Free weights....or....machines ???
Which is the best tool for our fitness gains, and for our health ??

This debate between free weights and workout machines has raged on for a long time....almost since the very first machine came into existence.

I feel both have distinct advantages, and that depending on how you use the combination of both, it can be a big benefit to you....or slow your gains.

Yes, it can slow your gains if you do it wrong....

I will explain the advantages of each, and how to use them both to achieve your best gains possible.

First of all, we must all understand how the body moves, to understand how to exercise it efficiently.
The body moves in all directions, front, back, and to the sides. The muscles in your body provide the motion, in addition to stabilizing your spinal cord. Therefore, if you move in all directions, it makes sense to exercise that way.
Free weights allow you to do this much better than machines do, because in most machines the weight can only move in one direction, and the weight is stabilized by the machine itself. (though not all machines are like this, as I will explain)

To get the best benefits from your workout efforts...there is a distinct process that helps you get the best gains, and burn the most fat from your workouts.
This process is.....

Full body warm up, until sweating.....
Large, multi-joint exercises....using multiple bodyparts at once......
Smaller....single bodypart movements.....
Abdominal / core......last.... (always)

This is a proven formula, that will give impressive gains if all of your workouts are structured in this fashion.

Your warm up can be any full body exercise, or combination of exercises that get you to use your ENTIRE body, arms, legs, upper body and core together. As long as you use your whole body, any exercise will work, just be sweating when you are done.

Large multi-joint exercises favor using free weights for the start of your workouts.
The bigger exercises that use multiple parts of your body as a unit....they give MASSIVE benefits that you would not get otherwise, or any other way. These free weight exercises use all of your muscles including the little stabilizer muscles, which have to be used to keep the weight moving in the direction you want it too, because the weight is FREE in space (hence free weights) and YOU must stabilize and control it. This uses MUCH more muscle groups together, and also helps coordination.

Free weights give a DISTINCT performance advantage over machines when they are used first in your workouts. There is no way the "isolation" of the machines...doing the stabilization of the weight for you, can possibly use as much muscle as the free weights.

Free weights to start your workouts will really get the "internal furnace" blazing, and will get all that good fat burning ....going STRONG.

AFTER you have used free weights to start, and AFTER you have done your larger exercises....THEN you can use machines to their best advantages. The workout machines are developed to attempt to 'single out" a bodypart, and make you try to work it directly, taking other bodyparts out of the equation.

The fact that the machines try to isolate single bodyparts is the EXACT reason they cannot be used first if you want maximum benefits from your workouts.
The use much less overall muscle than ANY equivalent free weight exercise, which means free weights MUST be used first.....but machines can be extremely effective at "finishing off" any specific bodypart that you want to target.

THAT is the way to use machines to their best benefit....as a finisher, for any bodypart that is lagging, or that needs special attention.
The machines then....can directly target any specific part you want.

As you can see, the combination of free weights AND machines, when used correctly can give much more versatility and progress to your workouts.

There IS one specific machine, that is NOT like the other machines....one machine that can produce "free weight like" benefits whenever it is used.
That machine, is the "cable station".....

Most good gyms have a "cable station". It is a large steel "box" for lack of a better word, with cables on both sides attached to weight stacks. These cable can be attached to pulleys that are either in the high position, or the low position.
THIS is a great machine.....
THIS gives great benefits that completely compare with free weights, because of the cables being unstable....able to move around in all directions.
This "cable station" is so versatile that you can do hundreds of different variations of exercises on it....all that will give you GREAT benefits to your progress.

Remember, there truly is no best way...because ALL exercise has benefits that are wonderful.
BUT, there is definitely a way that gives better progress.....

Try this process, this way.....and I'm SURE you will be very happy with your body by the time you are done.