5 Machines that Don't Suck

Gyms are filled with them. Hotels worldwide prefer them and people are spending more and more time on them. Gym machines. But are they all that bad? The truth is most gyms today constitute mainly of machines and less free weights (barbells, dumbbells and functional equipment). Is this a bad or good thing? For marketing purposes, it’s great for a gym to say “We have the latest equipment”. After all it doesn’t sound that appealing to say “We have the latest dumbbells on the market”. Why? Well, dumbbells and barbells haven’t changed in ages, since Greek times or earlier. I addition marketing something that might actually require more work might not sound appealing to everyone either. The “problem” isn’t that machine don’t work, in fact some machines today are incredible, but having entire workouts around them isn’t going to be optimal (unless you have specific problems that inhibit you from using free weights). Using dumbbells and barbells will require your body to incorporate and activate muscles that certain machines and their range of motion won’t allow. But if you had to choose certain machines over free weights which ones would I recommend as a trainer? Here’s a list of 5 pieces of equipment I highly recommend.

T-Bar Row Machine

What I like about the T-bar row machine is that in most cases it allows the user to set his/hers chest on a supported pad and focus truly on the back muscles. You can also in most cases adjust your grip on these machines and slightly change the focus of your back muscles being targeted. Finally it does add a level of safety for an exercise that in its free barbell motion can be slightly put stress on the lower back if done incorrectly or with a lot of weight.

Horizontal Chest Press Machine

What I like about the horizontal chest press machine the most (specially the hammer strength machine) is that it doesn’t put the large amount of stress a regular barbell chest press would on the AC joint and elbows. Many of my clients complain of shoulder and elbow pain when they perform a regular chest press but don’t when I put them on a machine that mimics the movement. This is a plus for anyone who has any injuries in the elbow or delt region but still wants to press

Peck Deck/Reverse Fly Machine

This combo machine works great to target the rear delts and chest. What makes this machine great is again the fact that it helps those who want to avoid stressing the delts and elbows when performing a fly movement and also want to target the rear delts without compromising their safety. Both the dumbbell fly and bent over lateral raises for rear delts are phenomenal exercises, but we can’t always keep adding more and more weight to them due to the points where most of the stress is being carried when performing them . This combo machine truly targets the muscles and also keeps tension on the muscles being targeted most of the time; unlike a regular dumbbell fly.

The leg press

The barbell squat is known as the king of lower body exercises. But did you know a lot of research lately actually backs up the leg press as the lower body mass builder? Too many of my clients in the past couldn’t squat due to lower back problems and knee injuries. However when performed and set up correctly the leg press wouldn’t affect these area for them. The beauty of the leg press is that it too adds tension to the entire lower body and you don’t have to always be adding more and more weight for it to ‘work’. It’s an excellent machine to add to your lower body routine.

The Smith Machine

Invented by fitness pioneer Jack LaLanne in the 1950s, the Smith machine is a weight-training machine with a sliding barbell that moves up and down on steel runners. From squats, biceps, triceps and shrugs, this piece of equipment only allows one range of motion, upwards and downwards. It doesn’t mimic too much natural range of motion but I like this machine exactly for that reason. It allows me to focus a movement and I don’t have to worry too much about dropping the bar. I would perhaps add a movement or top max 2 in the smith machine but then alternate my workouts with the same exercise in its free motion version. For example, if I am doing stationary lunges on the smith, then on my next training I would use a barbell or dumbbell to do walking lunges. The possibilities of the exercises you can do on the smith are up to your imagination really.