Machines VS Free Weights: What Builds More Muscle? (According To Science)

What's going on, everybody? And welcome to the Built With Science podcast. You're here with your host as always, Chaboy Max Coleman. And sitting across from me is D. Pizzle Plotkin, AKA D Money, AKA Danny Boy. And today we're going to be talking about free weights versus machines and which one is better for hypertrophy. But before we get into that, I think it's important for us to discuss what it is we mean when we talk about a machine versus a free weight. Because even though it kind of seems like a super straightforward thing, like you look at a barbell back squat and a leg, leg extension, it's very clear which one of those is a machine movement, which one is not. But when you start comparing things like bent over dumbbell rows or barbell rows to something like a, a bent over landmine row, things get a little bit more confusing. So, Danny Boy, you got any strong opinions about what is and what is not a machine?

Yeah, I have a strong opinion on everything. So here I am. I think we should stop, you know, creating this delineation as if there is a strong delineation between the two. So as you mentioned, like a landmine, you are limiting the degrees of freedom. So are you turning now, you know, a free weight barbell into a machine? And so I think that for the purposes of this conversation, we can sort of loosely define it as if it. If it's obvious it's a machine, it's a machine. If it's obvious it's a free weight, it's a free weight. Many things fall into that category. So I think we can still have the conversation. Like clearly, if there's a cam, then it's a machine. If it's.

Most people are not going to know what you mean by cam. Like a pulley system, like a cable, right?

Yeah, if there's a cable involved, then we'll call it a machine. What else? If there's some sort of pendulum going on and you're popping the plates on that pendulum, then we'll call it a machine. What else are we going to call a machine? I think those two probably. Oh, and if it's easier, Smith, any, any sort of Smith situation, we'll call them where, where you're. Although there's Smith machines where the thing can move back and forth too. So it gets even freaking more.

A land. A landmine is a pendulum. So that, that would make that a machine. I think it's actually easier to say what is a free weight. And basically I think a really good example is like it's like poetry or public displays of affection where I can't really tell you what it is but you know when you see it.

Right.

So yeah, I think it's easy. Just generally speaking, if we're talking about free weights, we're talking about dumbbells and barbells. I mean really, at the end of the day, uh, we're certainly not talking about kettlebells because I know how strong your opinions are on that. So I, yeah, I think that's a. I think that's. We don't really don't. I don't think we really need to go into the type setting machines and.

Pulleys and stuff like that.

Yeah, we'll basically say everything falls into the category of machine. If it's not basically a barbell or a dumbbell and. Or yeah, one of those what Landliness and Barbell Smith machine that has every degree of freedom that a barbell does. Those will never make sense to me. And a big spoiler alert. We're basically going to end the podcast talking about how we think that or why we think that machines versus free weights is kind of the wrong type of question to be asking. But we'll get into that in a second with that out of the way kind of talking about like what is and what is not a machine. Let's talk about the kind of the pros and cons of each and we'll start with just talking about like what are some of the pros of something like a free weight? Like what are the pros of using free weights as opposed to machines or not even as opposed to using them over machines. But like what are the pros, what are the benefits of using free weights in general?

Yeah.

You want me to hop into some.

Yeah, sure. And then we can just go back and forth on these.

Yeah. So my favorite, and even though it doesn't matter that much is that you always know what you're going to get with a free weight. So there's sort of two prongs to this one. Is that from gym to gym? You know, a 50 pound dumbbell is going to be a 50 pound dumbbell for the most part, unless it's like super rusty and so on or it's like shaped super weirdly where they have like really long dumbbells for absolutely no reason. For the most part you're going to get 50 pound dumbbell, you're going to be able to press the same amount and so on with machines, depending on how many, how it's, how it's built, what the Lever arm is and tons of other things, you're not going to get a consistent load. So it's harder to track over time. And also you could get just a really crappy machine. Like some machines just don't feel right. It's not moving in the range that you want it to be moving. You're like cramped in there. It doesn't go far enough back. It literally stops you from getting the stretch that you want and so on. So there's the upside of consistency with free weights and not having to run into something that's just truly crappy with on the machine end. So I think that's a really big one.

I agree. I think that oftentimes people say, like when you're traveling, for instance, it's nice sometimes to. If your program is heavily emphasized on free weights, it's nice. It makes traveling kind of easy because you know for a fact that you're doing more than you did last week as opposed to if you're using machines and you're traveling for whatever reason, you're not exactly sure if the stimulus is greater or less than what you did the week before. And then with respect to consistency, I just think this is worth pointing out that for how long people have been lifting weights for.

I don't know, like, I don't know, really long time.

Yeah, quite some time. Would say close to centuries. Less than a millennia, More than a century.

It's between those two.

Yeah. And people have been getting jacked off of free weights, really jacked off of free weights for a very long time. I think there's a huge push right now. And if you want to know my opinion, I love machines and hate free weights, just generally speaking. But I think that there's a huge push right now on like, TikTok and within the. The subcategory of the subcategory of evidence based fitness, which is optimal based fitness.

Right.

Where people are saying that you essentially cannot get jacked using things like the bench press or the barbell back squad.

Right.

I think that's kind of a, a huge overcorrection from the, like, early 2000s where people were saying that barbell's all you need, brother, and stuff like that. But people have been getting jacked off of free weights alone for a very, very long time. So take everything we say here about why machines are great or why free weights might not be super great with a grain of salt. I don't. The last thing I want to do is talk about some of the cons of free weights and have People think, oh, goodness, I only have access to free weights. I'm not going to be able to build a good physique. That's just certainly not the case, obviously, for sure.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think that saying that you can't build an amazing physique without free weights or without machines, I think you can use either one in isolation and still gain an amazing physique. It's just when you have more tools, you can get a more specific stimulus as opposed to having to sort of finagle things around or use something that's slightly less optimal, potentially. But over time, you're still gonna get amazing results. We're talking about, you know, the last couple of percentages. If not, you know, potentially even less in some of these instances, and we'll talk about later on in the podcast, where it makes more sense and where it might have a little bit more of an impact. But even then, we're talking about a game of inches.

Yeah, yeah. Well, centimeters or millimeters even. Like. But yeah, I. I think that even then, like, if you truly. The principles of lifting, then you don't even need to use, like. So, for instance, I think a good example here is that I've trained out of my home gym for a really, really long time, and I, for a really long time, hated the fact that I didn't have access to machines.

Right.

This is from ages, like 18 to 22 or something like that.

Right.

But as I got older and as I studied this more and more, you kind of start figuring out how you can manipulate free weights to kind of mimic the resistance curves and stuff like that of machines, which makes it a lot better. So even splitting them and dichotomizing them can be incorrect from the start. Do you guys hear. Can you hear that alarm, like, at all? Oh, terrific. It's gonna distract me like crazy, but at least that y' all won't be.

Able to hear it.

Okay, so I kind of went on a tangent there, but with respect to free weights, kind of the pros, you will hear a lot of people say that you get more global hypertrophy. So, Right, like something like a. Let's say like the standing overhead press.

Right.

Versus like a seated machine overhead press.

Right.

Some will make the argument that because you have to work, some muscles have to work harder to stabilize you as you're doing the movement. You'll see more overall hypertrophy from those muscles than you would if you were locking yourself into, like, a single degree of. Of freedom.

Right.

What do you have? Do you have thoughts on that?

Yeah. So I think that overall how much that matters is probably super, super small, like perhaps because there's more degrees of freedom on that shoulder press. I think comparing a standing and seated is potentially incorrect because, like, technically you can have a machine that's standing, but let's just say a machine over or a seated barbell overhead press there. You have to manage the fact that the arm wants to come forward or backward as you're pressing. So there's some upper back muscles and the chest and so on that on both sides of the joint have to stabilize it. So you could make the argument that that level of stability is preventing you from getting the most stimulus out of the target muscle. And you can make the argument that those stabilizing muscles are getting a hypertrophic stimulus because they're having to work in order to stabilize the joint. I think that once you get to a certain threshold on both ends of that spectrum, whether it's the stimulus for those muscles or whether it's getting the most out of the stimulus of the target muscle, we're splitting hairs where there probably won't be that much of a difference in actual hypertrophy. But if there is, in my opinion, even though you hate on free weights, just do a mix of both and you're gonna be really, really, really covering your bases and not have to worry about it. Because if somebody's saying that it needs to be all one or all the other, then they're definitely getting into some weird territory where the person is doing half and half and they're like, no, you need to always work the stabilizing muscles. Then that's like almost lunacy territory. So.

Yeah, well, you, I have no names, obviously, but that one guy that you knew, that was like, yeah, Monday I'm on free weights, Wednesday I'm on cables, Friday I'm on machines. I'm getting a perfect mix. And honestly, that's probably a better way of thinking about it than thinking that you have to do one or the other, obviously. Okay, yeah, I, I, I couldn't agree more. And you could obviously make the argument in the other direction of those stabilizer muscles. And, and you may have said this and maybe I, I wasn't listening close enough as always, but those stabilizing muscles working could take away some of the tension that you're capable of placing on the target muscle.

Right.

So like, this is not a, a, a, a fair example because it's not machines versus free weights, but you look at like using straps on something like a pull up Right. Yeah. Technically you can make the argument you might be getting more global hypertrophy because your forearms and back are getting hit really well, but you're ultimately limiting the amount of tension that you're able to place on the back while doing pull ups, which is the muscle that you're trying to hit when you're doing something like pull ups. So, and I'm not saying, I'm not saying that that's a, that's a good analog for, for what we're talking about. I'm just saying that if, if you ever hear someone make the argument that these stabilizing muscles are, are definitely hypertrophying because you're using free weights as opposed to machine, you can just present that the counter argument to them that wouldn't those stabilizing muscles working take away from the muscle that we're actually trying to hit? Now, I don't, I don't think that that's something like you were saying once you meet a certain, like once you get proficient enough at that movement, it's really not gonna matter if, if, if your stable stabilizer muscles are working necessarily.

But.

Okay. Moving on to another often touted pro of, of, of free weights versus machines is that it's good for teaching general movement patterns that like. So if, let's say that you have someone who knows how to squat really well, you teach someone how to squat with a barbell, right. It's going to be really easy for them to squat with a Smith machine or do something like a leg press, but they'll. Oftentimes you hear people make the inverse argument where if you teach someone how to do a leg press or a Smith machine squat, it's going to be harder for them to transfer over to the barbell. You have thoughts on that?

Yeah, I don't think that makes any sense whatsoever. So I think, I don't think it would matter that much either way. But I think meeting people where they are is usually a good idea. So for many, many people, they can go straight to some sort of barbell and gain a decent amount of proficiency pretty quickly. In those people who do not, usually using some sort of machine or something where you limit the degrees of freedom actually is helpful for teaching that movement. So you could probably make the reverse argument where starting them off with something that's easier and then working up to something that has less stability is probably a better idea perhaps. I don't think it matters that much because in my experience most people can gain a pretty quick proficiency or at least enough of a proficiency to keep building on with free weights right off the bat. And then you can start introducing a variety of movements from there. But yeah, I don't think that you can make a strong argument in either direction for having to start with one or the other. You could potentially make the argument that starting with machines that don't involve you having to control your own body through space and doing that for a really long time might limit the amount of movements that they can do later on. But I don't think that's a machine versus free weight thing because there's tons of machines that you can do where you have to control your body through space and use your core and so on. So I think a lot of people make that argument that they dichotomize machines as somebody just sitting down on a chest press. But you can do a Smith machine row. Even for a seated cable row, you're working pretty hard in order to not pull yourself back. So as long as you're doing a variety of machine movements, I think you'll cover your bases for the most part. And then when it's time to introduce those free weight movements, you can gain that proficiency whenever you need it. And if anything, you've allowed them to enjoy easier movements earlier on, make those gains, not feel like they're failing, and then work your way into something that's slightly more complex if they're the type of person that sort of needs to have that graded exposure, which honestly the majority of people aren't. But let's say an older client who really is afraid of sort of any sort of free weight movement, you can spend a good amount of time or forever, honestly, just on machines and not miss out on really anything.

Yeah, I think so. That. I'm so glad you finished with that. Cause that's exactly what I wanted to piggyback off of. Which is why is there an like such a push to. For people to work with free weights? Like, let's say you have a client come to you that just wants to get jacked, or they just want to feel better throughout the day, they just want to lift for health.

Right.

What is so magical about having them do a barbell back squat as opposed to a leg press? You know what I mean? Like, I think that the client, like whether or not you're doing free weight movements or machines should always be predicated on the goals of the client. So like, if I have a powerlifter come to me, we ha. Or if I. Let's say I have someone come to me that wants to be a power Lifter, It's a better, it's a better example. We have to teach them the barbell back squad. We have to get there somehow. Whether we do that first or whether we teach them on a Smith machine first. Probably not something I would do, but we have to get there. But if I have someone come to me that just wants to be jacked or just wants to, you know, lift because they want to like be able to pick up their grandkids, there's no, there's no huge impetus or push to go to, to a barbell back squad.

Right.

I think that oftentimes we, we think that that's kind of like the, the gold standard of movement, like a functional, functional movement screening.

Right.

Like, like being able to do something like that is like, that's what's considered. Now you are proficient at that movement, but there's no, there's no real reason to be proficient at the barbell back squad unless you are someone who competes in the barbell back squad, if that makes sense. Unless you can come up with a good argument against that.

Yeah, I think you can make like a really weak argument that doing some free weight movements where that object can be moved through space would force joints to have to stabilize in a very specific way. So doing like a dumbbell RDL versus a Smith machine RDL or a step up with a Smith machine versus a step up with dumbbells, you have to catch yourself a bit more as you're stepping up. And that could be a skill that might be useful to like an older individual that, you know, walking, walking up a flight of stairs or something along those lines. For the majority of individuals, I don't think it matters that much. Usually they've gained way more than enough of a proficiency. And then couple that with you're doing a movement that's super, super similar with maybe a bit more stability, like you just adding on muscle mass and making them more robust is probably more than enough. And potentially even in the older individual it might be more than enough. It's not like we have super strong evidence that the, that creating that slight, that slight instability is going to have that much of an impact. But just to cover my bases, with older individuals, I will have some movements like that where they're forced to use their core a bit more and their joints a bit more to stabilize themselves in space. But whether that matters a whole lot is arguable. And honestly, a lot of the time with those individuals, you're not gonna be using a whole lot of loads you would want to like you're forced to use more stable movements, and with those less stable movements, a lot of them are, like, almost completely unloaded.

Almost always. Body weight. Yeah, like that, like sit to stand exercises or like, literally like a walking lunge or something like that with you. Okay, so. And also, that is only in the context of, like, preparing geriatric individuals for, like, for falls. Really. Like, that's like, kind of what we're talking about. So even that argument, which is, like you said, a somewhat weak argument, isn't even based on muscle growth. Like, it has nothing to do with muscle growth. Just keep that in mind when we're talking about that, obviously. Okay, so let's move on to what I think is the last and honestly the most convincing argument for free weight. I think. I think the most convincing argument for free weights is that, like you said, almost all free weights are kind of all. Not all machines are created equal, but basically all free weights are created equal, unless you're talking about octagonal plates. But besides that, like, I think that's kind of the most. The consistency of free weights is kind of the most convincing argument. But honestly, I think you could make. I think this might be even a stronger point for free weights, which is. And you. You pointed this out, not me, which is impressing others and motivation. I think that watching someone leg press, like, eight plates on each side is dope, but there's something cooler about watching someone squat. 4. 05. I don't know.

And.

And like, it's just my stupid lizard brain that.

That.

That sees it and is like, oh, that's so sick. But you. You want to touch on.

You.

You. It was your point. So I want to hear your kind of your argument for why free weights are better for, like, impressing others or for motivation.

Yeah. So there's a strong evolutionary theory on this where just, like, pulling stuff off the ground is so primal that it's obvious that it'll be more important.

Careful, careful. Liver King has primal trademarks, so we can't use that anymore.

Crap.

All right? We're gonna get sued.

Shit.

So, yeah, I don't think that it's necessarily the primality, although I think there's. There's something to just pulling something heavy off the ground that has this sort of macho, primal type thing going on that there's no way of getting around it. But regardless of that, I think the biggest portion is that powerlifting affects lifting culture a lot. And the squat bench and deadlift are just, whether we like it or not, really embedded in the culture. Regardless of Whether we're talking about hypertrophy, where those movements aren't really necessary, you'll still get, like, I know many, many people that their goal is pretty much strictly hypertrophy. They don't really care about their strength, but in the back of their head, they're always, you know, they'll ask you what your numbers are. They'll always try to keep some sort of semblance of the powerlifting movements in because they don't want to be seen as, you know, weaker or beta less.

Soy boys. I was gonna say.

I was gonna say boy, but I.

Was like, all right, let me try to use it different.

But you.

You.

You opened the gate lid right in. So, yeah, I think there is not getting around the fact that there's a psychological component to lifting. And because there's not that much of a difference, I'm totally fine with people stroking their ego, impressing others and so on, because motivation is a huge part of being consistent and lifting. And if you can get motivated by that, then it's perfectly fine to use those barbell, dumbbell, whatever movements in order to impress others and get more jacked in the process. So I don't think it's necessarily. It almost made it seem like it was a bad reason as I was explaining through. But I think it's totally fine to have a goal of wanting to get stronger in specific movements as long as you're keeping your form consistent and crossing your T's, dotting your eyes.

Yeah, certain strong. Yeah, So I do. But they're all in, like, corroboration with you. So, like, I. I'm not Danny boy, and I only care about hypertrophy. And it's. It's not only what we care about in our own training, but it's really all we care about. I don't want to speak for you here, Danny, but it's really mostly what we care about in terms of research as well, and intellectual stimulation with, like, learning about this stuff. It's. It's mostly hypertrophy. That being said, I don't know about you, Danny boy, but I'm not able to separate those two things out in my head either. Like, I.

Little.

Little flex here. Call this a Flex after 13 years of lifting. How sad is that? I. I hit 2. 25 on the RDL the other day for a set of eight, and that was, like, huge for me. That was. That was a massive milestone for me. I wasn't able to RDL for a very long time because of back pain, and all of a sudden, in the last two years that that has become a non issue for me. There's Nothing magical about RDL ING225. There's nothing special about that at all. I could do so many other exercises that would provide the exact same to my hamstrings.

Right.

Cause that's why I'm. Rdling is for hamstring growth. But there's still something in my lizard weird brain that's like, nope, that's. That's cool. The fact that you can max out a. I can't do this. But the fact that you can max out a machine on seated leg curls, who cares? But 2:25 on an RDL, that's really cool. And I think that it's worth pointing out they. They said this on the Muscle and Feels podcast. So shout out Milo Wolf and and. And Dr. Pack. But anytime Danny Boy and Ty talk about any of this, it only applies when we're talking about optimality in general. Right. If anything we say conflicts with your motivation to train or your desire to train or your enjoyment of training, don't listen to it because it's not any little tiny tweak we talk about with exercise selection or volume landmarks or whatever it may be we're talking about. Doesn't matter if it interferes with your adherence to the gym, because that is far and away the most important thing thing here, obviously. But yeah, I just wanted to talk about. I really. The whole reason I brought this up is just to say that, Hey, I hit 225 on the RDLS. Just wanted to brag about that.

Nobody's ever bragged about that before. You realize that two plates is a milestone on the bench, not the rdl.

Right?

Trust me. That's what I. The. The first caveat was. Who brags about this after 13 years of lifting? But it was super cool. Okay. So I think just to. We're kind of done talking about the pros of free weights here and. And we kind of touched on the pros of free weights. Kind of highlight the cons of. Of of machines. Like for instance, not all machines are created equal. But let's just to summarize. I think the best arguments here are consistent gym to gym. Generally, most free weights are all built kind of the same. And really just it's. There's something there with free weights about like it can be really motivational to see numbers go up on free weights more so than on machines for whatever reason. And yeah, impressing others at the gym is cool too. But I think those. Unless I'm Missing one. Because honestly the other pros that we talked about are very skeptical pros. They're not necessarily like for sure beneficial over. Over machines or anything like that. Did I miss any? Do you have anything you want to highlight there?

No, I think that's great.

Sweet. Okay, so let's talk about machines, which is way more fun anyway, some of the pros of machines. I think that one of the most convincing here is just time efficient, right? When let's say that you are so. So Danny boy, you're really strong, right? And you would do like a set of like, I don't know, probably like 3:15 on a squat for like a set of eight or something like that, right? Not, not too far off. Yeah. Working up to that 3:15 like you get to the gym and the time between you getting to the gym and actually hitting 3:15 for your first set of 8 to 10, whatever it may be. What are we talking? 10, 15 minutes? Probably somewhere around there.

Yeah.

It takes longer to work and I'm not even like 3:15 for a set of 8 to 10 is not like it's like middle of the road, you know, it's like, it's strong for a normal person. It's not strong for strong people, like power lifters. And so like our boy Derek will, you know, warm up to, you know, close to 500 or so. It takes significantly longer to get to that high number because you have to warm up to it. Even if you're a minimalist with warming up, you probably just don't want to walk up and do like 3:15 then 500. So yeah, it does take a, a decent bit of time to, to warm up with free weights.

And I think that this is a really overblown issue. So shout out. Dr. Mike, I'm sorry I'm calling you out here, but talking about the systemic fatigue of loading and unloading plates I think is a little bit ridiculous. But the psychological nature of it I do think can be really annoying. So like having to take off a total, let's say even just 3:15. Just 3:15, six plates on and off. 6:45 pound plates on and off is. Is not, it's not gonna ruin your workout. It's not gonna add a bunch of systemic fatigue, but it is annoying and it is something to consider when programming for individuals who are short on time. Right. So I think that there's something about going up to like a machine load, like a pin loaded leg press or something like that.

Right.

You can, let's say a similar stimulus. What like like would equate to the 3:15 for eight would take you like much less time. Just even not because of anything special about the machine, but literally just moving a pin as opposed to putting on and taking off plates is like a considerable thing.

Right.

It's, it's super small. It's a silly thing almost to even point out, but I think that time efficiency is like a really important thing that's not often talked about when we're talking about optimality in general.

Right.

Because most people aren't chasing optimality, they're chasing how can I get jacked in the shortest period of time.

Right.

Or how can I be as efficient as I possibly can with my time?

Anything though.

Yeah.

So on that one, if it's a Smith machine like I get that you could if you tailored the program to be more machines like let's say you were choosing which one is the most time efficient machines or free weights and you chose, you could choose any machine at any free weight.

For sure.

You could get a more time efficient workout with machines because you just have more options that allow you to do what you said. But by the same token you can have corollaries with machines that are still as fatiguing and like a more fair comparison. Yeah, yeah, like a more fair comparison. So I think a Smith machine, I don't think you'd save, if anything I could actually load more on the Smith machine and have to do a similar amount of, of warmup sets on the, on a Smith machine squat. So I think you can set up a program and use machines as a tool to mitigate fatigue and increase time efficiency much better than you can generally do with free weight. So I still think it's a great point but I don't want people to think that the corollary is always more.

A pin loaded machine compared to a barbell back squad. It's not super fair. It's a good point. Yeah, yeah. So I, I, I, I, I couldn't agree more. But moving away from the time efficiency thing because I, I think I, I, I agree. Anything else you want to say about the time efficiency thing or do you just wanna move on to a different pro for machines?

I think that's good. Yeah, I think we covered that well.

Cool. So we have here can create the stimulus you want to target different ranges of motion and an exercise and muscle you wanna touch on that.

Yeah. So I think this is the biggest pro by far. So generally speaking with free weights you're beholden to gravity without the assistance of anything sort of modulating how that load is interacting with gravity. So you'll always be weakest for a row at the end of a row with sort of any free weight movement, where at the beginning it's pretty easy, and then at the end it's very hard. With machines, you can set up a machine where the beginning of the movement is hard and the end of the movement is pretty easy. And now that we have more and more research showing that that stretch position for that stretch position for a muscle is more hypertrophic, setting up some exercises that are hardest in that position for certain muscles might be difficult without the machine. You could still pull it off because you could do partials with. With free weights. So it's not like you're super limited. You could definitely do it. But it is, as you said, easier to set up, like, a really nice machine, just, you know, pin load it or put a couple of plates on, instead of having to grab a really heavy dumbbell and do partial rows and stuff like that. So that's one. And the second one is that because. So a really good example of being able to control the line of pull is like, an upper chest fly. People do upper chest flies with dumbbells, but the problem with an upper chest fly with the dumbbell kind of no matter how you lean, is that one portion of the movement is going to not be oriented with what the upper chest is doing. So at the top of an upper chest fly, here, the dumbbell is just going straight down with gravity. Your upper chest isn't really stopping that. It's mostly your anterior delt and some upper chest, but mostly anterior delt. Right. So. But with a cable, you can set that cable up directly in line with the line of pull that you're looking for. So cables allow you to get literally any direction for the line of pull, and machines in general allow you to modulate where an exercise is difficult with a lot more room than something like a free weight, where a lot of the time you'll be stuck with doing partials. If you want to get that range of motion to be the hardest.

Yeah, I think that. So I think you and I have touched on this before, and I think you've gotten mad at me for saying it because it's. It's a super simplistic way of looking at it. But, like, with cables, you can, like, manipulate gravity. Like you can literally. I think they're the coolest thing in the world. I think that given that free weights, no matter what you do, no matter what fancy stuff you do, they are always Going to be going down. Like the, the, the, the force that those dumbbells or barbells or whatever it is is always going straight down. And with something like a cable that can be in any direction that you could possibly imagine.

Right.

Uh, so like for instance, you do like dumbbell lateral raises.

Right.

No matter what, the hardest portion of that exercise is always going to be right here, because the force is the hardest when this, the first of all, the lever arm is the longest. And also it's directly orthogonal, better word perpendicular to the axis here that you're actually working in.

Right.

Whereas opposed to a cable, if we can put, we can change gravity. So instead of going down, it's literally going to the side. And so we can make it. So the hardest portion of the lift is now in the stretched position.

Right.

So that's just an example of how you can manipulate machines better than free weights for making them more favorable to different positions in a muscle.

Right.

And like you said, you can do this with free weights to a certain extent.

Right.

So lengthened partials are a way to like, kind of shift that to shift the tension to a more lengthened position. But even with something like a lateral raise, no matter how heavy I go with dumbbells.

Right.

I can really almost never make it. So the hardest position or the hardest part of the movement is in the most lengthened position.

Right.

So another reason why, yeah, using both is probably a really good idea. Anything else you want to say with respect to that? Oh, one thing. You can kind of do this with free weights if you call a landmine a machine or a free weight. Because the way that landmines are set up almost all the, almost always is the, the bottom position of a movement is almost always the hardest and the top is almost always the easiest. Right. So again, if you call a landmine a free weight, then that's another way you can make it so that the lengthened position can be a little bit harder with free weights. Anything else you want to say with respect to that?

Yeah, I think with the lateral raise, one thing I was going to touch on is you could technically lie down and make the, make it the hardest, but for some reason it feels freaking weird.

It's awful, dude. It's, it's, there's terrible. I'm glad you said that.

I, I, I, I.

So it's something I've tried because I don't have access to cables in that home gym that I was telling talking about earlier. So I try leaning lateral raises and not even a fully like laying Down. But even just on an incline, which it. I don't know. I agree. I don't. Maybe there's some reason why it doesn't feel as good as like a cable or something like that, but it almost. I feel it in my like, rotator cuff more than I feel it in my delts every time I do it. Okay.

So I wanted to bring that up for that reason. So like, sometimes even if you could finagle it with free weights, it just, for whatever reason, it just doesn't feel right. So take that with sort of like a grain of salt in terms of like, oh, if you, if you, you could probably figure it out with free weights. I think I, Whenever I hear somebody say that, I take that with a grain of salt because, like, a lot of the time, if you know what you're doing from a physics standpoint, you can figure things out, but it still just doesn't feel right. And the pulley systems, I think, allow for that too. When, when you create, basically when you have good pulleys, they don't change their position in space a whole lot, so there's not a whole lot of momentum. Like, I don't know if you've around with those like 1 Cable pulleys, they don't have like multiple pulley systems, like.

The sputty pulley system, you know?

Yeah. Like you, you, you push down really hard and then it almost feels unloaded at the end. Yeah. So I think not only is it that machines allow for you to control where something's the hardest and they allow you to control where the line of pull is, but a lot of the time, if they're built well, it's sort of like a smooth rep as well. So I think that's a, A good addition to that whole machines are awesome.

Little rant.

Yeah, Keep that in mind because there's a lot of counters to why machines aren't good using all of those examples in, in reverse. So. So keep those in your back of your head. When we're done talking about the pros here, I think we can move on to allows for more isolation. Generally speaking, machines can allow for more isolation than free weights. Right. So we think about something like, because this is the, this is literally the inverse of your stabilizer muscles working.

Right.

This is kind of the opposite thing. Right. So you compare a barbell back squat to a Smith machine squat.

Right.

Because you don't have to worry about so many stabilizer muscles working.

Right.

The, the fatigue that you can get from like, your abdominals and your, like Erector spinae, like working super hard to keep you in a kind of an upright position. With something like a barbell, you are able to take all of that energy that would be used for that and put it into your quads by doing something like standing a little bit with your, with your feet a little bit more forward.

Right.

Something like that, which can allow for a gnarly pump on the quads.

Right.

As opposed to something like, especially for individuals like longer femurs like myself, kind of putting my feet a little bit more forward and trying to stand upright with a barbell would literally just make me fall over. Right. So that's just one example of how you can use a machine for more isolation on a muscle than the knot. And one, one thing I do want to say here is that there's sometimes there's like an overemphasis on isolating a muscle. Like people, for instance, saying, take the traps out of your lateral raise, like one, how, and two, like, is, is the, is that something like why, like, is what's the huge push for that?

Right.

Like, do we really think that the traps are taking away growth stimuli from, from the lateral raises? I, I, I don't, I, I, I, I'm not convinced that that's the case.

Right.

Do you wanna, you wanna touch on that?

Yeah, no, I think I, I totally agree. I think the Smith machine was the best example. You have to control your center of mass when it's a, when it's a free weight, when, when it's a barbell. So if you try to be super upright with your knees super far forward, you'll literally fall backward. But because you can hold on to something that's anchored, with a Smith machine, you can get like a really sweet quad stimulus even if you're not necessarily built to squat upright otherwise. So I don't have that problem with long legs, but I can still get more upright. So I think obviously it's a, you know, spectrum, but I can definitely get more upright, even though I'm, you know, I have a pretty decent build to, to squat. So it might matter a little bit more for you than it does for me, but it still matters for me. So it's all a spectrum, like, who, who would it help more and so on. But I think generally speaking, you can definitely get a more targeted stimulus in specific situations with free weights. And I think along the lines of what you were saying we, I already touched upon it, is that you can get a more targeted stimulus when you can control the line of pull. So if what A muscle does ends up being like work diagonally through space for whatever reason. You're not really gonna get that super well from a free weight because you can't change the orientation of where the force is acting, which is with gravity straight downward.

Awesome. And then last little pro here because I honestly, I think that the cons of machines are more fun to talk about than the pros. The pros are a little obvious, right. But easier to master. So we even have. You even have master in quotations because there is not much to master, so to speak, with most machine based movements. Right. If I wanted to teach someone how to squat for their quads, right. If I wanted, if someone came to me and they wanted to build their quads and all we had access to was a barbell, we would have to spend a considerable amount of time not only teaching them how to squat, but teaching them how to get into positions that are more favorable for the quads to work. Right. And that is something that takes up a lot of time and also energy.

Right.

As opposed to if I just put someone in a leg press. There's still some learn, there's still a learning curve right there. But it's much easier to teach someone how to target different muscles when in machines than it is with barbells, I would say. You have anything you want to add to the easier to master?

Yeah, I think definitely ease of use and just getting people to do something that they feel comfortable with and enjoy and is a easy, small baby step forward, particularly for people who are apprehensive about going to the gym. Machines are a really good tool. But as you mentioned, like, it's not the biggest issue if you don't have access, but it is super, super helpful. So I could definitely imagine that a lot of my more apprehensive clients that came into the gym scared if I started them off trying to teach them how to use a barbell on a squat or. And I've, and I've done this unfortunately, like super early on, like everybody's got.

A squat, you have to know.

Yeah, yeah, exactly so. And then they felt just weird. They were just like moving through and then they felt like they were going to topple over and they were obviously totally fine. I was there, the safeties were there. But like I shouldn't have started, you know, a five year old woman that said she was scared when I was 18 years old on a barbell, I should have just had her on the leg press, had her feeling good gain rapport and then perhaps never.

Yeah. If she Wanted to learn the barbell back squad.

Yeah. Because some of them come in apprehensive and are actually wanting to do that thing where in that case, and this comes down to like, what's going to keep them there, what's going to keep them motivated. I think some people go all the way to the other side of the spectrum where they're like, no, you don't have to do that crap, it's garbage or whatever. Like if that's what motivates them and they see people barbell squatting and they want to do that, you can transition them over because it really doesn't matter that much. And keeping them motivated and continuously going to the gym and having a new goal I would put on a higher pedestal than forcing them to continue to do the movement that they're proficient in and so on.

Yeah, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm really glad we're talking about this because I think this is the inverse argument to the motivation impress others for the pros of free weights. Right? So when you have 18 year old, 20 year old dudes coming into the gym, they're like, yo, I want to like, I want to learn how to squat because that's like the cool thing to do. Teach them to squat because it's the thing they want to learn how to do.

Right.

But if you have an individual like a, a, a soccer parent come in, come into the gym and they're like, I just want to feel better teaching them machine. Like there's something intimidating about free weights. There is. I don't know what, I don't know why, but they're just, and maybe it's just because of the stigma associated with free weights in general.

Right?

Because of the 18 to 20 year old dudes that are like screaming while they're doing it to impress others. But there is something less intimidating about machines than free weights in general. And I think that that can be a really big motivator to individuals is seeing those numbers go up as opposed to not seeing numbers go up on, on a free weight thing because they have to spend so much time learning how to do it. So I think the intimidation factor of free weights versus machines is actually a pretty good argument in, in, in favor of machines. So I think, I think that's. Yeah, I'm really glad that you, you mentioned that. Anything else you want to say as far as like pros for machines?

I think those are definitely the main ones.

So, so just to summarize, the pros there basically some, in most cases more Time efficient does allow for more isolation of specific muscles that you may want to grow and also allows you to shift resistance curves to be kind of in more in favor of the position that you're interested in doing. Right. So think lateral raise with dumbbells versus lateral raise with a cable at the height of your hand.

Right.

Tangent. I, I'm so sorry to our listeners, but do you want to talk about. We, I really want to touch on constant tension of machines. I feel like that's something that we should absolutely say. Sure, yeah. Constant tension, bro.

What?

Cables have constant tension and dumbbells don't. So we should always use cables, right?

Yeah. That's just constant tension meaning the tension doesn't go to zero or constant tension, meaning the tension is the same throughout. Either way, it's wrong. But I'm just curious what you meant.

I just basically want to talk about how, like people say the, the tension is constant if you do like a dumbbell lateral raise.

Right. Yeah.

Which is just not the case. And, and you're better explaining the physics of it. So as simple as you can, like I'm a six year old. That eliminates. Dan, who asked you a random question. Tell me why there's no constant tension with machines like people think there are.

Yeah, so it's kind of hard to explain super simply, but I think I, I, I think it actually is potentially fairly easy. So when you have a joint that's stacked. So let's say I'm doing a press, a bench press. When my arm, my elbow and my shoulder are in line, the load is going through and is being stabilized by my joint. But as soon as I bend now there's a rotational force where my tricep needs to extend in order to get my arm to extend. So the machine doesn't stop that from occurring. I can have a cable that runs through that way and there will be no tension. The same way as with the free weight, there will be no or very little tension on the chest. On the chest or on the tricep.

Exactly.

So it doesn't, yeah. Cables allow you to change the resistance curve, but they don't allow it to be constant in any sort of way. So that argument is silly for a multitude of reasons. One, it's not constant tension, but two, there's no strong reason that you would even want constant tension. So you could make a fairly strong argument that constant tension throughout. Or said differently, matching your strength curve throughout the range of motion is not necessarily a goal that you would want to do all the time or potentially Ever. You could make the argument, based on the evidence that we have, that you would want to bias the tension to the more stretched position and then take some tension off of the shortened position of the muscle. So one, cable slash machines aren't constant tension. But two, whether you would want constant tension or matching resistance curves is contentious. And based on everything we know, probably not a goal that you should be striving for.

Mm, I, I think that was really beautifully explained. And, and I, I just want to kind of give an example. It'll be a lot easier to see for those of individuals. They're a lot easier to understand for individuals watching. But when we talk about tension we're placing, we're talking about the amount of tension that a muscle has to, has to produce to overcome whatever load we're using. Can you still hear me okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So tension on a muscle is always going to be the greatest when whatever load we're using is directly perpendicular to the joint that is operated, that is the muscle is operating on.

Right.

So I think a lateral raise is easiest to visualize here. So dumbbell lateral raises are always going to be hardest here because the weight is directly perpendicular to the axis of rotation that's working here. Right. Our shoulder. But when we do so, for instance, it's going to be easier, easier, harder, harder, harder, harder, harder, hardest.

Right.

And then actually easier and easier and easier.

Right.

But you do take something like a cable. It's the same exact idea.

Right.

If the cable is at the height of my hand and pointing this way.

Right.

It is now directly perpendicular to the axis of rotation at the bottom of the movement.

Right.

So it doesn't just stay hard, hard, hard, hard, hard. Because now it's not perpendicular anymore. The load is now at a diagonal.

Right.

So it's the opposite. It's hardest, hardest, easier, easier, easier, easy, east.

Right.

As opposed to just hard, hard, hard, hard, hard the entire time through. Okay. I tangent over. I just really wanted to do. I think that's one of my favorite things to talk about with like constant tension with cables.

Right.

Okay. Some cons, some detriments of machines over free weights.

Right.

And I think the biggest one here is that not all machines are created equal. There are some shitty machines out there. Like there are some horrible machines. So earlier I mentioned the pin loaded leg press. There is one pin loaded leg press that I think is good and I think it's that Arsenal Str. Is it Arsenal or Atlantis? I can never remember. Like the horizontal lying one. You know what I'm talking About.

Think Atlantis makes that one okay? Yeah.

I've never even used it, but it looks incredible because it clearly allows for you to get into a deep stretched position.

Right.

Almost all of the pin loaded leg presses I've ever used in my life never let me get into a deep, a deep squatting position.

Right.

Like they never allow for my, my, they just don't allow me to get into a deep stretch on my quads.

Right.

I always stop almost right at 90. It seems like even when I like do fancy things like adding yoga blocks there to like kind of make myself further away from the end range, I find that that can be really annoying. Also, some machines have the opposite force curve that you want.

Right.

So Danny boy was saying earlier, like your back is always going to be the weakest at the bottom position or at the top position when you're, when your arms are as close to your body as possible as a. For as opposed to as far away from your body as possible.

Right.

But some machines are set up in a way to where it's the lightest at the start of the movement and hardest at the end of the range of motion, which is bad through every argument. It's bad for loaded stretch being good. It's bad for even just matching the strength curve of a muscle with the resistance curve of a machine. And then I think shout out to Dr. Mike Isertel. The friction of a cable or of a machine, I do think is, can play a big impact on the machine's proficiency for muscle growth.

Right.

So if you have a cable that has a high degree of friction on it, Right. It's going to make the, the, the concentric portion of that exercise really hard, but it's going to make the eccentric portion of the exercise much easier.

Right.

Which I'm not super confident about this, but might is probably the opposite of what we want. Generally speaking, with hypertrophy, we kind of want to accentuate the eccentric and make it much harder. But if we use a cable with a high degree of friction.

Right.

And you'll know what I'm talking about when you use one because it's just, you'll immediately be like, oh, this feels terrible.

Right.

It's kind of almost like an intuitive thing. Do you have anything you want to add about particular cons of machines with respect to Nick, not all machines are created equal.

Yeah, I think you covered the main one. The, the cool thing about machines is that there's unlimited, you know, iteration. So you could technically create a machine that mimics free weights almost exactly like there's, there's some machines that I'm like, why does this exist? Because it like feels like a free weight where the handles move. I have to like stabilize myself. And it's still a machine, like clearly falls into the, I recognize it to be a machine category. But the way it's structured makes it so that it's pretty damn close to how a free weight feels. And then you have the other side of the spectrum where you can get like a super stable resistance curve is changing just how you want it and so on. So I think there's a whole spectrum of ways to screw up a machine and make it feel unnatural and not built to an individual. This is a super, super important one. There's some individuals that machines have to be built so that an average individual can use it with ease, but there's tons of people that don't fall into that bell curve that are either really short limbed or really long limbed that the typical machine wouldn't accommodate them. So tons of people that are either really short or really tall don't love using machines because of the fact that they don't allow them to get into the ranges of motion that they want to or because it's just super uncomfortable to be in there. So that's one definite con, even though it's not inherent to the machine, it's inherent to the fact that the manufacturer wants to please as many people as possible. So I think what I want to underline the most here is that if you can wave a magic wand and create the perfect machine for you, there's not a whole lot of cons. It's more about convenience and it fitting to you. But that's a big con because obviously you can't wave that magic wand. So there are definite cons, but the cons aren't inherent to the machine, if that makes sense.

Yeah, no, I think that's beautiful and I, that kind of actually reminded me as well with people not falling into bell, like perfect bell curves, right. Strength. So Danny Boy, for those of you who don't know, is strong as fuck. And we have a leg extension machine at Lehman that Danny Boy maxed out for like, I think 10 or 12 reps on his like first time using it.

Right.

Conversely, there are some machines that I've used, like some specifically with cables, I find that the lowest possible weight you can use is still really heavy for like a lot of movements. So it's just another example of how some machines can be kind of like not perfect in that regard either, being Way too light or way too heavy on average. So I think, and I think that was a really good point with like people falling into particular groups.

Yeah. On the freaking lateral raise. I went to this gym that it was just like ridiculous. I couldn't do a lateral raise on the lowest weight cuz it was just absurd.

20 pounds or something. Just ridiculous. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. Okay, any more cons specific to machines that you want to touch on?

That's good.

Yeah, I think we covered. I think we covered them for the most part. Okay. We were like, this is going to be such a short episode, man. What's wrong with us? Let's talk about why like kind of the big huge takeaway from here, which is this is a dumb question. That. This is a question that is signif. If someone asks me this question, I don't think the person's dumb, but it signifies to me that they don't understand the principles of hypertrophy training.

Right.

If you come to me and you ask me what's better, machines or free weights for lifting, I immediately assume, okay, let's start from square one here. Let's, let's not answer that question, but let's start from square one and tell them what does matter when picking exercises? Because this all comes down to exercise selection.

Right.

What do you think are the things that people should be considering when picking an exercise, when doing exercise selection that's not free weights versus machines.

Yeah. So I think the question almost should be framed as what creates the best stimulus for you and regardless of category.

Right.

So is that exercise stable enough where the target muscle is the reason why you're stopping that exercise? Is that exercise comfortable for you that you can load it over time where your joints don't get cranky? Are you getting decent to great mind muscle connection with that exercise and leaving the gym? Like you really feel like you disrupted that target muscle and is it targeting the ranges of motion that you're specifically trying to target? If you're trying to get 70% of your exercises to be hardest in the lengthened position and 30% of your exercises to be harder in the mid to shortened position, are you able to do that adequately and get the most quality volume over that session and over the week in a way that fits into what you specifically feel that you respond to on an acute basis and on a chronic basis, and regardless of whether that's done with a machine or a free weight doesn't really matter all that much. And layer on convenience, layer on what you have available to you. And so on, and create the best program that you can with what's available to you and what makes sense in your schedule rather than trying to focus. Like, I think what would be a really, really horrible idea is I need 50% free weights and 50% machines, because I want to get a good mix of both. Categorizing them like that, it's going to create a weird thing where you're not focusing on the stimulus at all. You're focusing on an arbitrary cutoff. Where we talked about earlier is not even that clear where the delineation is. So focus more on things that we know to be important for the hypertrophy stimulus rather than where it fits on the category of free weight versus machine.

Yeah, I. Wow.

Beautifully said, bro, as always. And keep in mind, again, almost always, unless we specify otherwise, we're talking about muscle growth on this podcast, on this episode, just in general, if you ever meet me and you ask me a question, I'm going to answer it. With respect to muscle growth, when we're picking an exercise with the goal of muscle growth, the only thing we care about, right? Outside of, of course, the obvious of enjoyment and all of that, does this exercise place tension on the muscle that we want to grow and is the limiting factor of that exercise, the muscle that we want to grow?

Right.

And this changes. This goes beyond just exercise selection. Rep ranges also can have an impact on this as well. But just repeat. With respect to exercise selection, if I do a barbell back squat, this is personal. This is an anecdote. Don't take this as. As data. If I do a barbell back squat, my quads are not the thing that's going to preclude me from finishing that exercise. My lower back probably is, right? If I do a leg press, the thing that's going to preclude me from finishing that set is my quads and nothing else except for maybe whatever psychological trauma that I might be going through doing leg presses, right? So regardless of if it's a machine, regardless of if it's a cable, regardless if it's a pseudo machine, like a landmine, for instance, the only thing we care about is, is the thing that's causing that set to stop that's causing you to fail, is it the muscle that we want to grow? And then once we have that answered, who cares about machines versus free weights anymore? Then you can start sprinkling things. Like, we have to make sure that this isn't hurting your joints, right? So that that kind of plays into, like, if I'm doing A. Let's say a leaning lateral raise as opposed to a cable lateral raise with the cable the height of my hand. Technically, the resistance curve is very similar. The hardest part is the lengthened position. But the reason that I'm stopping that dumbbell lateral raise set is because my rotator cuff is screaming at me, begging me to stop the exercise as opposed to on a cable. My lateral delt is so pumped up and miserable that I'm literally not able to produce force anymore.

Right.

You have anything to add there? Or any caveats?

Perfect.

Cool.

Um, yeah. So I. I think we're good. I think that the big take the. If you take nothing else away from. From this podcast, one constant tension is not a thing with cables. I'm joking. The really the big thing is that like, exercise selection should be predicated on how does it feel on your muscle and is it something that like, do. Do you enjoy it? Is the thing causing this set to end your muscle and does it feel okay on your joints?

Right.

That's generally if you got those three things covered.

The.

The rest of the minutiae does not really matter in my personal opinion, outside of. Of. Of some specific cases. Obviously. Anything you want to touch on. Perfect.

Perfectly said.

Sweet.

Good work.

Cool. So let's real quick. Machines, great for allowing for more isolation, can be a lot more time efficient and can allow you to kind of like manipulate gravity in a way to allow different portions of an exercise to be more or less difficult.

Right.

Free weights, very consistent, gym to gym, almost always built somewhat identical to one another.

Right.

As opposed to machines where some are good, some are bad, and can be really motivating for a lot of individuals to use.

Right.

But ultimately, regardless of if it's a machine or a free weight, that's not what we care about when we're choosing an exercise. We care about the muscle and the joints surrounding that muscle and how it feels for an individual.

Right.

As always, thank you guys so much for listening to the Built With Science podcast. Please let us know if you have any questions regarding this episode and leave a comment down below or reach out to us @builtwithscience on Instagram if you want us to cover a different topic moving forward. Peace.