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4) Are machines essential for training, or can dumbbells and excellent posture be enough?
Fight machines against free weights ... Free weights are always the Must to really train and find the best physical shape.
I always consider machines to be the right tool to be able to train when you are a little mentally discharged or when you want to opt for some session of compound sets or alternative training systems.
But I, as a good personal trainer, would observe some movements and functions of a client's structure (as rightly taught me one evening by Mr. Francesco Cuzzolin, a basketball coach, whom I respect and appreciate ever since) before deciding what to make him do.
What kind of motor coordination does that person have?
High Low?
Was she "always" an athlete or was she never?
I always use the machines with my clients who start, mixed with free body exercises, in order to make them understand the difference between a range of movement followed and guided, and one done in total freedom.
The difficulties they encounter are very different, on the machines they can put the weight they want, with the free body they cannot do it.
For many there is the difficulty of having to fight against their motor inability, and this gradually comes to the surface by doing free body exercises, which are difficult for them, against exercises with machines, which are much simpler for them.
Moreover, unfortunately the machines, while helping on their part, are not biomechanically perfect, forcing us to move not free or proper to our body.
REMEMBER THAT: the bones together with the joints and muscles that hold them together are nothing more than a set of levers. But for leverage to work at its best, there must be certain conditions.
I ask you a question: who most respects a lever, machinery or free weight and / or free body?
Here are the substantial differences between machines and free weights:
the machines allow the muscles a continuous tension throughout the articular excursion, the free weights do it only where the body segment achieves the maximum lever arm. From here it can be understood that the percentage of load is greatly reduced in the initial and final positions Machines are not ideal for fast force development where the concentric phase is faster than the eccentric.
The machines, on the other hand, ensure greater muscle isolation and greater safety in order to avoid trauma.
But, cars aren't for everyone.
In fact, there are individuals 190-200 cm tall and others 150-160 cm; finding the correct position for both on the same machine is almost impossible.
Trajectories will no longer be as natural as with free weights and trauma will also be more frequent.
The dumbbells and barbells have the advantage of achieving greater proprioceptive control, but, using them, the greater the danger, due to free trajectory and less control of the exercise.
However, my idea is that the best system does not exist, using both (machines and free weights) you can develop workouts of a thousand and one nights and this is what true IRON lovers require ...
Make the best of something that can do even more.
