Most people new to gym or exercise in general have no idea of how to move efficiently or build strength correctly and this lack of knowledge and skills makes strength training very awkward and difficult, if not dangerous. This is where machine strength training is introduced to solve this problem but it is also where bigger problems are created and the real problems are ignored. On the surface it sounds like a great idea to use machine strength training to allow people to safely and confidently begin a resistance-training program with little instruction and a feeling of security. Machines focus mainly on isolated, large muscle movements but do not encourage stabilizing muscles and nervous system interaction to execute the movement. The result is muscle imbalance, restricted range of motion, poor stabilizer strength and endurance, connective tissue that is not prepared to support the new muscle size and strength. Ultimately there is no influence on neural control of multi- directional movement, which limits the transfer of strength into functional movement. It is for this reason that machine strength training is not a good choice, for people learn that they do not need to develop their stability or nervous system interaction to lift loads and develop strength. They feel they do not need to EARN THE RIGHT to use loads and instead bypass this process entirely. You must understand the reason people develop injuries or weaknesses in the first place often are due to poor stability of joints and a poor understanding of how to move. Skipping this process is neglecting the very thing they need to know.
Why Do People Use Machines For Strength Training?
Through the 1980’s and 90’s strength training was seen as a way to pack on as much muscle, and ego as possible. “No pain, no gain!” was the common theme of the traditional weight room crowd which was predominately male dominated while the females endorsed the aerobics and group class formats. The strength rooms back then were filled with guys trying to become the next Arnold or something like that.
Fast forward to today and the gyms are loaded with everyday people trying to get in better shape, maybe lose a few kilos, and improve their overall strength for daily life. We are a lot more informed now as most people are very aware of the need for maintaining strength and muscle mass as we age or to prevent osteoporosis or rehabilitate injuries. While we have improved our knowledge about the need for muscle, unfortunately the knowledge of how to do it is still really lacking.
When I first started strength training I used a mix of free weights and machines and continued to use this even when I started my career as a personal trainer. I didn’t see any problem with using machines especially with beginners, older adults and people with injury as it made perfect sense to start them with machines for it was easy. There was very little they could get wrong so they couldn’t hurt themselves which seemed like the smart thing to do.
I really began to doubt the effectiveness of machines as I was seeing very little improvement in how people moved. Sure, they seemed to get stronger with the machines and lift more loads but they either still had injuries or could not seem to progress to the more functional movements with free weights. People with poor coordination, balance, and very ineffective movement continued to stay like this no matter how much stronger they appeared to get using machines.
I had spent 4 years developing skills and training heaps of clients, I was busier than ever. Only to come to this realization that there was something really wrong with what I was doing. If I wanted to help people I needed to learn how to teach movement skills more effectively as the machines were not solving this problem.
All the Fitness Instructors and Personal Trainers I worked with continued to write training programs for clients that would break the body into various body parts and even individual muscles or muscle groups such as chest, back, biceps, triceps, shoulders, glutes, quads, hamstrings and calves. Whereas I began to talk about programs in terms of functional movements, myofascial slings, and bio-motor abilities for sports like balance, agility, co-ordination and power.
Instead of breaking the body into muscles my emphasis now was on functional movement patterns which I had learned through various courses I had completed with Dr Stuart McGill and Paul Chek and began experimenting on my own body first. I could not believe how much stronger and better I was able to move once I started training in this way and began implementing these concepts with my clients.
When I wrote this article a few months ago in my newsletter I received a lot of nasty emails telling me that I am an idiot and don’t know what I am talking about by guys who love using machines and believe it makes them better. What these people do not understand is that that they are looking at things through their own personal experience only whereas I get to see the effects of working with hundreds of people. It is in these cases and and especially those with severe muscle loss and weakness from conditions like Multiple Sclerosis or partial paralysis from a Stroke where they cannot move in daily life effectively at all that you see the real truth.
These people found me for they needed help to be able to walk again and the machine strength training programs were not helping them at all. Some had been on these programs for years and could easily push big loads with a leg press or leg extension but still not be able to stand up and walk without assistance. Trust me I have tried the machine training with them and already found it that it does not work, whereas in some cases there has been significant improvement from using functional movement exercises.
Watch the video below where I explain this in more detail.
If a person moves reasonably well then machine training may be able to complement the body and could be of assistance. However, I would still be preferring to learn how to move better and make those movements stronger and more efficient before even attempting to use machines. If you still don’t believe me then keep reading as all of this was proven many years ago.
The History Of Strength Training
I became fascinated with how Paul Chek came up with his Primal Patterns of movements and began reading more and more of the books that he referenced like “Anatomy Trains” by Thomas Meyer, “Assessment & Treatment of Muscle Imbalance” by Vladimir Janda, “Diagnosis & Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes” by Shirley Sahrman, and “Motor Learning and Performance” by Richard A Smidt and Timothy D Lee.
More recent years I found the book simply titled “Movement” by Gray Cook gave me even more insights into the amazing benefits of teaching people to move correctly.
All of this gave me much better insight as to how we really move and also about the history of weight training and strength training. And it is amazing once you start reading some of the old books and really dig deep into the origins you find out some compelling information that many people do not know. I also highly encourage you to watch the DVD by Paul Chek on “Neurodevelopmental Approaches To Spinal Pathologies” as he explains this in great detail.
Way back in the 1950‟s there was a team of highly educated physicians and researchers brought together to conduct extensive muscle testing as a result of improving muscle function to many emaciated patients who had wasted muscle mass due to the polio epidemic. Without an improvement in muscle mass these people could not function in society. Most of their research was conducted with the subjects lying on a table and the researchers did their best to isolate individual muscles and learn their effects on bones and joints as it gave them a lot of information in identifying when a person was starting to suffer the effects of the muscle-wasting polio disease.
After several years of adopting an isolation type training approach (bicep curl, leg extension etc) they found even though they could add muscle to the patients, they COULD NOT improve function and overall movement sufficient for daily living.
The researchers completely scrapped their research and started again with a completely new approach of developing a system that could improve the body’s ability to move, and develop strength using complex exercises to enhance the nervous system and improve movement patterns, that would later be defined as PNF.
This was ground breaking research and is the cornerstone of many advanced movement patterns and rehabilitative programs for paralysis and various conditions today. As I explained earlier I have seen this myself working closely with clients with Multiple Sclerosis, spinal cord injuries and cerebral palsy trying to improve their functional capacity and ability to move.
Now this is where it gets interesting because at the same time (the 1950’s) these highly respected physicians that had just abandoned their original method of isolation of muscles, because the found it did not work, found the bodybuilding rising to prominence using this same information to support their method. The bodybuilders had a great degree of knowledge of anatomy and muscles so this information was like gold. Unfortunately body-builders do not prioritize movement when designing training programs because their goal is to look good, not to move efficiently.
Like I said at the beginning I don’t have a problem with body building if that is what you want to do. Unfortunately to this day, bodybuilding principles continue to dominate gyms and personal training programs although the vast majority of the population do not want to be or look like bodybuilders!
In the 1970‟s this went to a whole new level when a guy called Nautilus produced a range of machines that allowed people to isolate muscles allowed for an increase in the amount of weight or load, an exercise variable that we all know is required for building muscles. At first, this sounds like a great idea as the machine enables you to execute with great technique and you can also sit down while you do it!
You can read more about this in the article – Train movement not muscle
If you want to look good that is one thing, but most of the people I see and train come to me to improve daily life fully integrated and function-based movements to improve their strength and fitness. Sure, they want to look good too but they don’t have the time to train different body parts, it is boring and many of them suffer from some form of muscular imbalance or movement dysfunction causing injury or pain.
“The body when integrated perfectly, is a linked system that can more effectively absorb, distribute and produce forces within the body. The body utilizes multiple segments and joints, so the interaction between them become vital to the overall performance of the chain. Your body does not know the difference from a bicep to your calf muscle. It only knows movements.”
Peter Twist
Movement Is More Important Than Strength
I have fallen into the trap of thinking I can strengthen muscles to change or prevent problems and it will be enough to protect the joint from harm. Unfortunately, it does not. Many sporting athletes fall for this trap too as they constantly try to overcome poor movement strategies by applying isolated strength exercises to protect the joint.
If you move poorly it does not matter how strong your muscles are your body will have to compensate and create an alternative way to move that is less efficient, weaker, and more unstable. A classic example of this is seen with ACL injuries in sports.
When you consider that 70% of all ACL injuries are classified as non-contact situations where the person landed from a jump or tried to chase or evade a player only to fall to the ground in agony. This means that the body was not correctly stabilizing the knee joint during a lateral change of direction movement or landing from a jump. In both cases these are in a single leg stance where stability demands are at their greatest levels,
If strength was all you needed to prevent this injury then you would never see incredibly strong sporting athletes who can easily leg press 200kg or squat 150kg blow their knees out. Yet, you see this all the time occur in some of the fittest and strongest athletes all over the world. The strength of their quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes were not able to prevent the dreaded ACL tear if they moved with poor stabilization or alignment.
You can read more about this in the article – 5 Critical things you need before returning to sport after an ACL injury
Modern fitness equipment allows us to train our body in sitting positions that do not demand high levels of coordination, stability, and posture. We learn it is possible to avoid learning these fundamentals before lifting loads or moving fast and the principle of “earning the right” is not needed. A good example here is with the leg press machine, where someone can start lifting incredible loads on the first day, yet be barely able to complete an effective lunge or single leg deadlift with their own body-weight.
The single leg deadlift is far superior to the leg press for it demands incredible stability and high levels of coordination in order for you to move efficiently and develop any strength. The coordination and stability must happen first!
The leg press on the other hand will not address the instability of the joints or improve your coordination and you will be able to get away with compensation in order to push the load. As a result your body will continue to move with the same compensatory movement that is causing your problems or potential problems.
The strength gained from the leg press is negated and completely useless to you. This is why I say it is the illusion of strength.
The video below discusses this in more depth.
To change the faulty mechanics you have to identify the movement pattern and change that motor program. It is possible for the body to have perfectly good function with muscles in one pattern and not in another.
For example, the core and the muscles of the hip may perform perfectly in the squat but very poorly in a bending action like a deadlift or in a lunge stance. This is an example of where the strength of the muscles is of little importance, for the problem is to do with the specific movement pattern of bending and the lunge.
This is not a muscular problem but a neuromuscular problem.
Weakness in muscle could be the result of many things such as:
•Muscle inhibition
•Poor coordination and stability
•Protective mechanism
Trying to apply an isolation strengthening method will neglect the underlying problem and leave it to fester and become an even greater problem.
You can read more about this in the article – Why exercise technique is so important
Never Use Machines To Strengthen The Core
Now if you thought it could not get any worse think again. I still see people regularly using machines to strengthen their core for back pain which is complete craziness to me.
The lumbar spine (low back) in particular, is not designed for excessive movement, but rather it is designed for stability and load bearing. I have discussed this in great detail previously in the article about bracing the core and explain how the spine wants to remain in neutral.
You can easily see this by looking at the difference in structure of the vertebrae of the lumbar spine versus the vertebrae of the thoracic and cervical spine. The vertebrae of the lumbar spine are much bulkier and less suited for flexion, extension, and definitely not rotation and mobility which is primarily what the thoracic spine is designed for.
The way we train the core muscles, should line up with the structure of the lumbar spine, and avoid excessive lumbar flexion, extension, and especially rotation. Any repetitive exercise that encourages too much movement at the lumbar spine, will create instability at a part of the body that is especially designed for stability. This includes stretching and even some of the Yoga poses that people use every day.
We must try to remember that the true role of the core in real life is primarily to stiffen and transfer force efficiently between the upper and lower body. This means that to effectively train the core, we should be looking for exercises that promote stiffening and stabilization around the trunk of the body, while simultaneously creating movement at the extremities.
This is why exercises like the Pallof press are so great for teaching you how to create a core brace and develop your core strength as seen in the video below.
These machine exercises ignore this principle and instead try to create movement with the spine instead of preventing it. Basically doing the exact opposite of its purpose.
With back pain there are three important factors that must happen in if you want to achieve optimal stability of the spine.
These are:
1.The muscle/s ability to fire fast enough to provide stability, prior to the body moving.
2.Co-contraction of the abdominals and extensors.
3.The muscle/s ability to maintain strength for long periods.
What this tells you is that you do not need to expose the abdominal muscles with massive loads or activity that forces these muscles alone to work for long periods. This indicates that it is more useful to engage the abdominals in many functional positions that will force ALL of the muscles to work together as a collective team to provide stability of the pelvis and spine. The easiest way to do this is to spend time with functional movements.
This is one of the machine exercises I have seen used regularly by physios and all of these ignore the 3 principles I listed above.
You can see the abdominals are highlighted to emphasize how the muscles are working to create this movement. But this position is spinal flexion and exactly how the spine is vulnerable to a disc bulge when bending over. You should be teaching the abdominals how to prevent flexion, not do more of it!
These isolated exercises DO NOT require the core to fire first to provide stability to the spine, for the machine does that for you. They also DO NOT require co-contraction of the abdominal muscles with the extensors for the machine moves in only one direction.
Any strength obtained by this type of training is once again useless, if you are unable to move effectively with functional movement patterns like bending, for the body will have no choice but to sacrifice its strength in order to complete the full range of motion with the movement. You may not even have the strength in other muscles that should be completing the movement such as the glutes and therefor will have no choice but to the spine to assist.
This is the classic example of how a disc bulge will occur.
Why Beginners Improve Strength So Fast
Have you ever wondered how a beginner can be really weak the first few times they do an exercise but improve their strength extremely fast once they improve their understanding of the exercise?
This has nothing to do with their muscles and everything to do with the nervous system.
Their body does not allow them to lift big loads or move fast if their coordination, timing and body position is off. Only once they have learned how to control of the movement and the joints are aligned more efficiently they suddenly find that the exercise is much easier and can increase the loads almost immediately.
These strength gains are all associated with the brain and nervous system and not the muscular system but it took a lot of mistakes and good teaching to get to that stage. The mistakes were a necessary part of the learning stage and also why you should keep loads light to avoid problems in the beginning that could be disastrous.
Their muscles were already strong they just didn’t know how to use them properly.
Now coming back to machine training this learning process is completely eliminated. The machine does all the coordination and positioning for you while your brain and nervous system has learned absolutely nothing. Remember, in order to lift the heavy loads or move faster you needed to learn what the correct position, coordination and timing was before you could even attempt the exercise.
The machine allows you to skip the most important lessons of all.
The only time machine training could be useful is when you already have sound functional skills and you are using it to assist in strengthening a specific area that is difficult to isolate with integrated movement. Other than that you should avoid them. Spend time learning the functional movement patterns and you will have everything that you need.
Do You Need More Help?
To learn more about functional training methods you can download the FREE REPORT below as a PDF document.
Inside your FREE REPORT you will learn…..
What exactly is functional training
Why functional training is so important as you age
How to use isolated exercises to enhance movement
The 7 Key Fundamental Movement Patterns
The difference between functional and traditional strength training
Technique descriptions of 40 key functional exercise with pictures
Progressions and regressions of each movement pattern
How to progress to moving fast in sports
CLICK HERE to download now.
Summary
Technology has really helped a lot of things in modern society but I would say it has at times become a problem with strength training. Machine training and breaking down the body into many isolated parts has not made us move more efficiently, it has made us more robotic and less efficient. Sure it is quicker and on the surface it appears safe but really it is the illusion of strength.
Making mistakes and earning the right to lift loads by learning functional movement skills first should be something drilled into us from an early age. Skipping the learning stage only serves to create a bigger problem in the longer term. There are exceptions to the rule and some people may find the machines complement their training perfectly, however most of the people who use machines are because they cannot move well. Instead of finding out why they don’t move well they take the easier option which is a shame for they are missing out on unlocking their biggest weaknesses.
About The Author
Nick Jack is owner of No Regrets Personal Training and has over 20 years’ experience as a qualified Personal Trainer, Level 2 Rehabilitation trainer, CHEK practitioner, and Level 2 Sports conditioning Coach. Based in Melbourne Australia he specializes in providing solutions to injury and health problems for people of all ages using the latest methods of assessing movement and corrective exercise. He has worked with professional athletes in Golf, Tennis, Basketball and Football but is known throughout the local community more for his work with injury prevention and rehabilitation.
References
•Movement – By Gray Cook
•Testing & Function With Posture & Pain – Kendall, McCreary, Provance, Rodgers, Romani
•Bending the Aging Curve – by Robert Signorile
•Corrective Exercise Solutions – by Evan Osar
•Diagnosis & Treatment Of Movement Impairment Syndromes – By Shirley Sahrman
•Low Back Disorders – by Stuart McGill
•Back Pain Mechanic – by Stuart McGill
•Anatomy Trains – by Thomas Meyers
•Motor Learning and Performance – By Richard A Schmidt and Timothy D Lee
•Assessment & Treatment Of Muscle Imbalance – By Vladimir Janda
•Scientific Core Conditioning Correspondence Course – By Paul Chek
•Advanced Program Design – By Paul Chek
•Scientific Back Training – By Paul Chek