Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2455:  The 5 Gym Machines You Need to Stop Using ASAP

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

 The 5 Gym Machines You Need To Stop Using ASAP Free weights tend to be better for these reasons: (1:35) #1 - Real-world carryover. #2 - Requires more stability. #3 - Forms to your body, not the other way around. Criteria for determining which machines suck: (6:12) #1 - Higher risk of injury. #2 - Far better versions available. The 5 gym machines you need to stop using ASAP: (8:28) #1 - Pec deck (arms externally rotated). #2 - Ab crunch machines (encourage hip flexor). #3 - Tricep extension machine (never right length). #4 - Most glute machines. #5 - Back extension machine. Listener Questions: #1 - What is the value of machines? (28:57) #2 - What are your favorite machines? (31:38) #3 - Plate loaded vs weight stacks. Any difference? (33:36) #4 - Favorite cardio machine? (35:55) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Entera Skincare for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Promo code MPM at checkout for 10% off their order or 10% off their first month of a subscribe-and-save. ** October Promotion: MAPS Muscle Mommy 50% off! ** Code OCTOBER50 at checkout ** Mind Pump #1782: When Machines Are Better Than Free Weights Mind Pump # 2085: Abs & Core Masterclass Building Muscle with Adam Schafer – Mind Pump TV How to Do SKULLCRUSHERS with Dumbbells for BIG Triceps (ADVANCED) Mind Pump # 2155: The Art & Science of Building Perfect Butts With Bret Contreras Build Your Hamstrings- How to Properly do Good Mornings Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Bret Contreras PhD (@bretcontreras1) Instagram Ben Pakulski (@bpakfitness) Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, the five gym machines

you need to stop using right now. Now this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors Intera Skincare. This is peptide based skincare that really works. Like it really does tap into how your cells work on your skin. You'll see a difference within a few days. Go check them out. Go to interaskincare.com. That's E-N-T-E-R-A skincare.com forward slash M-P-M. Use the code M- code MPM and get 10% off your order. Also we have a sale on a workout program, very popular one, Maps Muscle Mommy 50% off. If you're interested go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the

code October 50 for the discount. Alright here comes the show. A lot of people are simply wasting their time. Look if you want to burn fat, build muscle, and actually see results, avoid these next machines. These are the five machines you should stop using in the gym, ASAP. We got to list five? Five. Man, Jeremy would just be setting us up these days, too.

I know, I know. This guy, bro. All right, well, take away your loves. Trying to get us to piss people off. And there are, look, there are, there's always, there can be value to almost any machine or any machine depending on the individual but these are gonna be the worst ones, the ones that we listed, the ones that tend to have the lowest value but I think before we get to it let's talk about why

most experienced trainers and strength coaches tend to recommend free weights. Not always, not in every case, but in most cases why free weights tend to be better. I think the first reason, and I'll start, is just the real world carryover. When you lift things in the real world, they're not on a track, they're not attached to a cable, they're free, they're free floating.

And so the strength curve that free weights work with, the stability of some of all the other stuff, it carries over the real world because the real world is made up of essentially free of weight. There's no guardrails. There's no limitation of range of motion with this weight. You have to account for all of that with your stabilizing muscles and support, good posture and form mechanics. Well, you also have to consider when you are trying to do an exercise and you want the greatest bang for your buck, putting something on a track and limiting it to just the main muscle that you're trying to work versus all the stabilizer muscles that have to kick in to stabilize a free weight, you lose out on that. I mean, there's a lot of, especially when you're, especially during the beginning,

when you're trying to get good at this, we just recently had somebody in our GLP-1 group that was, we were working with, remember the lady that was using just the machines? Yeah, oh, she was just using machines, yeah. Yeah, and we had her just switch over to shoulder presses with like light dumbbells, and instantly felt these strength gains from just, and was like wondering what, why her body was shaking over. Well, yeah,

cause it's been used to moving on a track and none of those stabilizer muscles really had to work very hard to stabilize that machine. And now that you've got to do that, you're all those are firing and working out too, which it adds to the benefits. It does. And you know, again, just away from the aesthetic aspect because because a lot of the arguments are always like, you can still develop the same looking body, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe, but I would want one that feels better in the real world.

I would want one that has more carryover if all things were equal. Not dysfunctional. Not dysfunctional. And then here's a point that I don't think gets enough credit. When you use a machine, that machine is designed, even if you adjust the seat and the arms or whatever, it's designed for a particular size human being or range, okay? Your body has to form to the machine. Free weights form to you. So I'll use an extreme example. If you look at physical therapy, they use free weight based therapy tools. They use bands, they use maybe cables, which are more like free weights,

and they'll use free weight exercise or body weight exercises because if someone's short or tall or wide or if there's an injury, whatever, free weights move with you. So it doesn't matter how long your arms are or how short you are, whatever, it's moving with you, whereas with machines, you have to move with the machine. So there's often times I would get a client where if I had them use a machine, I mean I could see it just wasn't made for somebody their size, especially if they were petite

or really tall, and free weights are the other way around. I mean, I think you have to communicate too, like the origin of machines too. Yeah. Machines were. It was to limit stabilization. Yeah, yes. It Yes, that was the concept and it was mostly for people that were rehabbing because okay, if we have this person who just had knee surgery and we want to isolate the quad

so they don't atrophy anymore, they are- And they have terrible lateral stability. Right, exactly, and so we could put them in this fixed position and target just one part of their body so that we don't lose all that muscle there and still can protect the knee joint. But in the context of a normal average healthy person who is trying to build their metabolism, build muscle, lose body fat, they're just inferior. I don't care what anybody says. And some machines, there's certain free weight exercises that are super valuable that you just can't mimic

with machines. Some of you can get close to mimicking like a bench press or an overhead press. I'll make the argument though that free weights are superior just from a stabilization standpoint. But like a deadlift or a barbell squat, there really aren't machines that mimic those very well at all.

Now there's other back or posterior chain machines or machines that can work the same muscles, but not the same movement. Like a deadlift is a good example. There is no deadlift machine that's going to be like a deadlift, and a deadlift is an extremely valuable exercise. So for those reasons, free weights generally are better. And when I used to train my clients, you know, the goal was to be able to get them to do mostly free weights with our workouts. Now we did, there is a criteria for how we determined which

machines suck. And it starts, it starts with high risk of injury, obviously, some machines, just the design is terrible and the risk of injury is kind. Some machines, just the design is terrible, and the risk of injury is kinda high. And then the second part for criteria was that there's far better versions available. Like, there's just some machines, like, why do that when you could do this over here, and it's just so much better that this machine

is pretty much a waste of time. So I think, and I think this is the most important point to be made about talking about machines. Because you set the table with, you know, there's an exception to every rule. There's an example of where you or I or one of us would use a machine with a client or for ourselves for a very specific reason.

But for the majority, when you look at a machine, as a trainer, I can instantly think of three or four or five of their exercises that would get all the same benefits as that machine and more that I would rather use with my clients. So I'd rather exhaust all of those resources before I'd ever limit myself to just doing that unless I had a very special condition,

like I pointed out before of a client that had some sort of an injury that I'm concerned about, them know, them getting injured again and so I want them in this fixed position. Other than that, if the main goal is one of the main things I said, which is build the metabolism, build muscle, burn body fat, which is typically most people, then I can look at almost any machine and go, that's great, but here's two or three other exercises that are better that we should do and master first. Some machines are just so bad that I almost never use them. In fact, the ones that we're listing here, uh, these are ones that we probably never used with clients, uh, for the most part.

Yeah. You just kind of scratch your head. Like where's the value here? Cause even if some of these machines like aren't necessarily something you'd put your client on for rehab purposes or like they had like a limitation and restriction for range of motion. That's usually a way that I can justify using them. But the other part is too, does this actually like promote a good amount? Like does it maximize a muscle contraction?

Like I can really isolate and focus on this muscle. Does it do a good job with that? Like, but if it doesn't, now we're going to get into this category. Now, when you were drafting this list of these five, I think if we weren't planning on it, we should also give two or three exercises to that. To get better?

Yes. Sure. I mean, I think that's part of it. Not only should we address the five that are not ideal machines, but just briefly tell you too here's two or three examples of if you were thinking about going over doing that machine do one of these or do these two other better options. Alright so the first one is the pec deck now before everybody gets you know angry because I

know that's one of the more popular machines in the gym I'm talking about the pec deck where your arm is externally rotated yes this pec deck right here is whoever came up with this design, it's horrible. It's funny because when I was in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, one of the first submissions you learn is called an Americana lock. In Americana lock, you're on your back, a guy's mounted on you and they put your arm in this externally rotated position out here and they bring your arm back here. And that's how you tear somebody's shoulder.

And what's funny is we designed a machine where we're literally, you're literally doing what's called humoral abduction and adduction while the humorous is externally rotated. This is a very vulnerable position. Very compromising, yeah. Yeah, even if you're watching this, try that yourself, externally rotate

and then bring your arm out, and you'll notice that doesn't feel good on the shoulder. And yet we're going to put resistance on that machine. That's terrible. It's always been terrible. Always a sign I know I'm in like an older gym when I see. Yes. You don't see them as often.

You don't. I don't even know. That'd be an interesting thing for Doug to look up. I wonder if there's any companies that are still making these. Do they still make them new? I don't think so. I think I haven't seen like a new hoist version

or a new brand that's came out on the scene that has actually remade these. Most of these are gym owners that have had these forever and they just left them inside. I think people figured out they suck. Was it just the thought, there's the person that was kind of coming up with this, that they could shorten the lever,

so then for some reason, but you can still get that kind of same contraction. No idea. You know what's funny? So I never used a peck deck, this old school pet deck, the way you were supposed to, if I ever use it with the clients, exactly. I opened it. I would have them put their arms like this and the pad would be right on the vice. Well those, the ones on the right are not the ones on the very left.

Yeah. That one's a, that one's one. That picture looks like it's from the eighties. Are you sure that's still selling? It's not like a picture on the very left. Yeah, that one's that one's one that picture looks like it's from the 80s. Are you sure that's still selling? It's not like a picture from the 80s. I've been to like a golds or I've been a couple of plays with Adam really and they were like newer done because I feel like look at all the ones that you want to right now are all the new versions. Yeah, but those are also looking at home versions. If you do like commercial then you'll see. I think it's an old it's a kind of a dinosaur. Yeah, so so home versions. If you do like commercial, then you'll see. Yeah, I think it's an old, it's kind of a dinosaur. Yeah. So, so better versions. Well, I mean, a cable fly is superior or a Peck deck where the handles, where you allow, where you can grab the handles

with your hands. Now there are some that shorten the lever where it puts a pad here in the crook of the elbow. That's fine too. But, uh, any version of a fly, of course, dumbbell flies are great. Any version of a fly where your arm isn't externally rotated is going to be superior. Yeah, it's better. I mean, the argument I'm like, because obviously we always make the case for free weights, dumbbells would be ideal. We are talking about a different strength curve there, right?

Where if I wanted to match the strength curve but a better version, it would be the cables. Cables. Yeah, cable flies. Cable flies, especially on like a, on a universal or free motion machine that you can, it contours to your, yeah, your, your body. That would be a far, by the way, speaking of that crossing over, technically it would be to internally rotate and squeeze, squeeze and extend the arm forward.

That would be the greatest squeeze on the chest. People don't know that, but the, the, the pack actually is involved in internally rotating the humerus a little bit. In fact, the, which I've seen people always turn the opposite direction, which is silly. So what you're feeling when you go like this with your pinkies in, that's your biceps pushing your chest together, pushing your boobies in together. There's more of a contraction, but the way the fibers attach to cause a little

more internal. So actually a fly with the, with the hands out here. Yeah. The ultimate cable fly is with the internal rotation. And then at the very end, a full extension of the arms and squeeze. Then you get that real, that would be the, that would be, uh, following the same strength curve, better option than doing that. But I don't mind, I use the PEC deck all the time, but with the one with the handles, following the same strength curve, better option than doing that machine. But I don't mind, I use the pec deck all the time, but with the one with the handles.

The one with the handles, perfectly fine, so long, okay. And if you can adjust the range of motion so it goes a little further back. Yes, and so that you're not, your elbows are in line with your shoulders. Oftentimes you see people doing them in this fashion here, and you're still externally rotating. So the key here is not to have your arm

externally rotated while you're, yeah, you're asking for shoulder problems when you do that. All right, next are ab crunch machines, or almost any ab machine. They've never made one that's great. They're just all terrible. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's hard to, first off, it's hard for people to understand how to do proper lumbar flexion and activate

the abs to begin with. But then when you add a machine to it and you don't know how to adjust the seat properly, where do I place myself? Nine out of 10 times that I've ever seen someone use this, they are doing hip flexor. Yeah. Heavy. Heavy. Like it's very focused, uh, the hip flexor. Yeah, heavy. Heavy, like it's very focused, the hip flexor. Yeah, because even this position here too, I mean, you think that just by adding more load, that's gonna help to really like enhance

that contraction with your abs, but you're not able to differentiate between hip flexor and your abdominals. I mean, when I saw this on the list, it was really easy for me to get behind this because when I think back to exercise or muscles that clients had the hardest time engaging and working abdominals or far one of those and anytime you have a client that struggles with activating any muscle I definitely don't want to go over to a

machine that you know kind of takes over a lot of the movement for them because they can't already connect to that, especially with the abs. Because both the, the ad machine normally has something that pulls down or lifts up. If they lift up, it's all hip flexor stuff. If it's pulled down, it's all arm and the person's abs are completely like asleep. And maybe some of it they feel on the resistance after they come all the way down and squeeze. And so people get this like I feel the burn I exactly they feel

a little bit crazy but man the things that you can do with body weight and on the ground physio bowl is so challenging that I mean if you can get to a place where you can master dragonfly type stuff or you know in like an incline sit-up I mean those are are really, really challenging to do. You've got a pretty strong core and midsection if you can do that body weight. So there's no reason to sit in a machine and load it that's not designed specifically for your body

and try and work the abs. Yeah, so like for me, if I get in a machine as experienced as I am, and I have to really concentrate and adjust my body and move it in a way to where I start to feel the target muscle and it's taking a lot of mental effort on my part. I know that the average person isn't going to be able to use one properly. And this is all the ab machines because I'll use them.

I'll go into gyms, I'll see them, I'll try them out. And I always have to like finagle myself and move myself and really like really work on on lumbar flexion and extension and I'm like look I know if I'm having trouble hitting the abs average person's gonna do this right and of course when I see people doing them I actually I actually did just to the day because this is just the trainer in me like curiosity exactly yeah this is I just I see one you know it is it's like maybe they figured it out but I find the same thing too is I get in one of those machines and the...

You have to make it work. Yeah. And a lot of that, I'm just like, this is so ridiculous, like how much you have to focus to get the abs to really engage. It's like, I know I could have laid down or done an incline bench or a physio ball and got the same work out of it. In fact, you know, one thing that I used to do as a trainer to get clients is I would see people using these machines and they'd use a whole stack

and then I'd have them come over to a physio ball and I'd say, you know, I bet you can't do 10 proper physio ball crunches. After they're doing a whole stack on a machine like it, and they couldn't. Nobody could ever do it, which by the way, you wanna talk about a good replacement. A proper physio ball crunch is exceptional.

You get full extension, full contraction. And if you want resistance, put your arms out, out above your head. So you have a long lever, don't swing them forward, but keep them behind, like, you know, biceps next to your ears. And you're doing like 10 reps real slow and it's high resistance. You will build your abs with that particular movement. So long as you keep the hips up and in stationary. So it's all lumbar flexion. Yeah, I would say that. Or I would say a decline sit up or a

reverse roll up on reverse crunch on like an incline. Reverse crunch was my go to, to teach clients how to hit their abs because if you're laying flat and you do a reverse, you have to hit your abs. Right. It rolls you up nicely like that. I agree. And that's a perfect example too of why this is such a better thing is like most people, even if you're even talking about trainers who obviously know how to connect to their apps, struggling on a machine. Why would I ever take a client over to a machine like that when I know there's other exercises that I know for sure they're going to be better connected and

get a better. Now what's funny about this one. So we talked about the PEC deck one earlier and you probably, you know, they're not as popular anymore, probably because they figured out that they weren't that great, but AB machines always in gyms. So you asked yourself, why are they there? People like them because it fools them into thinking they're training the core properly and they go over and they add more weight on the stack and it's like,

yes, I'm working my abs. You are not, you are working your hip flexors. You know what? Another point just to keep bagging on the the ab machines is They also are like, you know, you I used to see I still see this you still see people go over there And they spend like 10 15 minutes of their 45-minute hour workout and you know about a limited range of motion on a machine that they can't connect very well talk about a Really close to wasted 15 minutes in the gym that you could come over and do one or two other movements.

Fog. So inefficient. By the way, you just made me think, and also the range of motion is always terrible. It tends to be like this, thick, thick, thick, thick. Oh yeah, it's very small range of motion. Yes, and it's just, if you could throw that machine away

and you'd be doing a lot of people a lot of favors. All right, next up, tricep extension machines. So these are the ones that we're not talking about. Yeah yeah I'm not talking cables so cables are great. Cables are great for triceps. Your elbows are in the pad. Yeah you get in the pad and you know there's different version this where your elbow at the back and then you have to press down. Now I can use them but it takes a lot of concentration and a lot of finagling and moving my body to make sure it's in the right position. Most people simply can't.

They don't, they don't know how to use them right. They get in there. It's, it's awkward. It's very fixed. Your elbow has to be in the perfect position. Your forearm length has to be perfect. If it isn't, you have to know where to place your hands. And it's just simply not a great machine for the triceps, especially when you

consider the 100 other tricep exercises that are completely superior. Yeah. I mean, this kind of speaks to what you were talking about earlier about you having to now kind of mold your body into this, uh, set position in order to actually get some benefit out of it. But like it, you know, to just do all these other exercises are already like immediately better, uh, like to,

to have you kind of form and try and make that work for this machine seems silly. Uh, during my series that I'm doing right now, the tricep extension is one of the, my favorite movement. And I'm doing a body weight version of this, right? Where I dropped, dip my head below the bar. You get long head stretch. Yeah. It just, I mean, I'm moving my body weight, so it's contouring to what I'm doing. I can elevate it up or down to control difficulty I can slow down the tempo it takes it all the way to a fully stretched position

It's just such a superior and I think that's why this makes this one so bad It's not that I can't do a tricep extension machine and not feel like I've done those machines and I can feel my triceps But your experience, you know how to get in, you know how to finagle it. Yes, right. And it's just like, and, and there's just so many other better, uh, versions of that with either body weight, cables, free weights that you could do to get that. And the funny thing too is like at least half of these tricep extension machines,

people don't know, don't even know how to get into them because they're hard to get into. You have to get their head underneath and pop it through. And then where do I put my arms? And oftentimes their arms don't fold enough to get underneath the pad. The air is too high, you know, sometimes.

People have to understand too when your body will always default to like just moving the weight, right? It'll look at something like, okay, the idea is I move this thing forward like this, and then it'll take the easiest path to do that. And it, it's natural to push. So, so what people don't realize they're doing, even if they think they're doing it right, is their,

their shoulders are rotating and their chest is helping that movement. Very little of that is, is being isolated to just the tricep. And so even you using it somewhat proper and finding finagling a way to get in there, the actual direct work to the tricep is just minimal compared to other stuff. Now, superior tricep exercise that's similar, I mean, you could do this with a cable

and the cable is easy to get proper form in comparison. Like, you could be tall, short, long arms, short arms, you get in position, you don't have to squeeze your head in anywhere. You grab a cable, put your elbows down in front of you. Boom tricep extension, same exact exercise. Way, way better. And of course you could do the free weight version also known as a skull crusher or a French press where you lay on your back, you bring the barbell

down, come back up, like those are like some of the best tricep back. And what's the reason why this machine And one of the reasons why this machine is here, it's not just a crappy machine, but it's also, its replacement happens to be one of the best tricep exercises, which is a skull crusher. It's like one of the best exercises you could do. One of my favorite versions of this, if we're again matching the strength curve,

so it's got the tension on it the entire time, is literally doing this standing up with a free motion, cables behind me, and actually one arm at a time. Right? I hold my arm and I take it in the, in full range of motion and come all the way back with it pulling from behind me and just being able to focus on one arm at a time. And oh, just that's a, I get such a great pump from that exercise. Um, but yeah, the list goes on skull crushers, the body weight version.

I was saying like there's so many more things. Probably never use the tricep extension machine. No, this was like, no, no, definitely not for a client. I, again, the trainer in us, I'm sure we're all guilty of this, you see a new machine, there's a part of you that wants to see it. So the high school kids with the broccoli haircuts. Yeah.

That's what they're doing. That's what they're doing. Yeah. All right, so next up, most glute machines are terrible. Now there's one glute machine that... Hip thrust. Hip thrust. That's right. Hip thrust valuable. They're great. Hip thrust machines are typically pretty damn good. They've actually figured out how to engineer that pretty well. Pretty well. They're good. Now, but before that, and

these machines still exist, you have like the donkey kickback machine or the one that's on the track with the one leg leg and it's like the biggest waste of time ever. I mean you could do a lunge, you could do a squat, you could do a sumo squat, you could do a hip thrust, you could do a one-legged deadlift, you could do a deadlift, like all gonna be way more effective at developing your glutes than this one little, you know, thing that you're doing with your legs.

Do you think that's, okay, so there's a couple reasons why, I mean one, I think load is probably that. that to the glute is such a big muscle the whole and the whole hip complex has so many Stabilizer muscles that are involved that a good deep squat. It's so hard to compete with that Yeah It's just so hard to compete with you putting some heavy weight on your back getting all the way down into that deep Squat a position and then what the hips have to, I mean, I just, and most people that are doing these glute machines are people that want to build their butt, right?

Very few people are doing this for any other sort of corrective or rehab reason. So if your primary goal is to build your butt, talk about a waste of time of- Such a small contraction in comparison, you know, in terms of what you're going to get out of your body to respond towards. It's like, just, that's why there's so much volume, you know, that keeps getting like, you know, perpetuated out there. Oh, we need to keep doing like these glute exercises

like every single day, like 100 reps. This is the classic mistake of thinking because you feel or something burns. Thank you. It is working more. I was just gonna say, you'll feel your butt. Right. This is a classic mistake that clients would make,

which is, I feel it, it burns so much, I can feel it. It's like, just because you feel something really well into a part of a muscle does not mean it is working it more or building it more than these other exercises. And so I still see this a lot. I see a lot of these kickback dog peas, the, what the favorite one I see the girls do where they hook the cable on their ankle and they're standing there and they're doing these kickbacks.

I was like, man, there is a whole bunch of exercises. If your goal is to build your butt. Now, if your goal is to, uh, add, just add some extra volume in your workout and you're already addressing all the big movements. Okay. I guess that's not that advanced and you're, you're just looking some extra volume in your workout and you're already addressing all the big movements, okay, I guess that's not that big of a deal. And you're advanced and you're just looking for more volume? Yeah. Maybe, and that's where you see

some advanced people doing these, is that they have such a high tolerance for volume, they're doing the hip thrust, they're doing the deadlifts, they're doing the squats, they're strong, and they wanna add five sets of volume that really is not gonna cause much damage, maybe get a little bit more of a pump, well then they throw it on, but could they get rid of it and it be hardly noticeable?

Yeah, it's not gonna be that big of a deal. Could they get rid of deadlifts or hip thrusts or squats? No, that's when you see a big difference. And even people like Brett Contreras will say, this is how you add a little bit of volume, but this is not gonna be the meat and potatoes. It's so funny, because the last time I was at a gym and I was working at the gym,

there was this old lady that came in and her whole reason for coming in was this one machine. And she was like, can you direct me to where the booty blaster machine is? That's what it was called. I was like, booty blaster? Where is it? Like, educate me, I'll go over.

It's like, you have to like kneel down and you kick back and like push up on a track. And I was like, oh my God. That was the name of the machine. Yeah. It was called booty blows. Hilarious. Last up back extension machines.

Now these actually have a high risk of injury for the same reason why the AB machines aren't that effective. People don't really understand how to work with their lumbar spine very well. You have to be very good with how you adjust your machine so that your body fits in it. And most people just get in there and start rocking back and forth. They love to add weight to the stack thinking this is going to strengthen my back. And the substitutions for the, I mean, just the back extension off of a bench like is superior to this machine. Cobra, yeah.

Yeah. I just think that this is, so protecting the low back, core stabilization, hip flexibility, mobility, all this is kind of intertwined. And as a trainer, this is like one of the most important skills to teach almost all clients. And so to throw them in a machine for an area of the body like this is, it's irresponsible.

It's just a terrible idea. It's like I would much rather teach my client how to body weight control themselves and get this same type of movement out. I wanna teach them how to hip hinge. I wanna teach them how to engage their core and control these types of movements. And throwing them in a machine is just a quick recipe

for a disaster. It's like setting them up for potential injury for sure and minimal results. So it's minimal results, high risk. Not a lot of return. Not a lot of return whatsoever. The skill carryover of them getting good at that thing doesn't do much. You teach a client though how to actually hinge properly or do back extensions, body weight. Like there's a lot of value and carryover into other training modality or other training movements that we're going to do. So to me, this is something I would, I would never do with a client. You mentioned hip hinging, like to do this properly, you have to know how to hinge.

And people don't know how to hinge without resistance, let alone being in a machine that they didn't adjust properly to their body. And so what this encourages is this kind of, you know, lumbar flexion and extension while loaded, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, you can do exercise like that, but when you have good stability, if you don't, which is most people, and you load that, this is like disc hell. It's like, jump into it. Yeah.

There's definitely a prerequisites. No, no, no. You know, good examples of replacements. I mean, you could do back extensions bodyweight, you could do good mornings that are loaded if you're strong and you understand how to hip hinge properly, a deadlift. Those are all going to be superior to a back extension machine for strengthening the low back. Yep. Got some questions. What is the value of machines? Okay, so one of the things that people don't talk about with machines that I think

is a value is that they don't cause as much stress on the body. You know, why is that valuable? Well, when I'm, when I'm a little bit more fatigued, when I'm, my recovery isn't, you know, as good as it could be for whatever reason, I can do a machine based workout and it not hammer my body as much or on the flip side I could do more volume if I'm gonna spend more time in the gym using machines than I can with free weights. That to me is a pretty big value. There's always arguments for you can isolate a muscle more you can do this that and the

other. I think it depends on the you know tell me the machine versus the freeweight version and then we'll have that discussion because sometimes it's true sometimes it's not true but from a damage perspective I could do You know 15 sets of machines and it just doesn't really a risk-reward profile. Yes I'm gonna go through I love going that way because I'm in the middle of this right now with with documenting our whole series on YouTube with the transformation and What I end up shooting at least you know three to four videos with Dylan inside the studio, which are, I would say, the meat of the workout.

And then what the series has not seen is because I'm not carrying a camera into my local gym, which I've done now, I think I count on one hand in two months, how many times? So four times, maybe I think I've been in three or four times. And they've been all machine workouts. And it's always been like the fifth workout of the week. Like it's like, oh, I could, I feel okay. Like I can go train something, but I still feel it a little bit from my squash through the day.

So I'm going to go in and I'm going to do some real light, light leg extensions, leg curls, just almost like I'm trying to facilitate recovery more than I am trying to do any sort of damage or push really hard as I can still feel my body is still recovering from the last barbell workout I did, But I do want to increase a little bit of volume. I find a lot of value in machines for things like that and, or very specific situations where I have, like I said, like rehab where I have a client or myself is nursing an injury and I want something to be in a very fixed position so I can target a muscle and not risk that instability somewhere else. Yeah, but again even if you're not

going in and trying to go easy, even if I went to failure on a machine, going to failure on a chest press versus a bench press, way less damaging. A row on a machine versus a barbell row, way less damaging. An overhead press, way less damaging. It's just sometimes I'll use a lot of machines if I want to increase the volume, not do as much damage. Why? Because I want to spend time at the gym, get a better pump, whatever. Or because it's time to scale back a little bit and one way to scale back is to go from free weights to machine. So I think there's some value. Next question is what are your favorite machines? Oh good. You, I like, we've talked about this before,

I love the pullover machine. Old Nautilus pullover machine. It's one of the few machines that is superior to other versions, and I've never really found a machine I like as much as that one. Yeah, I like, what's it called, the ones that, oh my God, come back to me, I don't remember the name of them. Hammer strength.

I mean, of the hammer strength? Yeah, let's see. Yeah, because they're plate loaded and then you have like a fixed track, but it does feel a little bit like it's the in-between of free weights. And two, like, and really for me, it was the rowing ones especially.

That's where I was gonna go. I love the hammer strength row and the chest press both of those those Machines that give you the feel of a machine and what they did is they aligned dependent arms But they what they did the engineers of hammer strength and I believe it was fun not mistaken I think Arthur drones his son invented hammer strength if I'm not mistaken, but it They lined it up with the action of the target muscle. So like with traditional chest press, your hands stay straight, right? So you get that humorous coming across the body with peck contraction. What hammer strength did is they got the hands

to come closer as you pressed out, giving you more of that range of motion. Really smart. And then the fact that it's plate loaded, that helps with how it feels in terms of the resistance because free weights feel different. It's not the same consistent resistance all the way through. Yeah, and I guess too, I mean, free motion will count, right, with the cables. But I just feel like you can get a really nice strength curve that way and it feels like

it's pretty close to doing something with free weights. Cables are funny. I almost put cables with free weights. I really do. It's close, yeah. Because of the versatility and it's just, anybody can use them, it's just close to free weights.

Range of motion's pretty great with those. Plate-loaded versus weight stacks, is there any difference? Yeah, you know, when the plate-loaded machines first came out, I remember this was in the 90s. Before that, all machines were weight-stacked. Hammer strength, being the most popular one, came out with plate-loaded.

And plate-loaded, number one, the way they engineered the machines was really cool in terms of the way that the handles would move and all that. But the second part is with a free weight, as a free weight moves through gravity, it's not the same weight all the way through, right? So if I take like a barbell curl, that's 50 pounds, from the starting position to mid-range, it's not 100% 50 pounds, right? Because I'm not going directly against gravity.

It's only 50 directly against gravity, which is in the midpoint. And then it gets a little easier as I come up. Plate-loaded machines give you a different feel. They feel kind of like free weights. And so what the engineers did is they said how can we get the benefits of machines with the feel of free weights? And they got pretty close. They did really well. So I hybrid I tend to like the plate loaded Machines more than the the ones with the weight stuff

Yeah, you know, I don't know necessarily if I if I categorize this is like either or I think it's they're different I think if I categorize this as like a either or, I think they're different. Anytime that you are manipulating the strength curve in an exercise, you're creating a novel stimulus. So if I was training, and so I like both for different reasons. So if I've been training plate-loaded hammer strength machines a lot,

because I like those if I was using those, and I hadn't done anything with weight stacks, then you would go over there and do that. But they definitely change the strength curve, to your point about when you are moving those plate loaded machines, like to Justin's row machine he brought up, when you first pull that thing, you are pulling all that weight. Once it gets all the way up to here, it's like you could hold one finger and it will almost balance the weight up there because of where the weight is now distributed on

that. So that gives a different feel and kind of emulates what it's like to move free weight through space where plate loaded, even when you're all the way in or out of the exercise, it's the same. And so it's going to have this kind of consistent, unless they change the cams, you know, they're getting really good with machines now with engineering, but they'll put different cams and stuff on it to, you know, pull these interesting ones.

Was it a Ben Pekulski had the, uh, where you could load at the top or the bottom part of even it was plate loaded, which was, I thought that was like a really interesting twist. What is your favorite cardio machine? You know, I mean, if I had to pick, uh, well, I mean, I would use a treadmill because it's a versatility. I like the elliptical too, because it's so easy on the body. Yeah. I was going to say treadmill like anybody can use a treadmill. I mean, you're going to find, you're going to find me on a walking incline on a treadmill. If you find me in a gym using a piece of cardio equipment,

90 plus percent of the time, I like elliptical as a trainer because I've trained so many clients that had Chronic knee pain and hip pain and issues and so a zero impact type of cardio machine that they can still Burn a lot. I think that or get their cardio endurance up. I think really well I saw elliptical has always been one of my favorite you guys use the ones that are kind of curved. Yeah. Yeah that are Yeah self. I don't know what you call that but like you have to like treadmill It's always been one of my favorites. Have you guys used the ones that are kind of curved? Yep. Yeah, that are, yeah, self, I don't know what you call that, but like you have to like. The treadmill? You have to like, the momentum starts to be propelled.

You can go fast on those too. Yeah, I love those. Those were fairly new, like I wish we had those, you know, when I was training back for athletics. But between that and I actually really like the assault bike if I'm gonna do conditioning. If you want VO2. Conditioning2 conditioning dude there's nothing really that gets me more than that or versa climber versus climbers another one dude I'll do that

party with that a favorite among bodybuilders besides stairmaster stairmaster besides the treadmill jump rope too for me is the step mill that's with the rotating stairs oh you see a lot of bodybuilders will use that where they're just kind of constantly climbing stuff, but if I had to pick one when I, when I had my studio, I had a small studio, so like I couldn't put tons of cardio in there. I had one elliptical, one treadmill. And the treadmill is what I use, you know, most of the time with my clients is anybody could walk real slow.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the most used. Look, if you like our show, come find us on Instagram. You can find Justin at mind pump Justin. You can find Justin at mind pump, Justin. You can find me at mind pump to Stefano and Adam at mind pump. Adam. Thank you for listening to mind pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body,

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