While I personally like training with free weights, I also do a lot of functional and strength training with body weight as well as the TRX suspension training system. However, I wouldn’t say that free weights are overall better to train with. You have to take a variety of factors into consideration. Free weights are great for athletic training and building stabilizer muscles. Or in other words the other muscles that are necessary to do a given exercise. Say for instance a chest press. If a chest press is performed with a barbell or dumbbells, the weights can move in all planes of motion and so a lot of smaller muscle groups are engaged to keep the weights in position. Whereas with a chest press machine, the weights can usually only move in one plane of motion, the sagital plane, or simply put, out and back. For beginners, people without much coordination, or someone recovering from an injury, I think weight machines are much safer. Everything has it’s place, and since the body likes change, it’s great to mix things up by incorporating all types of training modalities.
Melissa Allen, BS, CPT, CES. Please visit my website at http://www.optimumcondition.org/fitness-center/mission.html
