The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Gym question: why is it that online gym experts always recommend bench press, squats and deadlifts over any of the other machines in the weights room?
My gym is relatively empty when I go in the middle of the work day, I see a trainer once a week and go one other time (and do pilates on another day, guys I’m trying here). I say this because the reason he has me doing machines doesn’t appear to be that the bench press rack is always busy or something. I can do all three of the above exercises (with embarrassingly low weights, but still). But he almost always has me doing other stuff, particularly for legs where we do leg extensions and leg press and just do some squats at the end. For arms and back we usually use cables(?) (I don’t know what it’s called but it looks like this).
So is my trainer just a schmuck who knows nothing and should be putting me on the basic 5x5 or whatever? Are gym owners idiots for spending all this money on machines when all the weights room needs is squat racks, benches and free weights? Or do they do so solely for the unenlightened who don’t know that squats and deadlifts are all you need? Enlighten me.
Probably efficiency of some combination of time and learning curve as those exercises hit a bunch of muscle groups, and build a foundation to transition to other exercises later on. I often skimp on leg exercises altogether as they make no difference to my attractiveness unlike big arms, capped delts, and 3D traps (strength/dominance signals that chicks love).
A common argument for free weights, especially dumbbells instead of barbells when relevant, is stabilizer recruitment and operating in a 3D as opposed to 2D plane. However, personally, I'm not convinced stabilizer recruitment is a plus, as it just means more imprecise targeting of muscles. What I like about free-weights (especially dumbbells) is the increased range of motion and greater flexibility in defining the start point, end point, and traveling path of the exercise. Using machines can be pretty awkward relative to free weights once the weights get heavy enough.
Another argument for dumbbells is symmetry, which I agree with. With barbells and machines oftentimes peoples' dominant sides are leading their weak sides. It's harder to cheat with dumbbells in this manner. Safety can also be a concern. It's generally easier to bail out of exercises with heavy weights using dumbbells than barbells.
I think this depends on your objectives: if your goal is to maximize something very specific like bicep size or a very specific motion for a sport (I've heard of swimmers doing some particularly funky lifts to recreate specific stroke mechanics), you are probably right. But for a random person looking for "fitness", those stabilizer muscles kick in for plenty of real-life scenarios: when you have to awkwardly lift something, or stumble on uneven terrain. When I lift I want stability because I'm really training for other sports, but your mileage may vary.
For anyone either unfit or inexperienced, really any (non-injuring, gradually ramped up) work is good.
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