MACHINE HEAD ANARCHY IS COMING!

If you have a club gym membership on the side, listen up!

As functional fitness athletes we have become married to the barbell, dumbbell, Kettlebell and Calisthenic.. We are taught that the movements we perform with these implements carry over to sport and life better and contain a superior training effect…BUT THAT IS FALSE. Free weights require more balance, stability and coordination than machines.. BUT IN MANY CASES, MACHINE CAN CONTAIN A GREAT BIOLOGICAL TRAINING EFFECT! 

Here are the 3 Primary reasons to use machines…

1. They are orthopedically safer and contain a lesser risk of injury overall. The fact that machines stabilize the weight for you and keep you locked in to a certain movement track or range of motion makes them safer. This eliminates gross deviations in the movement pattern. Not having  to balance and stabilize the weight yourself can help you lock in safer positions. Likewise many machines will have a stop or catch at the end range which makes the risk of getting pinned with a weight of having to bail a non issue. No spotter required. This can also give athletes confidence in working to true failure. For a guy like me with back surgery, I get much more out of a hack squat machine vs. a barbell squat. I don’t worry that my spine will explode. So overall movement selection for athletes, especially those with orthopedic limitations is vital for longterm training capacity.

1. Machines allow you to put greater force through a targeted muscle. By locking in and stabilizing positions and patterns, machines will allow greater force to travel through the muscle group due to increased leverage. That is why you can usually leg press 800lbs if you have a 400lbs squat.

1. Machines help you target individual muscles. Getting into specific angles and even isolating a single joint can force a lagging muscle group to grow without the assistance of other muscles.. Think barbell cheat curl with some english on it  vs, a preacher curl machine or back squat vs leg Extension.

So does that mean you should get a club gym membership and start using machines only? Absolutely not. Free weights are awesome. They do develop superior athleticism and require more coordination so they should be included. But how much and how often is specific to your needs.

My favorite type of hypertrophy for functional fitness is a blend. Using free weights and machines to create a complete program only makes sense. So pick up a lat pull down or leg extension off of facebook marketplace. Maybe pick a machine that suits you more than its barbell comparison like a front squat or a barbell bench. And if you want to see what our insane intensification methods look like when you used them on the machines they were designed for Check out our new Muscle Anarchy Machinehead program, blending functional hypertrophy and machines in the club gym