Resistance and Free weights

[joker13]

I was just wondering what the difference as far as weight goes on something like a bowflex compared to free weights. I have used both and it seems like i can lift a lot more on a bowflex. Any help would be great.

[Killa_Z]

Originally Posted by Manfred_Man

Weight Train for Maximum Muscle Gain
by Anthony Ellis

Exercise machines are a lot like the training side wheels on your first bike. While you're learning, they serve an invaluable purpose. They provide support, and prevent injury. But once you've learnt the right posture and balance, the same wheels can be a drag.

Unlike training wheels, however, it's tough to know when you've outgrown an exercise machine. And that can really hamper your progress down the line!

Free Weights vs. Machines vs. Bodyweight Exercises
Weight training involves the use of equipment that enables variable resistance. This resistance can come in the form of 'free weights' like barbells and dumbbells, machines that use cables or pulleys to help you lift the weight and bodyweight exercises like pull-ups or dips.

For maximum muscle gain, the focus of your workouts should consist of free weight exercises. Not machines or bodyweight exercises.

To get an effective, muscle-blasting workout, you must stimulate the most muscle fibers as possible, and machines do not do this. The main reason for this is a lack of stabilizer and synergist muscle development. Stabilizer and synergist muscles are supporting muscles that assist the main muscle in performing a complex lift.

The more stabilizers and synergists worked, the more muscle fibers stimulated. Multi-jointed free weight exercises like the bench press, require many stabilizer and synergistic muscle assistance to complete the lift.

On the other hand, doing a bench press using a machine will need almost no stabilizer assistance. Since machines are locked into a specific range of motion and help to support the weight along that path, they fail to stimulate the muscles that surround the area you are working (stabilizers). This is a mistake. If your stabilizer muscles are weak, then the major muscle group will never grow!

Free weight exercises like the dumbbell press or squat, for example, put a very large amount of stress on supporting muscle groups. That's why you will get fatigued faster and not be able to lift as much weight as you did on the machine. But you will gain more muscle, become stronger very quickly and have a true gauge of your strength.

If you use machines in your program, they should be used to work isolated areas and only after all multi-jointed exercises have been completed. Beginners should begin with a limited combination of machine exercises, bodyweight exercises and mult-jointed free weight exercises. Before increasing the weight levels, they should work on becoming familiar with the proper form and execution of each. Soon, bodyweight exercises will become insufficient to stimulate growth and they will need to focus on more free weight exercises.

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[painless2]

What a bunch of crap that guy spouts! People love to justify things with no evidence simply because it makes them feel like their workouts are more bad-ass than others. Free weights are great, so are machines, and so is bodyweight exercise. Stimulating growth is from volume, based on sets vs. reps. vs. load, not on where the load comes from. Almost all bodybuilders use machines and bodyweight exercise in addition to freeweights, this argument is silly even on its face.

[Killa_Z]

i wouldnt personally say there are anything wrong with machines but i myself would say freeweights are better talking from experience, of course you must use some machines; i'd hate to try and do leg extensions with a barbell being gripped above my feet haa

do what works for you

[Old_Fart2]

Painless, what about his article is un-true? Isn't it true that free weights involve the stablizers and synergists more than most machines (with the exception possibly of pulldown, pressdowns and the "Free Motion" machines)? Shouldn't our goal to be to stimulate as many muscles possible in the shortest period of time for maximum growth?

Undeniably machines have their place in a workout, but if mass is the goal shouldn't the emphasis be on the big, compound exercises?