The Most Functional Machine at the Gym: Your Body

I train clients around town at some of the "globo-gyms".  They serve a purpose for me and my clients quite well but still seem to irritate me.  My irritation lies in the fact that most of the useable floor space is eaten up by a plethora of weight machines, contraptions that lock an exerciser in very "artificial" body positions.  The machine manufacturers have done a good job marketing these products making everyone feel as if these are exactly what they need.  The exercise description is right there in front of your face somewhere on the machine, and heck, it even shows you what muscles you're working.  I get it.....It's a gym owner's dream, they are generally safe and easy to use if you can figure out how to sit in the damn thing (perfect for a minimally staffed 24 hour operation).

Here's the problem - their design does not replicate real world movement.  You are in a fixed position generally singling out one major muscle group. Paul Chek of the C.H.E.K. Institute in California has this to say about machines, "Machines in general are one-dimensional.  They guide movement such that the body need not stabilize its own joints.  This leads to over-development of prime movers relative to stabilizers." [I took that from his course, "Equal But Not the Same"].  He makes a great point here.  They are designed to primarily strengthen the prime mover muscle for the particular exercise.  The movement path is fixed by the machine's structure.  The body does not need to rely on what are known as the stabilizer muscles.  Personally, I got to know my shoulders stabilizer muscles real quick when I attempted my first overhead squat in a CrossFit Foundations Class.  The overhead squat depends greatly on shoulder girdle flexibility but you must also have strong stabilizer muscular recruitment to keep that bar solid and fixed in that overhead position.  If that bar wavers forward or backward even an inch, you have to bail.

Strengthening these stabilizer/"helper" muscles are a must.  When we get out recreationally or on the job in the real world, we use our bodies as a complete unit, muscles working synergistically together.  If I have weak stabilizers, I open up the potential for injury and that may hurt, and I don't like pain - I try to stay away from that.

I realize some machines allow more free motion than others, but speaking generally, machines are designed as a one size fits all.  And, we know that everyone is not the same size plus our bodies move in different ranges of motion.  The point here is to get you focusing on the machine that is your body and training it to move.  Here's an example:  you're a mom who is about to pick up your child from the stroller and place him in his car seat.  In this real world movement, you bend to deadlift the child out of the stroller, twist with the torso, and press the child into the fixed car seat.  These are functional movements that you can definitely strengthen in a gym setting so that they are strong and familiar in you real life.  
If you are able to, and most of you are unless you are rehabilitating an injury or a paid bodybuilder, ditch the machines and favor body-weight movements and multi-joint movements with weights.  These allow you to move the body in multiple planes of motion (just like real life!) and you burn more calories if you are trying to lose a few LBs.  As always, SAFETY FIRST..... If you don't know how to properly move your body through common exercises, hire a trainer or have a friend show you some basic movements.  Exercise is more fun with someone else anyways, and it will give you an accountability partner.  Have fun