33 replies to this topic

[TheFountain]

A lot of 'bro's' say they we MUST work those stabilizers in every single Gym visit and that Machines are useless! 

 

Useless, really? I think this is a gross oversimplification of machines.

 

One of my buddies at the local fitness center says machines definitely build muscle, and you can "get big" on them, but that it "isn't functional muscle because you're not recruiting the stabies". 

 

But I have been considering this for a little while and upon my reflections I have come to the following question.

 

1-Did our ancestors work their stabilizers to this degree? And if so how? And they worked them through every day activities, like carrying things and walking/running then 

 

2-Wouldn't this mean we work our stabilizers in the same fashion, while moving through the natural world of the modern jungle, and therefor we do not need to overly recruit them at the gym? 

 

Finally, would this mean the muscles we build using machines and assisted equipment, like smith machines, is still functional muscle because of the way we naturally recruit our stabilizers every day?

 

Edited by TheFountain, 04 May 2014 - 01:28 AM.

[Jeoshua]

You need to work on your core and stabilizers because otherwise you could get hurt, lifting a weight that is too big. It's as simple as that. No medical reason. No paleo mythology. Just safety and proper form.

[TheFountain]

You need to work on your core and stabilizers because otherwise you could get hurt, lifting a weight that is too big. It's as simple as that. No medical reason. No paleo mythology. Just safety and proper form.

That does not address the primary question.

 

Do we work our stabilizers doing every day movements? Lifting things? Moving furniture? Carrying groceries? 

[Jeoshua]

Yes. We do. Whenever we lift things and hold them stable.

[TheFountain]

Yes. We do. Whenever we lift things and hold them stable.

 

Then apparently we do not need to excessively work the stabilizers at the Gym but only in natural movements.

 

One must also question if we are meant to work them excessively. 

 

Perhaps these limits are why steroids are constantly abused. 

 

Our ancestors did not have steroids to push past their limits, or ruin their health. 

[Nattzor]

 

That does not address the primary question.

 

Do we work our stabilizers doing every day movements? Lifting things? Moving furniture? Carrying groceries? 

 

 

We work all muscles in the normal life, it's only a question if we work them enough. Compare doing heavy shit all day long vs moving furniture once a month, carrying 5 kg in each arm (carrying groceries), etc. People today don't move enough nor do heavy work. So no, just "every day movements" is not enough.

[Jeoshua]

The reason that the stabilizers are recommended to be worked out at the gym is that you are lifting heavy weights that will require stronger stabilizers. You can't lift a couch for two seconds to vacuum under it and expect that has prepared you for a 150 lbs bench press. Carrying groceries does not prepare you for a dead lift.

Like I said, if you don't work them out you could hurt yourself in the gym. You have been warned. Twice.

Don't look for shortcuts to this. You'll end up regretting it.

[lemonhead]

Yes, if they were farmers. Try cutting sod without a machine. You will work little muscles all over you never knew you had and they get terribly sore. I can't imagine how brutal it must have been to cut prairie grass sod and build a house out of it, even with a mule to help.

 

(why oh why such stupid tags for this thread?)

[TheFountain]

My question was not 'if' to work the stabilizers but how much?

 

And how much is TOO much? Bodybuilders take steroids for a reason (even though it kills them). 

 

What about Yoga? 

 

How well are the stabilizers targeted through yoga?

[platypus]

 

You need to work on your core and stabilizers because otherwise you could get hurt, lifting a weight that is too big. It's as simple as that. No medical reason. No paleo mythology. Just safety and proper form.

That does not address the primary question.

 

Do we work our stabilizers doing every day movements? Lifting things? Moving furniture? Carrying groceries? 

 

Yes, absolutely. Free weights beat gym-machines ten to one. Of course, if your goal is "bigger muscles" instead of "getting stronger", machines can help. 

[platypus]

At the gym one "works the stabilizers" by doing multi-joint compound movements. These exercises cover almost all bases, including the stabilizers:

 

1) Deadlifts

2) Squats

3) Weighed pull-ups and chin-ups

4) Standing military presses

5) Push-ups/bench presses

 

 

[TheFountain]

At the gym one "works the stabilizers" by doing multi-joint compound movements. These exercises cover almost all bases, including the stabilizers:

 

1) Deadlifts

2) Squats

3) Weighed pull-ups and chin-ups

4) Standing military presses

5) Push-ups/bench presses

 

 

 

So technically, all we need to do is one compound movement exercise to work the stabilizers, and the rest of our work outs can be tackled on machines?

 

I would imagine power yoga also works the stabilizers. 

[Jeoshua]

Why would you want to use machines, tho? Because they're easier? Why are you working out, just to look good, or for health?

And Yoga is more about stretching than stabilizing, although you will recruit a lot of stabilizers and your core muscles doing any form of physically based Yoga.

Edited by Jeoshua, 04 May 2014 - 05:48 PM.

[TheFountain]

Why would you want to use machines, tho? Because they're easier? Why are you working out, just to look good, or for health?

And Yoga is more about stretching than stabilizing, although you will recruit a lot of stabilizers and your core muscles doing any form of physically based Yoga.

 

Question:

 

Does using machines raise the heart rate? Does it increase muscle mass? Does it have an overall positive effect on your cardiovascular and nervous systems?

 

If your answer to this is a resounding YES, then how are machines not good enough for 'health'? 

 

Also, if one does one compound movement, such as a dead lift, or a squat, they have essentially targeted their core stabilizers and do not need to do a bunch of other free weighted exercises. They can then just use machines, or body weight or both. 

Edited by TheFountain, 04 May 2014 - 06:05 PM.

[platypus]

Machines are always suboptimal and can create injuries as the weight is forced to follow a fixed unnatural path. The only reason not to do free weights is that your gym does not offer them, which is a good reason to change gyms.

[Jeoshua]

Question:

Answer:

Does using machines raise the heart rate? Does it increase muscle mass? Does it have an overall positive effect on your cardiovascular and nervous systems?

It depends on how fast you lift, it depends on weight and frequency, and cardiovascular is only affected if you are pushing yourself.
It's the same as any other exercise, but much easier to perform and therefore much less effective.

If your answer to this is a resounding YES, then how are machines not good enough for 'health'?

It wasn't resounding, exactly, more conditional. The machines are "good" for your health, but they are quite simply not the best way to go about it. You will get much better results from using free weights, dead lifts, squats, and such without assistance. Yes, machines make it easier, but they don't make them more effective.

Also, if one does one compound movement, such as a dead lift, or a squat, they have essentially targeted their core stabilizers and do not need to do a bunch of other free weighted exercises. They can then just use machines, or body weight or both.

Machines are good for one thing: Targeting. If you're trying to be a body builder or fitness model, sometimes you need to target a specific muscle group and make it look bigger, for cosmetic purposes. By removing the need to stabilize one's muscles, more force can be focused on a specific muscle group. That's why I asked if you're just trying to look good, as opposed to health.

Overall:

Machine's aren't bad for your health. They're just not the best way to get healthy.

[TheFountain]

 

Question:

Answer:

Does using machines raise the heart rate? Does it increase muscle mass? Does it have an overall positive effect on your cardiovascular and nervous systems?

It depends on how fast you lift, it depends on weight and frequency, and cardiovascular is only affected if you are pushing yourself.
It's the same as any other exercise, but much easier to perform and therefore much less effective.

If your answer to this is a resounding YES, then how are machines not good enough for 'health'?

It wasn't resounding, exactly, more conditional. The machines are "good" for your health, but they are quite simply not the best way to go about it. You will get much better results from using free weights, dead lifts, squats, and such without assistance. Yes, machines make it easier, but they don't make them more effective.

Also, if one does one compound movement, such as a dead lift, or a squat, they have essentially targeted their core stabilizers and do not need to do a bunch of other free weighted exercises. They can then just use machines, or body weight or both.

Machines are good for one thing: Targeting. If you're trying to be a body builder or fitness model, sometimes you need to target a specific muscle group and make it look bigger, for cosmetic purposes. By removing the need to stabilize one's muscles, more force can be focused on a specific muscle group. That's why I asked if you're just trying to look good, as opposed to health.

Overall:

Machine's aren't bad for your health. They're just not the best way to get healthy.

 

 

Thanks.

 

I am talking about doing one or two "core stabilizing" free weighted exercises, such as dead lifts, or squats, right?

 

And then doing the rest on machines for targeting specific muscle groups. This way you get the stabilizers worked and you are building what the body building community calls "Aesthetic muscle" from the machines. 

 

I see nothing wrong necessarily with this. Why should we use free weights for everything? I see no reason. A couple things, absolutely. 

[Jeoshua]

The more muscles you use for a compound exercise, the better. Also, the more "off center", the more you need to stabilize, but of course that only works up to a point until you're just using the stabilizers, alone... and that's dangerous.

Weighted burpees are my favorite compound exercise. To do one, look up Burpee, use free weights held in your hand, and replace the jumping jack at the end with a clean and jerk. You won't be able to do too many of these before you feel like keeling over and dying. Basically every muscle group is recruited, and you can add more resistance as you need to. Try to get to a weight level where you can only do about 15 or 20 of them in a set.

[Debaser]

1-Did our ancestors work their stabilizers to this degree? And if so how? And they worked them through every day activities, like carrying things and walking/running then

Yes, they would have worked them through every day activities like carrying things or any of the manual labour they did.

 

2-Wouldn't this mean we work our stabilizers in the same fashion, while moving through the natural world of the modern jungle, and therefor we do not need to overly recruit them at the gym?

In our day to day life we are not lifting things that are as heavy as the things we lift in the gym. You would only strengthen your stabilisers enough to carry shopping or open doors etc.

 

Gym machines artificially isolate muscles so that only that muscle is worked. You are unlikely to injure yourself using the machine because the whole point of the machine is it does the job of your stabilisers for you, effectively making your muscles work in only one direction of movement. However, it makes you prone to injury because you're increasing the strength of a muscle without the surrounding muscles and supporting stabilisers also being strengthened. This means when you later come to lift something you are prone to injury because the stabilisers aren't able to do the job they're supposed to. Your big strong muscle might be able to contract with enough strength to lift the thing, but it's missing the support in rotational directions that help you to balance the thing you're lifting and support the arm correctly. Injury becomes likely, particularly if you also have a degree of hypermobility in your joints.

 

When you lift with free weights and compound exercises, you engage the whole muscle groups and stabilisers in the way your body intended them to be used, so injury is less likely provided that you start with a weight you can manage comfortably and build up. The whole interconnected system gets stronger as a group, instead of just one muscle.

 

 

Why would you want to use machines, tho? Because they're easier?

 

For me it was because they're easier and less prone to embarrassment. The machines are easy to use, often with little diagrams on the machine so you don't need instruction from a trainer or have to worry about people looking at you doing it wrong the first few times. You can also lift higher weights and feel like you're making bigger progress. Of course, one day it will catch up to you, and that happened to me. I was out of action for nearly 6 months due to a rotator cuff injury. I strongly encourage people to use free weights and compound lifts, with machines only in moderation. People tried to warn me about machines but I ignored them. They're useful for increasing strength, but don't use them exclusively. It's not how our bodies were designed to work.

Edited by Debaser, 04 May 2014 - 07:13 PM.

[Jeoshua]

Debaser, I want to give you a +1 for that post, very succinctly giving all the information required as well as a personal experience story. Unfortunately I've used up all of mine, for the day.

Please, accept this, instead:

[TheFountain]

The more muscles you use for a compound exercise, the better. Also, the more "off center", the more you need to stabilize, but of course that only works up to a point until you're just using the stabilizers, alone... and that's dangerous.

Weighted burpees are my favorite compound exercise. To do one, look up Burpee, use free weights held in your hand, and replace the jumping jack at the end with a clean and jerk. You won't be able to do too many of these before you feel like keeling over and dying. Basically every muscle group is recruited, and you can add more resistance as you need to. Try to get to a weight level where you can only do about 15 or 20 of them in a set.

I do Burpees frequently but have never attempted them weighted. 

 

But how the hell do you hold the weights when you need to go down to push up position? I assume you would use dumbbells? 

[TheFountain]

 

1-Did our ancestors work their stabilizers to this degree? And if so how? And they worked them through every day activities, like carrying things and walking/running then

Yes, they would have worked them through every day activities like carrying things or any of the manual labour they did.

 

2-Wouldn't this mean we work our stabilizers in the same fashion, while moving through the natural world of the modern jungle, and therefor we do not need to overly recruit them at the gym?

In our day to day life we are not lifting things that are as heavy as the things we lift in the gym. You would only strengthen your stabilisers enough to carry shopping or open doors etc.

 

Gym machines artificially isolate muscles so that only that muscle is worked. You are unlikely to injure yourself using the machine because the whole point of the machine is it does the job of your stabilisers for you, effectively making your muscles work in only one direction of movement. However, it makes you prone to injury because you're increasing the strength of a muscle without the surrounding muscles and supporting stabilisers also being strengthened. This means when you later come to lift something you are prone to injury because the stabilisers aren't able to do the job they're supposed to. Your big strong muscle might be able to contract with enough strength to lift the thing, but it's missing the support in rotational directions that help you to balance the thing you're lifting and support the arm correctly. Injury becomes likely, particularly if you also have a degree of hypermobility in your joints.

 

When you lift with free weights and compound exercises, you engage the whole muscle groups and stabilisers in the way your body intended them to be used, so injury is less likely provided that you start with a weight you can manage comfortably and build up. The whole interconnected system gets stronger as a group, instead of just one muscle.

 

 

Why would you want to use machines, tho? Because they're easier?

 

For me it was because they're easier and less prone to embarrassment. The machines are easy to use, often with little diagrams on the machine so you don't need instruction from a trainer or have to worry about people looking at you doing it wrong the first few times. You can also lift higher weights and feel like you're making bigger progress. Of course, one day it will catch up to you, and that happened to me. I was out of action for nearly 6 months due to a rotator cuff injury. I strongly encourage people to use free weights and compound lifts, with machines only in moderation. People tried to warn me about machines but I ignored them. They're useful for increasing strength, but don't use them exclusively. It's not how our bodies were designed to work.

 

About "not how our bodies were designed to work".

 

One may easily say that having Arnold physiques is not how our bodies are designed to be either. 

 

Otherwise why would many men require chemical assistance to reach these heights? 

 

Obviously we are dealing with limits either way, and within these human limits I am trying to grasp the furthest straw and recommending the same to other's, without the need for chemical assistance. 

 

I suggest that, perhaps, the reason so many body builders use steroids is because they have reached their limits and are not 'satisfied' with it. But this satisfaction is primarily a psychological component isn't it? 

 

Furthermore the stabilizer muscles, were they designed for lifting to the degree that you need steroids to assist you?

[Jeoshua]

 

The more muscles you use for a compound exercise, the better. Also, the more "off center", the more you need to stabilize, but of course that only works up to a point until you're just using the stabilizers, alone... and that's dangerous.

Weighted burpees are my favorite compound exercise. To do one, look up Burpee, use free weights held in your hand, and replace the jumping jack at the end with a clean and jerk. You won't be able to do too many of these before you feel like keeling over and dying. Basically every muscle group is recruited, and you can add more resistance as you need to. Try to get to a weight level where you can only do about 15 or 20 of them in a set.

I do Burpees frequently but have never attempted them weighted. 

 

But how the hell do you hold the weights when you need to go down to push up position? I assume you would use dumbbells? 

 

 

Dumbbells or Kettlebells. Both have a grip which you can keep holding on to while doing a pushup. In addition to providing resistance on the lift, it also makes you need to recruit wrist muscles for the pushup.

 

It feels kind of like doing a knuckle/fist pushup, only without the pressure on your knuckles.
 

[TheFountain]

 

 

The more muscles you use for a compound exercise, the better. Also, the more "off center", the more you need to stabilize, but of course that only works up to a point until you're just using the stabilizers, alone... and that's dangerous.

Weighted burpees are my favorite compound exercise. To do one, look up Burpee, use free weights held in your hand, and replace the jumping jack at the end with a clean and jerk. You won't be able to do too many of these before you feel like keeling over and dying. Basically every muscle group is recruited, and you can add more resistance as you need to. Try to get to a weight level where you can only do about 15 or 20 of them in a set.

I do Burpees frequently but have never attempted them weighted. 

 

But how the hell do you hold the weights when you need to go down to push up position? I assume you would use dumbbells? 

 

 

Dumbbells or Kettlebells. Both have a grip which you can keep holding on to while doing a pushup. In addition to providing resistance on the lift, it also makes you need to recruit wrist muscles for the pushup.

 

It feels kind of like doing a knuckle/fist pushup, only without the pressure on your knuckles.
 

 

Oh okay, perhaps I will give it a bang some time. 

[TheFountain]

This may seem blasphemous to many in the body building community, but I really do prefer Mark Sissons model of working out, where there are great periods of rest and recreation between short bursts of exertion. Where you really only need to work out hard 2-3 times a week and then you are left with a lot of rest, recreation, leisurely walks and sprints a couple times a week. 

 

I think he is right in that our bodies are not designed to go full force 5-6 days a week for several hours at a time. 

 

The need bodybuilders have for steroids is a testament to that I think. 

Edited by TheFountain, 04 May 2014 - 10:00 PM.

[Jeoshua]

You keep coming back on bodybuilders "needing" steroids. I don't think that's true. John Cena, the wrestler, doesn't do steroids. And he's pretty big. Sure, not as big as some of the other wrestlers out there, but definitely big, strong, and healthy. If you need to see what can be done without steroids, look into the physiques of most professional sports players. Sure, they take supplements, but not androgenic synthetic testosterone supplements like you are suggesting. And the big muscle contestant body builders? They're blessed with good genes and a hard work ethic, not scientific advances in synthetic hormone supplementation. Anyone using steroids or banned substances in body building competitions would quickly be thrown out, since it's considered cheating.

 

I always found the best way for me, personally, to work out was to go hard for a half an hour a day with mostly full body exercises (the aforementioned weighted burpees), and once a week a big push for about 2 hours in the gym. This, along with supplements (no steroids), and good nutrition, and I gained 30 lbs of muscle in a year of doing that. And I'd always been a hard gainer. It was really just the determination of working out every day coupled with taking care of myself (and protein supplements daily) that got me over that hump.

[TheFountain]

You keep coming back on bodybuilders "needing" steroids. I don't think that's true. John Cena, the wrestler, doesn't do steroids. And he's pretty big. Sure, not as big as some of the other wrestlers out there, but definitely big, strong, and healthy. If you need to see what can be done without steroids, look into the physiques of most professional sports players. Sure, they take supplements, but not androgenic synthetic testosterone supplements like you are suggesting. And the big muscle contestant body builders? They're blessed with good genes and a hard work ethic, not scientific advances in synthetic hormone supplementation. Anyone using steroids or banned substances in body building competitions would quickly be thrown out, since it's considered cheating.

 

I always found the best way for me, personally, to work out was to go hard for a half an hour a day with mostly full body exercises (the aforementioned weighted burpees), and once a week a big push for about 2 hours in the gym. This, along with supplements (no steroids), and good nutrition, and I gained 30 lbs of muscle in a year of doing that. And I'd always been a hard gainer. It was really just the determination of working out every day coupled with taking care of myself (and protein supplements daily) that got me over that hump.

 

How many professional wrestlers have DIED due to heart complications resulting from steroid abuse? The list is endless. And most of them before 60 and many in their 30s and 40s. 

 

The ultimate warrior just past away recently, and he was known amongst his peers as an avid steroid abuser.

 

If you don't think John Cena has dabbled in anabolic experimentation you are kidding yourself BIG time. 

 

Now, I don't think Mark Sisson has done steroids. Why? He has a lean, muscular physique, but it strikes me as natural rather than chemical. His muscles don't seem too 'inflated' if you get my meaning. 

 

I am not saying you cannot get muscular without steroids, but nowhere the size of an Arnold or a Ronnie. 

 

My theory is that, just to sustain the joints and tendons they begin to require assistance from Anabolic chemicals. 

In MMA steroids is stringently tested. Some of those guys are lean and muscular, but the average MMA physique is not a bodybuilder type. More like semi muscular and lean/low body fat. Look at Jon Jones as an example. 

 

The fact that he kicks everybodies ass pretty much shows that this is all the physique you need in the "real world". 

Edited by TheFountain, 05 May 2014 - 12:06 AM.

[chemicalambrosia]

Machines are tools with advantages and drawbacks like anything else. The fact that they avoid stabilizers is both a potential advantage and pitfall. That fact allows you to work an intended muscle harder without worrying about the earlier failure of another muscle. This can be useful for strength or bodybuilding purposes. Machines have been demonized by a lot of people that spout dogma, a lot of bodybuilder vs. powerlifter/o-lifter/function fitness crowd rhetoric comes up in these discussions. Tools shouldn't be surrounded by dogma. Use compound barbell exercises and supplement them with machine lifts to focus on body parts, work around injuries, etc. More than one approach works, and this is coming from someone who almost exclusively uses barbells and dumbbells(machines can't replace the squat and deadlift, that is for sure...).

 

PS. Speculating about whether someone like John Cena uses steroids or not is simply that, speculation. To assume any strength/fitness/power/figure athlete is natural because they say so(or for whatever other reason), in the Post Lance Armstrong era, is ludicrous. Just my opinion. 

[Jeoshua]

Yes, plenty of wrestlers have died from steroid abuse. But that doesn't mean every single one does. Same goes for bicyclists. Nobody thought Lance Armstrong did steroids, but there you go. He certainly didn't look huge, did he? He wasn't super angry, "roided out", or any of that. Which just goes to show you that just because someone LOOKS like they do steroids, or looks like they DON'T, doesn't mean anything at all.

[TheFountain]

Yes, plenty of wrestlers have died from steroid abuse. But that doesn't mean every single one does. Same goes for bicyclists. Nobody thought Lance Armstrong did steroids, but there you go. He certainly didn't look huge, did he? He wasn't super angry, "roided out", or any of that. Which just goes to show you that just because someone LOOKS like they do steroids, or looks like they DON'T, doesn't mean anything at all.

 

Lance armstrong also was not training the muscle groups that these bodybuilders are. Steroids do not just grow you muscle, they require the effort as well. As much as they might assist one.