Lets Chat Machines · Coffee & Creatine

Lets Chat Machines

I often get asked about why I don't prescribe machine work that often in your workouts.

Do I love machines? No.

Do I hate them? Nope.

Machines are great for stability to pushing weight with great muscle isolation. This essentially allows you to put the entire stress of the exercise on that targeted muscle. This is great for hypertrophy and a pump.

Pumps and hypertrophy are great for body builders. Which, none of us are nor want to be to my knowledge.

Most of you lift 3xs a week, full body splits. This allows me to program mostly free weights to really challenge your entire body, which free weights do, without burning you out.

How? Free weights have less stability which will challenge the central nervous system thoroughly, add demands on your core (not just abs, think entire torso), and help even out any imbalances that may be occuring.

Lastly, a major reason I program mostly free weights is ROM. Range Of Motion is a staple for my training style. Utilizing that big stretch in these exercises, which could be limited on machines, allows you to develop true everyday strength that translates to real life. Also utilizing FULL ROM is great for longevity in the muscles and injury prevention over time.

Yes, you will see machines in my workouts, and when you do, I usually expect you to go to absolute failure on your reps. This is because you are safely secured and won't compromise elsewhere in the body.

Now when you train more often (4+xs) then you will see more machine work thrown in. This is due to more of a typical body part split, so we need to only tax certain muscle groups each day so you can get back after it the following day on another area of the body.

Hope this was enlightening.

Also I have machine focused workouts loaded in the WODs section of the classroom.

Which machine is your favorite?? Can you guess mine from this gif?

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