Free Weights Or Machines: Which Is Better?
When structuring your strength training workouts, should you choose to use free weights or weight machines? This appears to be an ongoing debate in the fitness community. There are a lot of factors involved in deciding which route to take. Your age, your weight, your general physical condition, your injuries, your fitness experience. All of this matters. Here are a few tips that may help you decide between free weights and machines.
There is one hard and fast rule. Free weight exercises are more difficult than weight machine exercises. Free weight exercises are also more challenging. The reason is that you must balance the weight as well as lift the weight. For example, performing the bench press with a barbell or dumbbells is significantly more difficult than exercising on a chest press machine. On the machine, the weights are aligned and balanced for you. Less effort is required to lift.
Consequently, your strength training workouts will provide a greater benefit when using free weight exercises. If your goals involve fat loss or weight loss, free weights will result in more calories burned. If you more of a power/strength or bodybuilding type, then free weight exercises will add more strength and muscle mass than weight machine movements.
This doesn’t mean that using weight machines is a waste of effort. Many fitness professionals argue that machines are useless, but that just isn’t true. In many cases, using machines is a very good choice.
If you are just beginning or returning to the gym after a long layoff, the chest press machine can be a very good alternative. You can set the weight stacks to really make the chest press challenging. You will benefit immediately.
Maybe you are a little older, significantly overweight, or both. This is another situation where the chest press machine might be a better option than free weight bench presses.
If you have a shoulder injury or arthritis, you may experience less aggravation by using the chest press machine instead of free weight bench press exercises.
In any case, using a chest press machine to perform bench presses is an excellent option when you are just starting out. Make sure you challenge yourself. When you feel ready, make the jump to free weights to derive greater benefits. This could happen in 2 weeks, 3 months, or maybe never. It’s up to you.
So, what’s the bottom line? Using free weight exercises in your strength training workouts will provide more benefits. However, there are situations where weight machines are a better choice. Progress to free weights as soon as you can.
