lordoftime

Yeah years and years ago, I was one of these idiots who did use the majority of machine based exercises for many months. Needless to say I switched to a free weight routine afterwards and never regretted.

Well since getting back into my routine slowly, well a better routine compared to years ago anyways, I have already been able to lose a few kilos. All of it the gut region, so yeah I am doing something that is working NO bullsh!t machines or anything like that. Doing it the hard way, and I can already see it is paying off

Zarkov

Yes,i have to take a step back after reading that.We have to remember that not everyone goes to a gym/sporst club/health club to get big and ripped.
You can reach a certain level of strength and fitness on machines.And let`s face it,machines look a hell of a lot of fun!
I do have a problem with gyms that only cater to those people though.They are increasing and the hardcore gyms seem to be disappearing.

Josh_GTiR

You need to add some punctuation Admin!

Tekkerz

There is also the issue of 'Duty Of Care' in which these gyms pay thousands of dollars to stay insured.

Many people who sign up at a gym have never done exercise or haven't for a very long time so lets call them 'noobs', the first thing to be done is show these 'noobs' the safest possible way to exercise so as to limit the possibility of them coming in on their own and doing something stupid like trying to squat 150kg when yesterday they were shown how to squat 50kg, then suing them because they didn't explain that un-experienced person shouldn't be trying to squat heavy on their own.

So having taken the risk of injury down a notch it is also a pretty decent way for a trainer to make an assessment of the 'noobs' current strength and fitness level, and as a way for them to track their progress, if they keep going back to those machines they can at least incrementally increase the weight until they have a decent strength level.

Koncept

To answer the question in the thread title I believe there are two reasons:

1. As Tekkerz pointed out, safety is king and more important than anything else in any industry especially one dealing directly with a client's most valuable posession - themselves. Most machine's are designed for safety where it is very difficult to hurt yourself even when doing the wrong thing.
2. The goal of any business is to make profit, first and foremost. Within the 'health club' industry, revenue is generated through clients/customers. Therefore in order to survive as a business and grow, a health club requires new customers as well as keeping their current stock of customers. Machine's are a relatively easy and safe introduction for new customers. Note I said 'easy which also means they are less likely to turn away if due to it being too hard - remember the majority of new customers are people who don't like things hard (read lazy)

Admin

i don't think i would call a new customer as being lazy. They have taken the step to join the centre which is a lot more then what some people do.

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Kyle Aaron

Firstly, there's what clients say.

1. Male client: "I don't want to be a bodybuilder or a weightlifter... you want me to deadlift? No, bye."
2. Female client: "I don't want to bulk up. Lifting heavy weights will make me bulk up, machines won't."
3. Older client: "I'm old and weak, I can't possibility lift weights... but I can use a machine."

Fifty clients like that in a row, and the trainer just gives up, shrugs their shoulders, and puts machines in the workout.

If I have a small gym of my own, they have appointments for workouts, and I watch them in every workout, it's different. But if I'm one of 6 trainers in a gym with 200 different people coming and going as they please - it won't happen.

If I as a trainer get a 19 year old woman who "just wants to tone up", or a 48 year old woman who "wants to lose my tuckshop arms" or a 45 year old man who "wants to lose my gut" or a 17 year old man who "wants to get sixpack abs and teh bicepts peakz" and put them on the bar for the deadlift - I'll have them for that one session, then won't see them again.

Yes, you can argue with clients and try to change their minds about the "right" way to exercise. But remember that 75% of new gym members quit in the first month, and 90% in the first three months. As a trainer in a mainstream gym, you'll think it's better to have them use machines and at least stay, rather than use free weights and quit. After all, the best workout is the one you stick to.

Secondly, many clients are unconfident when they first enter a gym. This lack of confidence often causes them to give up very quickly.

There are two ways to give them confidence. The first is to supervise the client on every single exercise for the first twelve workouts. However, trainers don't have the time, or permission from the managers, to do that.

The second way to give them confidence is to give them a heap of different exercises so they'll move physically around the gym, and in this way become used to all the different equipment, meet people, and so on.

Thirdly, the use of free weights requires the right technique if the person is to avoid injury and get benefit. To get the right technique on several different free weight exercises will, as with confidence, take a dozen sessions or more with the client directly supervised. If I try squats on my own I may injure myself; I am unlikely to injure myself on the leg press cable machine.

And again trainers don't have the time or permission from the managers to give clients that constant one-on-one supervision.

So, to get everyone using just free weights, firstly you must change clients' minds, and secondly you must have trainers supervising every exercise, at least for the first dozen sessions or so. In a mainstream gym, it's not happening. The best you can hope for is to give them the sort of workout they're willing to do, they stick with it, and in 3-12 months they're psychologically ready for something better.

Using machines is to exercise what frozen vegies are to diet. Definitely better than nothing, a thousand percent better. Not as good as the real thing. But a heap better than what most people do. Let's be honest, if a person does anything in a gym for a few months in a row, they're in the top 10% of health and fitness of the general population, who spend their lives driving 1km to the shops and eating McD's while watching Bathurst.

If you push yourself on a machine, it does have an effect on your health, strength and fitness. For my part, I didn't even join a gym until I'd built up to 20-30 bodyweight pushups, situps, inverted rows and squats, and could run 5km however slowly without stopping. And this lost me several kilograms of fat, and gained me a couple of muscle, and by removing back pain and wheezing when I ran for the train and dropping my waist size, greatly improved my quality of life.

That's not because of the equipment I was or wasn't using, but the effort I put in.

So the most important thing is not the equipment, but the effort the person puts in. I mean, I see several women at my gym who use treadmills to run on and dumbells for curls. They get fitter but don't get bulging biceps. Why? How is it possible?! They're using free weights, aren't they? And treadmills are useless, aren't they? No. The difference is simply that they push themselves with the treadmill, but not with the weights.

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katie

Well well, look who's here!

When I saw this thread I was thinking of you, Kyle, as we discussed this exact same topic in your PT thread...

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Rock climbing since 2005; running and resistance training since May 2009

Fadi

Safety.


Fadi.

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Squat 200kg, FSquat 195kg, C&J 160kg, PC 140kg, MP 90kg.

Kyle Aaron

Yeah, I'm not doing that thread again. Too much work for too little gain.