Using weights in your exercise program will build muscle, strengthen bones, and help you burn calories. Both free weights and machines weights are beneficial, though their impact on your body will be slightly different. Machine weights, more expensive than free weights and most often found in gyms, can build up muscle quickly, but the machines are not without their downsides.
Types of Weight Machines
There are two types of weight machines. Stacked weight machines are the most common. These incorporate weight plates, which you add or subtract through the use of a pin system. Stacked weight machines are usually fully manual without electronics.
Hydraulic weight machines are often controlled electronically. Instead of utilizing weight plates, these machines possess cylinders that are filled with a liquid, usually oil. The difficulty of the exercise is determined by how hard you push or pull against the machine, activating the hydraulic cylinders.
For both types of machines, the motions of the exercises are identical or similar.
Pros of Weight Machines
The biggest advantage of using weight machines over free weights is that machines allow you to lift heavier weight without the need of a spotter. The chance of injury is greatly reduced because if you become tired and unable to complete a lift, the weight falls on the machine, not on you.
Machines allow you to isolate certain muscles for an intense workout. Exercises such as leg extensions and preacher curls work your quads and biceps, respectively, without forcing you to rely on stabilizer muscles. This means you can work these isolated muscles harder. Machines also allow you to exercise muscles that are difficult to work traditionally, such as the adductor machine, which provides resistance for your inner thigh muscles.
Electronic machines keep track of your progress, counting repetitions in a set so you don't have to. You can program some machines to maintain a program for you and automatically increase or decrease weight according to your instructions.
Cons of Weight Machines
Because weight machines assume so much control of the movement, it becomes difficult to exercise the stabilizing muscles which are engaged during free weight use. Any balancing is done by the machine, not by your muscles. This may necessitate doing a wider range of exercises to gain the same benefit as that gained from free weights.
Certain machines do not provide a full or natural range of motion. The Smith machine, for example, forces your spine into an unnatural position to complete a squat. Over time this may lead to injury. Another way injury may occur is when you use a machine that doesn't fit you. If you are taller or shorter than the machine's recommended user, your motion on the machine will be unnatural.
Machines are public equipment. If a previous user doesn't wipe up his sweat from the machine you may end up lying in it. If your machine is part of a circuit training set, you may have to take turns with other people to use it.
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