the same amount of volume with machines. Well, it's just, they're more demanding. I mean, would be my answer to that.

Well, mine would be the stability and the muscle recruitment point. I think that's part of it, but if you have someone stand on like a... It's a lab abroad. With more instability, it's still not as good. It's like there's gotta be like a point where... A curve.

Demisishing return. Yeah. No, I get that. That makes makes sense because it's not all about I mean, I guess that's why we made that we all us as trainers when we were younger made that stability mistake Right when we learn like the importance of went too far. Yeah, went too far And then that's where the returns start to diminish, you know, yeah Well in terms of instability It's that if you address that and you get your muscles to to respond

Sort of subconsciously, you know going forward like they get stronger They know they need to like respond and and now you're adding in the free weights and you're adding more load You get a louder response you recruit more muscle fibers. Yeah, so that has to play a factor Yeah, and again, there's stuff that's unknown because I've seen Exercise scientists debate this and they've got good studies and Explanations so why there's no difference? But when they do polls and I've seen these polls many times well, they'll ask strength coaches and they'll say Which one's gonna produce more muscle and more strength and it's like 80%

Always say free weights tend to and that's my experience as well generally speaking. But again, this does not mean that machines aren't valuable, and this doesn't mean that machines are sometimes more valuable than free weights. And that's where I think we should go, because again, I want people to know the truth about all the stuff so they can apply to the value. Well, the first thing we can start off with is the same thing that makes them weak

also makes them strong, right? The fact that it's so stable and you don't challenge stability has tremendous value when you need that, right? So example, and that's why I thought it was physical therapy. Would they first came into the scene was when you had an injury, somebody injured something, let's say you had, you know, you broke your femur or, you know, or something on with a hip and you're doing exercises, you can't do a starting, rehabbing that person, putting them on a barbell squat will be tremendously

dangerous, but putting them on a lying leg crawl where everything is in a fixed position or a leg extension, that's way safer. I'd need, would have been a better example. If someone tore their ACL or MCL, putting them on a leg extension, you would do for extended period time and forward. Let's go exercise to exercise. I'm going to illustrate this point right here, because the less stability in some cases makes it safer. So let's go leg extension.

I could theoretically do a free weight leg extension. I could strap a dumbbell to my leg, to my foot, and do a leg extension. But now let's say I'm dealing with someone who, like Adam said, just had, I don't know, one of his lateral ligaments on his knee operated on. So it's not so stable laterally. Maybe some patellar issues are going on, but we're rehabbing them. What I don't want is any potential for twisting or for lateral instability with that, all I'm trying to do is strengthen their quad.

So a dumbbell strap to my foot, even though I'm mimicking the same exercise, I'm still doing a leg extension because the side to side is not controlled, that's going to limit me to hell out of me through that recovery process. Whereas, if I put them on a leg extension, there is no issues with the lateral stability. It's all extended and flex. And in that case, it makes it much safer. Same thing could be true for even an overhead press. If I'm trying to get someone to,

like I've worked with clients who've had frozen shoulder, which is really annoying to work through, and can be quite tedious, and part of that process is getting them to move through full range of motion first, and we can't do that when there's stability stuff to have to worry about. So sometimes I've even had people,

you know, where they hold onto a machine and I lift it for them and they just hold on. I'm just trying to get their shoulder to track properly. If they're stabilizing, it ain't happening, they're frozen, everything's in about this. You want to get a straight line too, so that way it's controlled. And because of an issue like that,

and I dealt with the same thing, you are trying to increase very incrementally new angles of range of motion to keep access to. So you gotta be very meticulous and get rid of some of those other variables there that's gonna kinda twist and push it to the side to side because it's just not in that capability yet. Yeah, or what if you wanna work on scapular retraction, right?

You wanna work on someone's ability to pull their shoulders back to work on the posture, but they have a low back injury. What are you gonna do with three weights? A barbell row, a dumbbell row? Yeah, you can use a bench to support yourself, but look, I've worked with people with back injuries, having them lay any way prone, even if they're supported, sometimes,

still is not a good idea. Whereas with the machine, they can sit upright, the pad is in front of their chest, so there's no gravity adding to the resistance pulling them forward, and they just sit there and stabilize and focus on, you know, scapular retraction. So in those cases, machines are just safer for the lack of stability, which was also the strength,

right? Freeway's had. I mean, it also has the benefits of being able to ice, which is kind of similar to that, right? Yeah. Is to be able to isolate a specific area. Well, here's where bodybuilders love it. Yeah.

Because if you're a bodybuilder and you're trying to add more volume to a target muscle, you're also playing this balancing act of over training and not adding more volume to a target muscle. You're also playing this balancing act of over training and not adding more volume and work to the rest of the body. So, I could do a overhead press standing, which is a still a press, but man, I'm standing, I'm activating lots of different muscles, I have to stabilize, I'm already teedering on over training

because I'm adding a lot of volume. Or I could do a seated overhead press where everything's already stable for me and now I could just Target more of the volume to the the target muscle so I can I can be more specific with where I'm adding the volume So I don't have that carry over that could potentially compromise, you know my right a lot of value to that because You know some of these free weights are very taxing on the central nervous system. And it's, you know, the, the next workout that you're going to, you know, get into the,

the next few days, you're going to feel the result of that in terms of like over training. And so if I can keep adding more volume to specific areas of my body that I'm trying to really build and develop and zoom in on. You know, this is where machines I would prefer machines in that. Oh, this was absolutely necessary for when I was training for shows. I was training seven days a week, sometimes twice in a day. There's no way I'm doing all free weight exercises every time. You be fried. No, I'd be absolutely fried. And there's times when I just, you know,

sitting here talking about machines, I was thinking about a machine I don't think we've ever talked about that I wish we had or I saw it often. You guys ever done the rear delt fly machine where you lay flat on a bench? Yes. I love that machine. Now, is this the hammer strength one? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You lay face down, they have like one of those chiropractor mats for you, you could breathe, can you put your arms in the pad?

It's on your elbows on the pads and you could just, I mean, the, Nothing isolates that, that's a crazy one. That's why I mean, and to isolate a rear delt, which is a small muscle, and not very difficult.

Yeah, and really not overwork, or even incorporate much of the rest of the body, is really, really tough to do. Yeah, and really not overwork or even incorporate much of the rest of the body is really, really tough to do. So yeah, I mean, so I was able to do things like that. I was able to come back to the gym in the same day knowing that I already kind of crushed the weights and then go over and just touch little areas that I wanted to increase the volume

but I didn't want to overstress the rest of the body. This is why we recommend, so Maps aesthetic is our body builder, one of our body builder maps programs. And it's the programming that Adam used when he became a professional physique competitor. And we put focus sessions in there, right? So you're already hitting the whole body three days a week, but according to the program, if you have a weak body part,

you can hit it up to five days a week. The additional two days a week, we recommend in the program use machines, specifically for this reason right here. Easier to isolate, less damaging to the body. Here's an example of easier to isolate. I'll use two exercises that biomechanically are almost identical, a pull up versus a pull down.

If I want to teach someone to isolate their lats, the pull down is way easier to do than the pull up. Even if I control for the weight. So even if I put someone on, which by the way, this is cheating now, because I'm using a machine, but even if I put someone on a gravetron that lifts their body, they could still isolate their lats better when everything's stable and they're just moving their arms. So the ability to isolate, which is really because you would say their trunk is locked in. Everything's locked in.

Because when you do a pull-up, you can't help, but... No. Just way a little bit more skill. Yeah, more involved. You get more muscles, one aid to contribute. There's just much more skill. Even a chest press, right? If I'm trying to teach someone to feel just the chest working, they're going to get that

done easier with the chest press machine than they will with the bench press, even though the biomechanics theoretically are identical, right? So the ability to isolate and target, which by the way, this is oftentimes I would use machines for correctional exercise because I just couldn't get them to isolate or target that muscle I put them on a machine here. This machine is gonna do all this other work for you now Just feel this area and then they feel it and then eventually we'd graduate and move to the freeway Version of that would you say to some of the benefits of the the machines? I know this was an honor or list, but I'm thinking about it right now is just the the novelty of it, right? So

There's there's only so many ways you can do like a dumbbell shoulder press. Oh yeah, so many different things. But you can do that in like weird, because of the stimulus from different angles. Right, from different angles, it's still an overhead press, but the angle that you're doing it from is different is, there's got to be some value to that also. Totally.

Absolutely. Now the next one, this one is one of the main reasons why I would use machines in my training. And that's that some exercises are just impossible to do with free weight. Some exercises would not exist if machines didn't exist. For example, a tricep press down, okay? It sounds very silly, but that exercise would not exist if machines, though you would have to literally, and by the way,

there were some body blows that tried doing this. They would get those gravity boots and hang upside down and hold dumbbells and then try and do it. That's ridiculous. Like a tricep, it's obviously like, yeah, I think I'm still going on. I think a better way of saying this is not impossible. I know there's some nerd in here listening right now.

So I could do all those with freeway. It's just incredibly less effective. Yeah, insanely creative. Yes, it's what I would say. Yeah, leg curls is another one. I mean, I know you could do physical ball leg curls and I love physical ball leg curls. It's not the same.

But you're not loaded, you know, you gotta stabilize quite a bit. And so I think leg curls is definitely one that, I mean, you could really get those hamstrings from a different angle. What about a leg press? Like name one free weight leg exercise that doesn't involve the upper body,

having to be, having to somewhat stabilize, right? With a leg press, your upper body is in the chair. You ain't moving. The only thing that's moving is your legs. For rehab purposes, this has real value. I've actually used leg press for rehab. And then for recovery value. Like somebody hammered dead lifts and squats

is not important to them because their legs already developed or they've had all these hard workouts and they're tired and like, but today's leg day, should I barbell squat? Ooh, that's gonna tax the shit out of your CNS. Why don't we try a leg press because everything's locked into place. And it's an easier way to do it.

Well, also if you have discrepancies left to right too, if you've just come back from rehab and injury and you can build and develop safely with one leg pressing at a time to really get them both to respond somewhat at an equal level and build and develop that way. We didn't say it and it kind of I think falls back in the isolate thing too is the priming benefits with machines versus freeways too. That's the point. That's something that when I'm

looking to target a very specific muscle group and I want to prime it before I go do the big compound lift, I'm always doing that with machine. I'm not doing that with them. I'm not priming with a freeway exercise. That's going to be more taxing, it recruit other muscles. You know, that's how I use the adducture machine. When I had clients that that needed to work on the adductors, sometimes I'd have them do it adduct, adducture machine so they could feel the adductors activate. Then we go do our squats and they would feel like otherwise you'd use rubber bands, but that's not as accessible.

So yeah, machines will be perfect. Yeah, and then yes, you can do that with bands and whatnot, but you loading an abductor. Now, I'm not, I know I've made fun of abductor machines, but in some ways, they're superior. Try loading bands to really develop that kind of strength. Abductor machine, you can load the hell out of it. Yes. And you could build lots of strength in that area. So now I don't see it's perfect, but I don't, you can load the hell out of it. You know, and you can build lots of strength in that area. So, now I don't see it's perfect,

but I don't think you can replace it, is in that way, that's what I'm saying. Leg extension, we talked about that, really can't do a leg extension. Now, I like Sissy Squats for... It's a dumbbell, it's just weird. Yeah, you know, it's seen people do that. I like Sissy Squats better than leg extensions

for developing the quads, but Sissy Squats are not appropriate for a lot of people. Yeah. There's a lot of people that is way too hard. It's not going to work. You're going to have to go do leg extensions if you really want to isolate the quadriceps. And then most cable exercises, like if I'm doing, you know, chops from different angles, standing chest fly.

Yeah, like all that kind of stuff, like because free weights, you only oppose gravity, which is going from top to bottom, I can't do free weight exercises with necessarily with resistance side to side, you know, or from up to down, right? So with machines, those are just exercises you could. Now, here, and now I'm going to go off a little bit on a little bit of a left curve here. There are certain machines that I just find superior to the freeway alternative. I love dumbbell pullovers. I put them in every program, most programs.

I do them myself, but I'm not going to lie. The notallist pullover machine, I have yet to do a freeway version of that exercise that just feels that we'll say. I'll make the case for flies. I think flies on cables are superior. The ability for you to have maximum tension at both ends. And the squeezers are there. And as you feel the drop off almost immediately

once you get a couple inches. Totally. I mean, dumbbell flies are great still. I'm not saying they're not good. I definitely utilize them a lot. But I think cable flies are superior because good, I definitely utilize them a lot, but I think cable flies are superior because of the ability for you to do the, and because the way the origin insertion is on the chest, your ability to manipulate all the angles and stuff that

you can do with a cable fly, you just very, very difficult to do that. You can manipulate the angle while you're doing it. You could literally do a lower pack, mid pack, upper pack, all in the same set. And like I said, because of the way the pack is, there's a lot of benefit to being able to do it. Oh yeah, that became one of the most popular machines, the first ones. In fact, pumping iron.

I think that's the only, that in a cable, low cable row, those are the only machines I think you saw on a T-bar row. That was it. Those are the only machines you saw I'm using that whole documentary or whatever. The next one, we talked about this already, which is easy volume less stress on the body.

If you wanna add volume to your workout, get a little bit more of a pump, add different angles. Machines allow you to do this easier than free weights because they're less stressful on the body. They just are. Like, if I go and do a back machine workout with three different exercises, even if I'm doing compound lifts or whatever, it's just not as taxing on the body.

I'm going to recover faster. It's going to be shorter recovery period. So if I'm like, you know, if I'm training hard and I'm pushing my body limit and I want to add an additional five sets to my routine, I could either do two sets of a free weight exercise or one set or I could add five sets of machines, which has some value. Well, this is how I use machines now more than ever is, and it's more so actually when I overreach, right? So I build my routine, right, especially right now where my training volume is lower, it's

very maps, and a public ask. But we openly admit all the time that even being experienced trainers, we still all have a tendency to overreach. So if I'm getting ready to go into, you know, day two of maps, and a public, and I've got all these barbell movements that I have planned or written out to do. And on Monday, I decided to press some PR numbers or overreach or do a little more than I probably should have and I'm really sore still. I might pivot and replace some of those barbell movements on that Wednesday workout for

machine. So I find it really valuable for when I've overreached instead of increasing the risk and doing even more damage when I'm still that sore, I'll make a pivot and go to like a machine workout. Yeah. If I'm just looking for a pump with minimal damage, it's machines, just always. Just a lot. In fact, I can train just to illustrate this even further. I can train to failure more often on machines than I can with free weights because of the damage. Less damage, for sure.

Less damage. I can go to failure on a leg press, on a machine press, a machine row. And I would say, if a 10 was the free weight failure comparable exercises, machines would be like a six or a seven. That's a pretty big difference. You're talking a third less damage the body's what experience.

Well, and even from a hybrid perspective, I love training for performance and love compound lifts. And to be able to have compound lifts and do those first and then follow it up with machines to add more volume. So I can build and develop my muscles a little bit more effectively. Like, I love to incorporate machines in the mix. Now, here, this last one is my favorite. And this one, I think, people don't appreciate enough.

But if you're advanced and you love to train, you pay attention to this, you can get real creative. Machines allow you to have an adjustable resistance curve. So earlier I talked about dumbbell pullovers versus the Nautilus pullover machine. Here's why I think I like the pullover machine more dumbbells. When I'm across a bench doing a dumbbell pullover,

all the most of the resistance is at the stretch. Once I get up here, there's like no resistance, the resistance is my triceps supporting the dumbbell. I have no lat squeeze in that position. I have to actively try to squeeze my lats, but it's not the same. When you do a pullover machine, the resistance is all the way through,

and when I come down to the bottom, it's the, I have to hold the squeeze as hard as I held the stretch, which makes it way more effective. Well, this is the case I was trying to make with the crossover. Yes. The cable crossover is the same way. When you're doing a dumbbell chest fly, I mean, the

real benefit is in that stretch position. When you, as soon as you get, like Justin said, just a few inches the other direction, it's, you know, you're no longer opposing gravity at the same level that you were in in the complete stretch position. So you, it's not, the strength curve is completely different. Where in cables, it's consistent, you know, so the same way it all the the same way all the way through. All the way through, which I think that, that's a tremendous value is that. Now here's where it gets real fun.

And this is where I'm talking to some more advanced lifters. There's lots of machines. You'll see a pulley that is pulling either a strap or a cable. And most people don't touch this, because they don't understand it, they don't know what to do. But you're able to adjust the strength curve on the pulley, and they'll have little places that you could do this. This is where it gets real cool.

So I'll use a preacher curl as an example. So, there's be a preacher curl machine, so my elbows are sitting on the pad, I'm doing the curl, and what I can do with the pulley, and what'll happen is you'll see the pulley and it'll be funny shaped, it won't be a perfect circle. It'll kind of be oval. Okay.

So what that tells you is at some point there's going to be more resistance on the pulley than at other places. And so what you could do with some of these machines is I could make the preacher curl heaviest at the bottom. So this is where it's hardest and then it gets easier at the top. Or I can make it heaviest at the top. So it's light at the bottom, heavy on the squeeze. And there's a lot of machines that allow you to do this.

Most people don't touch the police because they have no idea. And by the way, this now makes that exercise novel. So if you always do a preacher curl on a standard preacher machine, that's the same strength that you can't manipulate, I mean, and that's all you do, right? So you do that all the time.

You're simply messing with that. Now makes that exercise. And there's, and we talk about the importance of novelty when training. That in itself already gives more benefit for building muscle. Now one of the reasons why we'll go back to hammer strength. One of the reasons why hammer strength became so popular

wasn't because you could load it with free weights. The fact that you loaded with free weights or a weight stack doesn't matter. What hammer strength did really well is they knew what strength curve would feel the best, and that's how they designed the machine. So for example, one more popular, Hammer Strength machines is the chest press.

Okay, so you're sitting in the chest press thing, and you push, and then the weight moves up, and it moves down. The resistance and the stretch position is the lightest. The heavier, the more you push out, the heavier it gets. Now people like this because we tend to be weakest at the bottom, strongest at the top. Yeah, so you stack more weight on that. So you stack weight and it feels good to get heavy here and light here, right?

Right. If you look at their, their row machines, you'll also see this similar, you know, design, shoulder press, similar type of design where it gets, it's lighter at the bottom, heavier at the top. And this is why people like them because the strength curve felt really cool on the body, it felt really good. So I like hammer strength, but I really like, and again, nobody does this, but you go to a gym,

there's selectorized equipment where you can adjust the pulley, you can make your leg extensions heavy at the bottom, at the top, you can make back exercises, heavier at the bottom or the top or the pulley. You can make your leg extensions heavy at the bottom, at the top. You can make back exercises heavier at the bottom or the top or the middle. You could take an exercise, do six sets, and it'd be six different strength curves. I used to do this all the time. And it feels really awesome. You can't do that with free weights. With free weights.

That's a different movement. It's a different exercise. You know how I would adjust the strength curve on it with free weights? I'd have to like move my body. So like, I could do a lateral standing or I could do a lateral, you know, laying sideways on an incline bench. You get a good flat.

Or if you're having some, you get a weird way. Yeah, it's actually impossible with certain, like you can't do bicep curls that way. You can't manipulate the strength curve with dumbbells. So you have to like lay on a bench and do something weird or I don't know. Yeah, you can get the spider curl angle, but to come from top to bottom and get the...

You have to hang upside down. Yeah, yeah. Which is not happening, right? That's pretty ridiculous. Imagine doing curls hanging out your head. Instagram people will do it. But yeah. But huge benefits though, to certain muscles like that, that you don't get a chance to manipulate

that and machines provide that ability to do that. So again, another example of where machines can be superior. Are there certain machines that you maybe more so you add them? Or there's certain machines you just, you said the rear delt one. Yeah, there are any others that you just love. Like if you see it, you're like, I'm gonna do that. Yeah, I know the rear delt fly,

I mean, and I love a peck deck type of machine, you know, or cable crossover. You like the hammer strength row. Every time we would work out that would be. I love, I love. And that is actually the opposite of what you said with the- There was lighter at the bottom. Yeah, it's heavy, it's heavy to get it going,

but then as you get it in, you lighter. It's lighter and you get the squeeze. And so if you had enough strength to get it off, the initial momentum going, then you get this great squeeze and you could really load it. I used to get an incredible pump on my back from the ISO row, the Hammer Strait ISO row. During the eights, I made that one pop.

Oh, yeah, I love it. And they have so many handle positions. So if I'm, you know, they're all up. I'm just supported like that for roses. Yeah, great, great, great machine. I have a few and they're all like kind of weird obscure ones, but that's because you can't do them necessarily free weights like a donkey calf raise You know otherwise I have to tell my like a guy to sit on my back while I'm doing the second I'm not gonna do that a guy

What I know I'm not a couple girls. I mean I guess you could too But that's not I feel like the do is as weird as it was sound I feel like a guy would understand more than it think. Would you mind sitting on my back? They would probably receive it more better in the gym than the double girls. You pervert? No. So Hammer's strength, excuse me.

Donkey calf raise, Tibialis raise. Tibialis, there's a Tibialis raise machine. I used to love using that with clients when they had shin splints. Because Tibialis raises without that, it's kind of weird. You know know you have to stand on your heels on a block people slide down and just doesn't work. Tibiaus raises those against the wall and then there was a there's a golds the one on Monterey and I only ever saw this machine in a powerlifting magazine ed cone who was one

of the greatest powerlifts of all time talked abouted about using this hammer strength, grip strengthening machine. You've ever seen it? Were you load the plates and it's got handles like this and you squeeze it with your hands and you could do one finger at a time and do all kinds of crazy things. If I see that in a gym? Yeah, I'd love to use that.

I'm using that every single time. So cool. So there you have it. Those are the reasons why machines are sometimes better than free weights. You can find us on social media. You can find Justin on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin, Adam at Mind Pump Adam.

You can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. Also, we have free guides that can help you with almost any fitness goal. You can find all of those. And again, they're all free at Mind Pump Free.com. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB

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