People have come to believe that the weight training machines that dominate the floors of most health clubs today represent the best fitness equipment the industry has to offer. You may be surprised to learn, however, that when it comes to fitness training, it is more effective to workout with a humble pair of dumbbells than on high-cost and technologically advanced exercise machines.
Most machines fix your movements in 2-dimensional space and are therefore not as effective in training stability, balance and natural movement patterns. By contrast, free weight training requires your coordination and balance while you workout in three-dimensional space. Free weight training is normally done with dumbbells, barbells, medicine balls, step-up platforms, balance discs and other gear.
For better or for worse, the human body has not changed since recorded history began; we have the same number of limbs, organs, bones and muscles. Thus the same movements and activities that allowed us to survive in the wild are what the human body is designed to do today. We have not evolved into a sedentary body. The rapid growth of the seated work place is the cause of many of our aches, pains and musculo-skeletal problems because sitting hinders us from moving through complete ranges of motion, leading to tightness, inflexibility and muscle imbalances of which the common end result is often pain and restricted activity.
Many go to the gym to alleviate the stiffness and lethargy caused by a sedentary lifestyle. But we fall short of this goal when relying too much on machine-based exercises in place of traditional free weights. Proper free weight training improves: flexibility, range of motion, muscle tone, strength, bone density and elevates metabolism (thus reducing body fat). Free weight training is superior in every aspect to machine based training and provides the greatest results in the shortest amount of time. It trains and moves more muscles at one time, and using more muscles burns more calories and fat. Free weight training also trains balance and coordination, which is impossible to achieve while seated on a machine.
In fact many people get a better workout at home then in a gym. If you have dumbbells, an exercise ball, a step or bench, and some elastic tubing you can create hundreds of challenging exercises to work every aspect of your body. You can find all this fitness equipment fairly easily in stores or online at such sites as TheFitWoman.com.
Machines find their main purpose in two areas: (1) physical rehabilitation of a weak body part and (2) developing a particular physique for bodybuilding competition. Outside of this context, machines are not effective in training the natural movements that we performed more frequently prior to the industrial revolution - walking, running, squatting, bending, lunging, pushing, pulling and twisting. Every pattern of movement for life, work and sports are derived from these basic yet critical patterns.
In learning to use free weights, a qualified trainer can be a great asset. At a recent seminar I attended, Paul Chek, founder of the CHEK Institute, summed up choosing a trainer better than anyone I have ever heard speak on the subject: "the best trainers, rehabilitation and conditioning specialists achieve the greatest results with the least" - meaning that if a trainer exclusively relies on multi-million dollar equipment, then she or he is not employing the most advanced understanding of how to train the human body correctly, safely and efficiently.
Remember, your health is in your hands! Gordon
Author(s):
Gordon Waddell, CSCS, has been involved in the health & fitness industry for over 10 years with an advanced degree in exercise physiology. He is an expert consultant to TheFitWoman.com, a website of women's fitness equipment and weight training. Read more about Gordon Waddell
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