Are free weights or machines better for building muscle?

If you want to learn more about the pros and cons of free weights and machines and which is better for building muscle, then this is the article for you.

Here is a brief summary:

1. Exercises performed with free weights activate more muscle mass than exercises performed on machines, which makes them better for building muscle in the long run.
2. Machine exercises can be helpful when it comes to building up muscle groups that are lagging behind in their development.
3. To get the best possible results, you should do most of your training with free weights and use machines to help grow stubborn muscles.

Go to any gym and you will always see the same thing. Most people are gathered around machines like butterfly, deadlifts and cable curl machines. Then there's a minority of people who stick to the flat bench, squat rack and dumbbells.

And if you ask these two groups why they train the way they do, they'll both give you reasonable-sounding answers.

Some will say that machines are better when it comes to training individual muscle groups such as pecs, biceps and triceps. They will also tell you that machines are safer than free weights.

Those in the other camp will say that free weights are better for building full body strength and will give you more value for your efforts and that training machines can't hold a candle to free weights in any respect.

Which side should you listen to?

Well, the short answer is that if you want to build muscle as quickly, safely and efficiently as possible, you should use free weights for the majority of your training. However, this doesn't mean that machines are useless - and you'll usually make faster progress if you use both machines and free weights.

By the end of this article, you will know the difference between free weights and machines, the pros and cons of both training methods and how you can benefit from the advantages of both training styles.

Let's start at the beginning.

What is the difference between machines and free weights?

There is no definitive definition of what is considered a "machine exercise" and what is considered a "free weights exercise", but in general, people differentiate these exercises in the following ways:

A machine exercise gives you a fixed range of motion where you only have to focus on pressing the weight.

The bench press machine is a good example of this. On this machine, the handles move along a fixed path and all you have to do is press. Machine exercises usually require specialized training machines like a bicep curl machine, or can be as simple as a handle attached to a cable.

An exercise performed with free weights is an exercise that forces you to control the direction of a weight as you move it, using many other muscles to move the weight in the right direction.

The bench press is a good example of this. In this exercise, you use stabilizing muscles in your shoulders, back and legs to push the bar in the right direction, with your legs and chest muscles doing the lion's share of the actual pushing of the weight.

Most free weight exercises utilize dumbbells and barbells, but this category of exercise can also include the use of kettlebells, sandbags, medicine balls or other equipment.

There is some area of overlap between exercises using free weights and machines, but there are also some key differences that make free weights superior.

Why aren't machines usually as good as free weights?

Talk to any group of exercisers with several years of training experience and 99% of them will tell you that free weights are better than machines. And for the most part, they're right.

Free weights generate more muscle activation (1), which means they usually activate more muscle growth (2). For example, classic squats performed with a barbell produce 43% more muscle activation than squats on the multi press (3).

This means that you use more total muscle mass with each repetition of an exercise with free weights than you would with a machine exercise.

Barbell squats, one of the most common free weight exercises for leg training, work your quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, calves, back and even your abs. A machine exercise for the quadriceps such as leg extensions is good for training the quadriceps, but it hardly trains any other muscles.

Overall, you'll get more for your time in the gym if you focus on heavy multi-joint exercises performed with free weights, such as barbell squats, deadlifts, standing shoulder presses and bench presses.

Free weights also have the advantage that they will always be the same no matter where you train. Barbells and dumbbells in the USA are exactly the same as their counterparts in Germany or anywhere else in the world.

Machines, on the other hand, are more specialized. One manufacturer's leg extension machine may feel different than another manufacturer's leg extension machine, and that can make it hard for you to gauge your progress if you change gyms frequently.

For the same reasons, free weights are a better option for an at-home workout. You can effectively train every muscle in your body with a barbell, a few weight plates and some dumbbells. This is not possible with machines.

To equip a home gym you will need a larger amount of machines, which will cost a lot more and take up a lot more space than free weights.

So if you had to choose between training exclusively with free weights or machines, you should opt for free weights.

The good news, however, is that you don't have to.

Good reasons to use machines

Despite their drawbacks, it's wise to incorporate a few machine exercises into your training program. Some muscle groups are difficult to train with free weights, with calves being one of the most well-known examples.

Sure, you can do calf raises with barbells, but it will be very difficult to perform this exercise efficiently when you start using heavier weights. The calves respond best to a combination of calf exercises with bent and extended legs, both of which are easier to perform with machines.

Take seated calf raises as an example. Would you rather use a machine or put a heavy barbell on your thighs? I would bet that you would prefer the calf machine.

Another benefit of machine exercises is that they can be useful for training muscle groups that are lagging behind in their development. As you've just learned, machine exercises don't involve as many muscle groups as free weight exercises.

Normally this is a bad thing, but what if you want to focus on a specific muscle group? This is where machines can come in handy.

Let's say you've already done several heavy sets of bench presses and your arms and shoulders are already completely finished. You feel like your chest could use a little more volume, so you head over to the chest press machine and do a few more sets.

Or maybe your chest is already completely exhausted and you want to train your arms a little more. In this case, you could do a few more bicep curls or some tricep presses after the bench press.

Here are a few more examples of how you could use machines to train muscle groups that are lagging behind in their development:

• Use leg presses or leg extensions on the machine after squats to target your quadriceps.
• After bench presses, use machine chest presses or butterflies to target your chest.
• After deadlifts, use lat pulldowns or the scott curl machine to target your back and biceps.

How much time should you spend training on machines?

You know that you should spend most of your training time with free weights. You also know that machines can be helpful for training your lagging muscle group. So when should you train with free weights and how often should you use machines?

Well, there's nothing wrong with jumping right into the deep end with free weights from the start. In fact, some of the best workout programs for beginners like Starting Strength are based on barbell exercises.

If you don't feel ready to start with barbells and dumbbells, you can still make rapid progress with machines at the beginning of your workout. You can use the following table as a rough guide to how much time you should spend with machines and free weights.

Training experience	% of time with machines	% of time with free weights
0 to 1 month	80%	20%
1 to 2 months	60%	40%
2 to 3 months	40%	60%
3 months and after	20 to 30%	70 to 80%

Start your training sessions with several sets of free weight exercises such as squats so that you can work on your technique before you get tired.

Once you feel confident enough with a free weight exercise, you can replace some of your machine exercises with more free weight training. Keep doing this until you are doing 70 to 80% of your training with free weights.

The best machine exercises for building muscle

In most cases, the question of which machines to use will answer itself based on what is available and your preferences.

Typically, you should prioritize machine exercises that involve as many muscles as possible. Chest presses on the machine, for example, will work more muscles than butterflys.

However, as long as you perform most of your exercises with free weights, it doesn't matter which machine exercises you use. Pick a few exercises that target the muscle groups you're most interested in growing, get as strong as you can on those exercises, and swap them out for other exercises once you reach a plateau.

If you're putting together a training program, here are a few good machine exercises to get you started:

• Chest
• Chest press on the machine
• Chest press on the cable
• Flying movements on the machine
• Butterflys
• Back:
• Machine rowing
• T-bar rowing
• Lat pulldown
• Shoulders:
• Shoulder press sitting on the machine
• Lateral raises on the cable pulley
• Side raises on the machine
• Biceps:
• Scott curls on the machine
• One-arm cable curls
• Cable curls with a straight bar
• Cable curls with a rope handle
• Triceps:
• Dips machine
• Tricep presses with a rope handle
• Tricep presses on the cable with a straight bar
• Quadriceps:
• Squats on the multi press
• Hackenschmidt squats on the multi press
• Leg presses
• Leg extensions
• Leg curls:
• Lying leg curls
• Sitting leg curls
• Calves:
• Calf raises standing on the machine
• Calf raises sitting on the machine
• Gluteus:
• Leg presses
• Squats on the multi press
• Hackenschmidt squats on the multi press
• Butt blaster machine

The bottom line on free weights vs. machines

If you take all factors into consideration, exercises with free weights are better than machines. They activate more muscles with each repetition, which leads to more muscle growth in the long run.

However, you don't have to choose one or the other. Machine exercises can be helpful for training lagging muscle groups - especially arms, shoulders and calves.

If you want to build as much muscle as possible, then you should use machines for the majority of your training and use them strategically to work on the muscle groups that you want or need to grow the most.

References:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11528346
2. https://www.muscleforlife.com/guide-to-muscle-hypertrophy-muscle-growth/
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19855308/

Source: https://www.muscleforlife.com/are-free-weights-better-than-machines/

From: Armistead Legge