Exercise Machines Suck!

Discover The 5 Reasons Why Exercise Machines Are A Waste Of Time

In today's day and age we live in a technology dependent society.
Almost everything we do revolves around some kind of mechanical or
electrical device. This includes what just about everyone looks for in
a gym. If you're like most, when you walk into a fitness center, you
usually look for the amount of equipment or how many resistance
training machines there are on the exercise floor. "Is there a machine
for my chest, back legs, arms etc..." This has been the biggest
indicator when clarifying a gym's effectiveness. Well, being that our
population's obesity epidemic is spreading world wide, and fitness
levels have dramatically declined in the past twenty five years or so,
I think it's time to re-evaluate and determine what went wrong.

It has been during the past twenty five to thirty years when our
obesity problem really started to take off. And due to the fact that
our society has always been in search for the 'quick fix', exercise
really started to take off as well. Since exercise was "in", and we
desire the "magic solution, resistance training machine companies are
heavily marketing their equipment. I hate to break it to you, but when
it comes to getting healthy and more physically fit, nothing will
yield better results than hard work, dedication, and motivation; not
gimmicks or machines. Machines actually are an inferior method of
exercise.

It's time to go back to our roots and look like we did hundreds of
years ago. When you think about it, humans have always done some form
of activity, and we have always been obsessed with strength and
physique. So my question to you is did we have machines hundreds of
years ago? My next question is as a whole, who looked better as a
population, us now or mankind hundreds of years ago?

Now I'm not saying exercise machines are useless, everything has its
place, but I can come up with a couple of dozen reasons why exercise
machines are not optimally efficient. Instead of boring you anymore
than I already have I'll provide you with my top five.

Here we go:

1.) Exercise machines are NOT an optimal form of exercise for most.
Exercise machines are great for isolating specific muscles (i.e. - the
standard leg extension machine for the quads), but because exercise
machines are anchored to the ground, your stabilizer muscles (muscle
that surround your joints and protect them from injury), do NOT get
developed. Exercise machines do not allow you to stabilize the weight
you are lifting in three dimensions, and since daily activities such
as work and athletics do require you to use these important muscles
(the stabilizers), exercise machines are an inferior method of
exercise

2.) Exercise machines are NOT ideal to improve posture. Over the years
in the fitness industry, I have seen an incredible amount of people
that have poor posture. This includes forward head, rounded shoulders,
flat lower backs, and other misalignment in spinal curvature. This is
due to the lack of strength in postural muscles, making it hard to
fight gravity, and since gravity is almost impossible to escape, those
who can't fight gravity efficiently will almost always have poor
posture. By performing exercise on machines your body does not have to
fight gravity, and on most traditional gym equipment your body doesn't
have to stabilize itself. However, by performing exercise in a prone,
upright, or supine position, you can engage and load postural muscles
to help with fight gravity, resulting in better posture.

3.) Exercise machines are just flat out BORING! I can remember a
couple of years ago when I worked at a large health club filled with
fancy ground based machines, I would sit and watch people go through
their work outs. One day I saw a gentleman working on the chest press
machine. It was hilarious. He actually appeared to be falling asleep.
I mean yawn after yawn during repetitions. I think if the guy was on a
lying leg press he may have actually dozed off.

Now let's analyze that situation. If he were on a flat bench
performing dumbbell chest presses, do you think he would have been in
that state of mind? Only if he wanted a nose job by dropping the
dumbbells on his face. I have in the past and still do observe
exercisers on the free weight floor. What I see is always a look of
determination, motivation, and enthusiasm. My point here is that by
participating in a free weight, non-machine based program, it not only
forces you to concentrate and work harder, but it's more fun, and the
feeling of accomplishment is far superior than just going through the
motions on exercise machines.

4.) Exercise machines CANNOT improve balance or stability. As I stated
earlier, ground based exercise machines DO NOT require the use of your
stabilizer muscles. These muscles not only protect your joints, but
they also are responsible for your ability to stabilize and balance.
Instead, try to incorporate some non-traditional methods of exercise
like the use of a stability ball, or balancing on one leg, or doing
some low level plyometrics. These types of exercises are extremely
beneficial to increasing balance, stability, and agility. No machine
can give you any of these qualities by itself.

5.) You can mimic any exercise machine exercise without the machine
and get the same benefits plus a lot more. Every exercise machine that
is on the market today has been developed based on movements that the
human body does naturally. With that being said, you can perform any
exercise machine exercise without the use of an actual exercise
machine. The chest press machine is essentially a bench press, the leg
press machine is a squatting motion, the rowing machine (you know the
one for your back muscles) can be done with free weights, and the list
goes on and on. But the catch is that when you do these movements with
body weight or free weights you get all the same benefits plus the
development of balance, stability, and definitely more calories
burned. Let's not forget that when you perform body weight or free
weight based movements, you will always engage you core muscles.

I don't know about you, but if I have my choice I'm sure you can guess
what it is. That's right good old fashioned body weight, free weight,
or other non - machine based movements. Now, it's important to realize
that I'm not saying that exercise machines are useless, but would you
rather work out for hours at a time with boring exercise equipment, or
would you like to get more bang for your buck by getting more out of
one exercise like a squat, some form of a press, a rowing motion, a
lunging motion, or even a twisting, or bending motion? Instead of
using one to two dozen boring exercise machines all you have to do is
have fun while incorporating the six movements I just mentioned and
you'll be well on your way to achieving your fitness goals more
efficiently and faster than ever before.

_By: *Jason Zaretzky*_

*About the Author:*

Jason Zaretzky is Owner and Program Director of Optimal Performance
Training Center, a Sports training facility located in Rockland County
NY. He specializes in Athletic performance training for athlete
ranging from the pee-wee to the professional. To learn more about
Jason and Optimal Performance, visit
http://www.rocklandsportstraining.com [1]

Links:
------
[1] http://www.rocklandsportstraining.com/