Kettlebells vs. Weight Machines

This blog was inspired by one of my favorite bands, Rage Against the Machine.  They use their music as a platform to speak out against social injustices and political corruption.  I’m not here to preach my political views, but I’d like to share my views and experiences on machine based training.

I remember the first time I joined a gym, it was the gym my dad belonged to, and it was full of blue and green nautilus equipment.  You basically went it, did your line of machines, maybe hit the treadmill and then left.  Each machine had several different adjustments and some machines even had seat belts.  I thought that was odd because I wasn’t driving anywhere, why did I need a seat belt?  Safety first I guess.  An educated guess would suggest that the use of seat belts on a gym machine would prevent you from completely wrenching your back during an overhead press or leg extension.  However, if that was the idea behind using a seat belt, then something was fundamentally wrong with the machine.  I shouldn’t have to strap myself down like I’m getting ready for lift off just to prevent injury.

Alright so I’m buckled in and either seated or laying down and ready to use a muscle group or two to move a pad or platform in a single plane of motion.  This is a site all too common in gyms across the country and something I’ve seen and experienced in big gyms I’ve been a member of and worked at.  So what’s my beef with all these machines???

My beef is multi-layered.  The average person sits way too much and develops all sorts of imbalances from doing so, particularly bad posture and a sedentary lifestyle.  All this sitting and lying down is a great way to conserve energy, but what if weight loss is your goal?  Well if weight loss is your goal, then you need to get up and move, plain and simple.

Let’s take a look at two different exercises for your legs, the leg extension and the squat.  In the leg extension you are seated (maybe even buckled in) and resting against a backing of some sort.  You flex your quads, straighten out your knees, and repeat.  In a free standing squat, front or back squat, you first have to engage your core to stabilize whatever weight you are holding.  In order to sit down into a proper squat you must move at the hips, knees, and ankles all while maintaining good posture (core engaged).  Your nervous system and feet also work together to produce the right amount of force to push back against the ground in order to stand back up.  It seems pretty obvious to me that you expend more energy in a squat than you do on a machine because of all the different muscle groups working together as opposed to working just one muscle group.

How about the functionality of these two exercises?  Have you ever seen anyone in any athletic contest sit down on the ground and start doing leg extensions?  Probably not, but I bet you’ve seen people jump before.  Jump for a rebound, a header in soccer, save a home run, or even the high jump.  Squats will help train all of these movements because they all start from pushing off the ground!

 Sitting or lying down on a machine also prevents you from really engaging your core, which will help you brace your spine and prevent injury.  Engaging your core properly will also allow you to build more tension, which in turn generates more force so you can safely move heavier weight.  Let’s take a look at two more exercises, the machine shoulder press and kettlebell overhead press.

In the machine press you are seated and possibly buckled into the machine.  You press the weight over your head and the machine helps guide you back to your starting position.  There’s no real emphasis on engaging your glutes (to protect your lower back) and you’re locked into a single plane of motion.  In the kettlebell overhead press the movement actually starts by tensing the legs and midsection (tension = force) especially the glutes.  Try squeezing your glutes while sitting down and then try while standing up, you should feel a huge difference.  You do not have a seat or backing to support you so your core must engage to safely press the kettlebell.  Before the overhead press has even started you’ve already recruited a whole bunch of other muscle groups to perform this exercise safely.  As you press the kettlebell over head from the rack position you will also notice your shoulder externally rotating, you are now working in different planes of motion.  In order to return the kettlebell to the rack position you have to carefully guide it back down, this trains the eccentric phase of the movement and recruits the pulling muscles (lats, biceps, and forearms).  Although both exercises place the emphasis on the shoulder, the kettlebell overhead press is so much more efficient that it just seems silly to train on a machine.

If you want to lose weight, enhance your athletic performance, or get an awesome workout DO NOT sit down and work one muscle group at a time.  Take action, get up and move!

“That when I say go, go, go

Amp up and amplify

Defy

I’m a brother with a furious mind

Action must be taken

We don’t need the key

We’ll break in

Something must be done

About vengeance, a badge and a gun

‘Cause I’ll rip the mike, rip the stage, rip the system

I was born to rage against ‘em.” – Rage Against the Machine