just thought i’d throw in my two-cents worth here on smith machines…i’ll only use them in one instance…when i want to go REALLY HEAVY and go to FAILURE, oh yeah, and thats only if there is nobody i trust spotting me around(i train at a university gym and i don’t let most of the douche-bags there spot me), i’ll use it for military presses and sometimes i’ll use it for squats…thats it. anyone who does dead lifts on the smith machine is the biggest pussy i ever met.
Arm training superheroes. Yes that’s what I’ve decided to call them. I don’t mind someone doing a bunch of sets for arms but it’s these guys that think there tough cause they can do the whole rack for tricep push downs or whatever. Oooooohhhh big fucking deal. There was this one dingus in the gym the other day who was training arms and after every set he walked around all angry with his sleveless shirt. I think he actually wanted to get into a fight…or just act tough untill someone called his bluff. The funny thing was his arms weren’t bad…(honestly better than mine…but I just started back after a 6 month lay off) but his back…where was it??? I couldn’t see???
I just hate any dicks in the gym that have attitude. Usually the big guys are nice it's the semi-big guys or the guys with maybe one good body part that think there the shit. I just love not looking at them when their making noise or an ass of themselves to get you too look. Makes em more mad.
At least there is a couple smoking chics at this gym. 
ok unger, you hit a nerve. ‘smith machines are for women’??? what the fuck is that supposed to mean? i happen to be a woman and i also happen to use a smith machine to do hack squats which, according to the laws of physics, can not be done without the weights being in some sort of track. use your brain for something other than counting reps. a smith machine is a useful tool when used properly, just because YOU don’t know how to use it doesn’t mean you can flame those of use who do know.
Nobody is saying to go buy a smith machine for a grand! Join a gym! home gyms dont have variety. And to the dick “Unger” with his “lift REAL weight” comment, i didnt know the smith machine had little arms helping you along the way! It stabilizes you as you are performing the squat! you can use more weight than a regular squat if that makes you feel better about it. That should nulify any quirms about it not being as useful.
I’ve got good size using the smith machine, i’ve even stopped squatting cos my quads are too big for the rest of my body! That damn smith machine should do that to every other muscle! that would be great!!! LOL
And to any other uninformed MORON(thats for you rubberman ) just try using a smith for a month with extra weight and you can bet your pissy weeny little asses that you’ll grow futher that you did, using shitty form with free weights!
Reading this makes me grateful for the gym i work out in. You people need to find a new sport to participate in. So what if everyone is not some guru of strength training.I think its great when i see people working out rather than sitting on there ass doing nothing. We all have to start somewhere. GROW UP AND LIVE AND LET LIVE. Body Building/Weight training has a bad enough image already without this immature bull crap.
Steve - intelligent conversation has no place here and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Please find somewhere else if you plan on making intelligent, rational remarks. Thank you 
Michelle, Hey, I won’t rag on you here because I think you’re cool and motivating as a woman who trains the right way, but I gotta ask about that law of physics thing with the hack squats. I don’t seem to need a track or smith machine and they work just fine. I work out at work where we don’t have a squat rack so if you can’t lift it off the floor, you just leave it there and go home or lighten it.
To everyone else…
A good exercise I did use the smith machine for is what I call GaryE’s patented horizontal pull-ups. Use a bench to rest your feet on and set the smith machine bar down a little higher than it would take you to touch the bottom with your back. Now position yourself to do pull-ups–horizontally. Bad explanation, but I can’t really explain without pictures. I invented this for myself when I had back problems and couldn’t do bent over rows. Anyone else see this exercise yet? Am I too late to call it my very own creation and name it after myself? Probably…
Smith machines can be very usefull for building muscle and power…if you melt them down and make dumbells out of them.
People, you missed the point of the thread, it’s about stupid human tricks, perhaps the most entertaining category of all tricks. Here’s mine, I workout at a gym that includes a giant climbing wall, which takes up the entire huge far wall of the old Airplane hangar which is now the gym, anyways, two nights ago, my buddy and I are doing deadlifts, and last set my buddy has 495 on the bar, and just hits the top, when some hippie falls off the top of the wall screamin like a Banshee till he’s stopped by his spotter ten feet off the ground. The trick though was my buddy ignoring that fool, what a feat of concentration. We were ten feet from the guy. True story, swear to God.
I’m lucky enough to have finally put together a decent home gym in my garage…no more stupid geeks in spandex flexing in front of me…no more outragesly loud music…no more asking someone to move of a bench I need to use…as they lay on it gazing at muscle fag mags.The funniest trick I ever saw at a gym was years back.A kid who took tons of roids and still managed to look like dumpy.This goof needed a spot for every move…along with forced reps.He’d load up tons of weight and want you to help move it from rep one…presses…curls…squats.One day he asks me for a spot on the bench…he has it loaded to 405lbs…I don’t think this guy can bench 300 by himself.We unrack it and lower it to his chest together…then I tell him I’m getting chest pains.Now the dorks in a panic,turning red and wheezing "help"I clutch my chest and turn around(so he doesn’t see me laughing)A couple of other guys ran over and deadlifted it of him…everyone laughing at the geek.
Here we have a perfectly good forum going laughing and making fun of others who may not be as experienced and properly educated as us, and Steve has to come by and point out the obvious. Who does he (steve) think he is…being accepting and tolerant of others. Why he probably even takes the time to show people proper form and help them get results. With people like steve around more and more people might get success in the gym, and then who will we laugh at. I say if someone walks in the gym and can’t bench twice their body weight and squat three times (with perfect form) on their first workout they’ve got no place there.
On the subject of Smith Machine- I think we would all agree that free weight and smith maching squats are not the same. They are beneficial because they not the same.
The smith machine allows us to provide a different stimulus to the muscle and encourage improvement.
At my gym there is a guy who loves to lift heavy. He form is terrible cheating, jerking no eccentric. And of course is fat. His best trick is on the pulldown machine. One day he asked me to spot for him. I was confused since if you failed on the lift the weight would go up and you would not be caught under the bar. But I agreed to spot him. After using lifting straps our combined force struggeled to move the stack. But he seamed happy with himself. I would have bet the bank that he could not have done one chin-up.
GaryE - perhaps ‘hack squats’ is not the correct name, but that is what they were called when they were put in my program. imagine you are sitting in a chair, with your feet flat on the floor and your knees at a 90 degree angle. if you had weights on your shoulders you would not be able to stand up without leaning forward, correct? so by using the machine i can beat the shit out of my quads and ass and not break myself in half. (lower to ‘sit in the chair’ position, hold, then straighten your legs, repeat.) i hate using machines, so this replaced a leg machine in my workout. i do my ‘normal’ squats and deads with a plain old olympic bar. sorry about the miscommunication.
Yeah, I see everyone is throwing around the word, “pussy” directed at these people who use bad form. Some of you laugh and some of you get upset when you witness some skinny punk using bad form. Then you “talk about it” behind your keyboards instead of confronting these so called “homos” face to face. I use correct form and opt for the free squat rack, but only worry about myself. Many people on this forum see someone using a smith machine and, you’re too much of a pussy to do anything about it, so whispering to your buddy in the gym or talking about it on a forum makes you feel like a big man, but in reality, makes you the pussy, pussy! By the way, does anyone on here who uses this awesome form workout or just stare at other guys working out…and the homos are???
Hey DC, you think people like the guy mentioned repping with 100 over his 1RM on the bench want to take a lesson on exercise science from us? They would probably just shrug it off. Going up to the people new there is a little different, they might listen, but chances are the dumbasses who think their experienced because they’ve been lifting for so many years(but probably don’t know what a deadlift is) have gotten to them first. What do you think of the people who go around the gym just trying to teach everyone how to use every damn machine(I’m not refering to the paid PT’s). I bet most would call them an arrogant muscle-head.
I remember what you mean… After the article recently about the original way to do hack squats I tried them and they worked so well, I have made them a new staple in my quad dominant day. I know what you meant though… just giving you a hard time.
I now have my home gym back, but for 2 years I had to use the “Fitness Equation”. The name says it all. Favorite tricks: We had a “chin tower” I guess you’d call it, with a variety of grips for chins and dip bars. Came in once and found a kid doing chins off the dip bar. He had to bend his legs to keep them off the floor. Guy sitting backwards in the pec deck (not one that you could use for rear delts - big pads) I think he was doing the funky chicken. Best trick of all, I am in BM shoulder press (spare me -there is a reason - sh injury) guy next to me is doing leg curls. Machine in front of us is a “glute master” thing where one foot stays on the floor, and the other is kicked way back. A chick wearing loose shorts hops on and starts with her set. NO panties!!! The guy and I look at each other. He quietly moves over behind my machine, and we just watch, transfixed by the X-rated game of peek-a-boo in front of us. She does maybe 20 reps, and moves on to the next machine. Never looked back at us. Guy does a pretty good Chris Farley "THAT…WAS…FUCKING…AWESOME!!!
He was right. As for Smith machines, I think they have been implicated in repetitive pattern type injuries.
just for laughs,when i worked at a major university in toronto,a 3rd year phys ed student walked up to me and asked if i can show her how to perform a lying tricep extension.i got another,second year phys ed class learning about sets,reps,etc.its no wonder these phys ed grads dont know shit,neither do the so called teachers.
ahh yes the machines v.s. freeweights debate… while i think freeweights are definately better, if you’re just BBing…