I find smith machines as useless as the next man, so I was pretty pissed when my gym plopped down a few g’s to buy a shiny new one last week. But this one is different. The bar moves three dimensionally so that the usual smith machine problems of forcing the user to move the bar in an unnatural motion and not stabilize the weight are no longer present.
I refuse to let my gym off that easily. There must still be something wrong with 3-D smith machines, right?
[quote]bluedog23 wrote:
I refuse to let my gym off that easily. There must still be something wrong with 3-D smith machines, right?[/quote]
Sounds like Neo followed the white rabbit down the hole after he took the red pill…
Why oh why didn’t I take the blue pill…
Charles Poliquin actually likes this machine. Although is it really 3D? The normal smith machine is only 1D. As far as I know, this particular smith machine can move up, down, forward and back, but not side to side, which makes it 2D. I could be wrong, though…
It moves up and down and side to side…
http://www.tailoredsports.com/ProductCart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=105&idproduct=1944
That’s only 2D. You can’t go left and right with that thing, only up, down, front and back. I can’t believe they call their product 3D when it isn’t.
It pretty much takes out the lateral component of balancing out of the lifter. This is what’s wrong with that smith machine.
However, it’s a lot better than an ordinary smith machine. 2D is better than 1D hands down. I wouldn’t be too pissed about it.
These look better than the smith machines, www.prospotfitness.com
What ever happened to a training partner that would spot you?
Damn internet is making us all loners.
any way
Just asking…
[quote]undeadlift wrote:
That’s only 2D. You can’t go left and right with that thing, only up, down, front and back. I can’t believe they call their product 3D when it isn’t.
It pretty much takes out the lateral component of balancing out of the lifter. This is what’s wrong with that smith machine.
However, it’s a lot better than an ordinary smith machine. 2D is better than 1D hands down. I wouldn’t be too pissed about it.[/quote]
This was the first thing that came into my mind - the machine can’t be 3-D. The only 3-D machines I know of are free weights and bands/chains.
Don’t forget cable machines.
I suppose if they were to make a 3D smith, they could just go the extra mile and make A POWER RACK…
The picture of it is 2D and the actual machine is 3D.
Hope that clears things up.
[quote]Andrew Dixon wrote:
The picture of it is 2D and the actual machine is 3D.
Hope that clears things up.[/quote]
Lol. Good one.
People in my gym seem to love this new machine to do barbell curls. At least it keeps them out of the squat rack!
[quote]bluedog23 wrote:
People in my gym seem to love this new machine to do barbell curls. At least it keeps them out of the squat rack![/quote]
Priceless, just priceless…
Has anyone ever used that machine? Does it feel well made? What’s the verdict? It seems like you’d need to lift slow.
I lift in a max-rack/3d smith (the only rack my gym has).
Well it’s not like a smith AT ALL. I can’t squat in a smith, its like a different movement, BUT squatting in this weird rack , is like free weights… and it has 100% carryover. It’s completely the same thing.
So if its the only rack your gym has, use it. You ll not be missing out on anything!
(here is one of my recent squat sessions)
Still not 3D. I didn’t see any left and right motion.
Solid squatting nonetheless. Nice to know that machine feels like the real thing.
[quote]acidhell wrote:
I lift in a max-rack/3d smith (the only rack my gym has).
Well it’s not like a smith AT ALL. I can’t squat in a smith, its like a different movement, BUT squatting in this weird rack , is like free weights… and it has 100% carryover. It’s completely the same thing.
So if its the only rack your gym has, use it. You ll not be missing out on anything!
(here is one of my recent squat sessions)[/quote]
Yeah, looks ok I guess. I’d prefer to see you get all psyched for a free bar without a bad on it.
And dude, put some pants on.
You also miss out on the stabilization for the rotational degrees of freedom…
That being said, this looks more useful than a coat rack or stretching area.
As graphicsMan correctly mentions, a free bar has 5 degrees of freedom, while this “3-D” rack allows only 2 degrees of freedom. You get robbed of 3 :).