Anyone that is new to the gym might get overwhelmed by the vast assortment or weights and machines that the gym offers. What to use? What am I going to get the best workout with? I heard that you can hurt yourself with free weight but I also heard that machines are for girls.

These might be some of the things that are going through a beginners head. I am here to clear a few things up about machines and free weights. I will discuss the pros and the cons of both and try to give you a better understanding of how to make the best use out of each.

We’ll start with the most basic apparatus of them all the free weights. All beginners should start out with one thing in mind and that is mastering the free weights. If you don’t master the free weight basics like Bench Press, Deadlifts and Squats then you can kiss away pounds of muscle and a ton of strength gains. Your body creates the most testosterone and growth hormone when you perform heavy compound movements (using multiple muscle groups in an exercise), so these exercise will get your body in an anabolic state (building muscle).

These are the foundation of your body. Without the foundation the building will crumble. Well ,what if you have already mastered these basic exercises, why do I still need to use free weights. Free weights give you the freedom to perform an exercise any way you want to, so you can create different twists and angles to make the exercise more difficult. While using a machine you have to follow the exercise path with no variation. Machines also don’t take into consider the extremely tall or extremely short, so if you fall in this category the machine might be to small or too big and would useless for you.

By no means am I trying to say that machines are bad and you should avoid them like the plague. I am just stating that Machines should be avoided for beginner workouts. I see too many weight lifters, and I’m not referring to just beginners here, advance lifters are victim to this too, they rely on machine too much. Machines have their place and I could not get a complete workout without them. On leg day I might use the leg extension, leg press or hack squat machine for my quads. I don’t use them all but I throw in a couple to help isolate an area of my quads.

I use machines every day but I make sure that I use them sparingly. By the end of my workout I don’t have as much energy, so I might use a machine so that I can isolate the muscle without worrying about balancing the weight. This can help prevent an injury. At the end of your workouts your muscles are not the only thing that is tired your tendons, ligaments and mind are all fatigued. With one wrong move you could seriously hurt yourself. I am not saying that you can’t hurt your self on machines, because you can if you use bad form or too much weight. There is less of a chance of hurting yourself if you don’t have to balance the weight.

This does not mean if you use a machine you are safe from injury. By constantly using a machine, your body is in a fixed plane of motion. Performing a squat on the smith machine is completely different that using the squat rack. When using a machine, your stabilizer muscles are not being stimulated. This could cause an injury performing everyday activities, like lifting a heavy object. By using free weights, your stabilizer muscles are engaged, which will make you less prone to injury.

Remember, what works for one person may not work for another. So if you like machines and have been getting good result using them. Continue to do what works best for you. I am just going by what I have learned and seen with my own eyes. I have never met a person in great bodybuilding shape that does not mostly use free weights.

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