07 Machines vs. Free Weights vs. Body Weight

In Episode 7 of the Inform Fitness Podcast, Adam Zickerman, Mike Rogers, Sheila Melody and Tim Edwards discusses the pros and cons of high-intensity strength training with free weights versus machine weights versus your own body weight.  You will learn more about the type of equipment you can expect to use with your very own personal trainer at Inform Fitness.To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.comIf you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to [email protected]. You can join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+bookIlf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at [email protected] transcription to this episode is below:07 Working Out with Machine vs. Free vs. Body Weights - TranscriptIntro:You’re listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that’s so effective, you’d get a week’s worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1.InForm Nation, thanks for being with us once again. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network. We have Sheila. We have Mike. And we have Adam, the founder of InForm Fitness and New York Times best-selling author of Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. That's what this show is all about, supercharging your metabolism, increasing your cardiovascular endurance and getting you leaner and stronger to enjoy your health and your life to the fullest.In today's episode we'll discuss working out with free weights versus machine weights versus your own body weight and the equipment you can expect to see when becoming a member of InForm Nation. Mike, let's start with you. Give us a quick rundown on the type of equipment InForm Fitness uses to support the Power of 10.In regards to the machines versus the free weight versus body weight, you know, InForm Fitness, here in New York, we have the Rolls Royce set up here as Adam said many times before and all of the locations in California, Virginia, etcetera. Our machines, they're outstanding. They're made by Nautilus. They're made by MedX and they're all retrofitted for our style of weight training to accommodate for the strength curves of the body.I never knew what a strength curve until I got certified and went through all this, you know, information. Basically, it's like when you start out a movement, like what Mike just said, you know, you go through this movement in the muscle group that your isolating. At the start of it you're normally a little weaker and then there's a point in that movement that you're the strongest and then there becomes another point where it's weaker. And what we want to do is stimulate that strongest part of the movement. So, if you're in the middle of this, you know, compound row and in the middle of it where you're strongest you can do 150 pounds but at the back you can't or at the very beginning it -- the equipment allows for the resistance to fall off where your strength curve is the weaker part and then you get that -- the best stimulus in the middle of it. If that [crosstalk 02:59].And this cannot be accomplished, I'm sure, with free weights or regular machines that you would see at a conventional gym.There are tricks. You can simulate cams on free weights if you know how to use them properly. Like a lateral raise, you wouldn't be standing straight up. You lean to the side while you did a lateral raise, you actually in effect create a cam that's proper and congruent. So, if you know what you're doing, if you understand the limitations of free weights and how to work around them, you can have a very intense and safe workout.One thing that I think we overemphasize that people give more importance in, is actually needed is this thing, this concept called full range of motion. That we need to go through a full range of motion and some people in the older generation might remember this but there used to be, you know, a protocol called statics or isometric training and that's where you don't move at all. They don't go through any range of motion at all. You just fatigue the muscle just by pushing and using the muscle in a stationary position but pushing as hard as you can until it exhausts and you got good results from doing statics or isometrics.The range of motion for a lot of situations in trying to maximize that range of motion can end up being a very dangerous situation. When you're at the extremes of the range of motion, those are the most vulnerable parts of the muscle, the most stretched position. That's where things tear and go a little and get really dangerous. I like to stay right in that midrange and if unless you have specialized equipment, you should stay in that midrange and avoid the extremes. Only with retrofitted equipment where the machine makes it actually lighter where we're right in our most vulnerable and weakest positions. So, the weight is not being taken over by the connective tissue because the muscle can't handle it all right in that position.So, that's why we retrofit our machines and we do get a little bit more range of motion using machines like that. But again, I'm -- I don't really care about maximum range of motion. It doesn't matter. You can strengthen a muscle group or single muscle by just working it really deeply in a static position. In its strongest position. In the middle position.I think, you know, Adam I think one of the best examples of that is the leg extension because of all the controversy and all studies and all of the, you know, it's -- over the last -- as long as I've been a trainer there's been a lot of news articles and studies that said the leg extension is absolutely the worst machine and one of the most dangerous machines in the gym and the thing is -- well, the question is, how are you doing the study? How are they doing the exercise? How is the leg extension set up?And, you know, for example, our -- you know, Adam can describe probably the best exactly the alignment of the seat and how it drops off at the top and you know to -- I mean where if he doesn't do that, if you are going through a fuller range of motion, you are putting your knee in a lot of jeopardy at a regular gym versus at -- our leg extension makes that accommodation if you're going to a fuller range of motion but as Adam just sort of stated, it's and often in many cases, it's not necessary to do so.A leg extension is a rotary movement. The rotary movements are more challenging for free weights and the le...