I think people like to use it because it LOOKS like you’re moving heavier loads. The bar only weighs 15 pounds, so I can throw a couple of 45’s on there and look like I’m doing shoulder presses with 135 when I’m actually only pressing 105.
The guys I see doing presses on the SM never use the regular shoulder press bench. And we all know why this is…much harder, can’t use as much weight, doesn’t look as impressive.
I only use it occasionally as I think it cheats you out of training the stabilizer muscles.
Actually there have been some good uses for it listed here by others.
However for long range movements I think it IS bad to go through one plane, at least for me, and that is all that matters to me.
And one smith takes up the space of one powerrack, and you can NEVER have too many powerracks.
In fact a gym should be wall to wall power racks, every square inch powerracks. You want to get to one, please use the one furthest from the door so others don’t have to squeeze past you. You want to get out of the gym? you must climb over the top of all the powerracks. Anyone who doesn’t slam weights will be thrown out.
Ah thats’ the dream …
Years back I went to a gym with a powerrack. So I bought 1 month membership. Came back next day, rack gone.
“Where’s the powerrack?” I says.
“The … what?” was the answer.
“The big cage thing.”
“It’s gone, it took up too much space”
I use the smith machine for supersets quite a bit.
Tris, Chest, and shoulders only. I have always used the machine for this and I have seen good results. This is part of a routine I have used for many years. The routine is based on dumbells and barbells only, but I superset the smith from time to time.