What happens the first time you go to a gym? You may get a bit overwhelmed. To your right, there are exercise bikes, steppers, elliptical machines. You look forward and see a room full or barbells, dumbbells, and benches at assorted angles. Then, you glance to your left. There you see a huge room filled with various sizes and configurations. Now where does one begin? What should one do? And, how much should you do?

We can not cover all these answers in an article, it would take, at least, a book. We will just compare working out with free weights, with working out with machines. This will give you an idea of how old I am. The first gym I went to was in the basement of The Boy s Club of Pittsburgh. In that basement, we had two machines. One was a rather primitive looking lat machine. It was made of some steel bars welded together. On top, there were two fairly large pulley wheels. It was held to the wooden floor with four huge bolts. Using it, you had to kneel with your knees wrapped under a steel t-shaped bar, which was also heavily bolted to the floor. The other machine was a leg press. To use it, You would lie flat back on the floor. Then you would push straight up with your legs. Your back and legs were at a 90 degree angle. But, that was old school.

Somewhere in the late 60 s or early 70 s, the new revolution came to the scene. This was the Nautilus exercise machines. They were new and shiny and pretty. Much research went into developing these new machines. Nautilus was designed for each machine to do one exercise. Each machine one covered one range of muscular movement and contraction, isolating one particular muscle. The design had less chance of someone getting injured, because of the very strict, controlled, movement.

Soon, Nautilus gyms began appearing. The Nautilus proponents said it was the safest and best way to build muscle. They got bodybuilders ( these bodybuilders were already muscled up on free weights ) to promote this new style of working out. But the machines were huge and very expensive. After a while, it was rare, to see a gym loaded with just Nautilus equipment.

Over the years , new machines came along. They had different manufacturers, and did not take up as much room, and cost less. Any gym has a variety of this equipment in house, nowadays.

But which is better? Machines are definitely safer. You can isolate a particular muscle or group when using it. But a machine has a limited range of motion. This range is, sometimes, not natural all the way through the movement. They do work. Free weights have worked from the beginning of this type of exercise. Working with free weights, especially dumbbells, allows for freer, natural, range of motion. This is better for strengthening all muscles in an area, rather than isolating one muscle. This also opens the lifter up to a greater chance of injury.

The best answer is to use both. Use free weights, and free weight exercises as your first source of building more muscle on your body. But do not neglect machines, if they are available to you. Augment your workouts with machines.

Written by John Markus at http://www.feelmorelife.com John had been a pharmacist for 33 years. His wife has type I diabetes. Also, his eight year old granddaughter has diabetes. He and his family have been dealing with these type of problems for a long time. Tough at times, but successfully in end. John has been studying nutrition and exercise, and their effects on the body and medical conditions. His studies have been going on for over 30 years.

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