Article: "Exercise Form Doesn't Matter... At All", Thoughts?

Training HIT
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I wonder if this is due to muscle/strength gains of machines vs free weights, or if it is by design to reduce joint/tendon stress…

Would be really nice to have a trial testing newbie trainees with a free weights only group, a free weights + Nautilus equipment group, and a Nautilus Equipment group only. Training regimen would have to be near identical, so no lifts to be performed with free weights than cannot be matched with similar-purpose equipment.

Maybe @Ellington_Darden has some studies regarding something like this…? :sweat_smile: :pray:

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I feel seen.

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I’m in the same boat and would certainly find it much easier and progress better with access to machines and cables.

@Andrewgen_Receptors I think 90% of the time you need to look at who are using exclusivly machines and the reasons for it. That may explain the skewed views on the effectiveness. Someone who walks into a gym and dismisses free weight/ barbell exercises as too dangerous or too difficult will be the same people who lack the attributes to push hard enough to actually build muscle.

If you are someone who knows how to push your limits, using machines with a better resistance curve which you can safely push to failure will be massively effective when the goal is hypertrophy.

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I may include the machine bench but i dont know what else i would actually be interested in adding with regards to increased hypertrophy… I cant say i’ve ever ‘felt’ the exercises as well when using machines, at least for the most part

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Obviously there is no right or wrong, and it doesn’t have to an either or situation! Just tools at the end of the day.

When I started training I bought into the whole hate on the smith machine thing. But this guy at my gym used it for all his pressing and he had the most impressive triceps I had ever seen, he never barbell benched. God knows if all that smith pressing actually transfered over to any free weight lifts but his triceps were next level, so depends on goals.

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Majority of bodybuilders I see in the gym use mostly machines…hammer strength, cybex, Free motion, life, cables and sometimes the nautilus nitro

very few use free weights as the primary exercises and very few do squats or deadlifts or bench presses

The ones I see doing a majority of free weights are the strength builders or power lifters

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I’ve been loving bands and chains for arms lately. I do have my arm work that way.

Incline curls with chains let me get into that bottom end, stretched bicep position without tearing my elbows apart at the bottom.

Tricep Extensions with chains work the same way, deloading at the bottom so I can get that full arm bend.

Band spider curls help get that peak bicep contraction without deloading at the top like free weights.