You don’s get what I’m trying to say. I’ve never sais all barbell exercises are bad and all machines are good. The squat and deadlift are the very best exercises one could do. A leg press is less good than a squat because it is a limited range exercise whereas a squat is a near full range exercise. However the weaker lower back muscles limit the fail way before the much stronger gluteus and quadriceps muscles do so it it still a good idea to supplement your squats with leg presses.
You say switch from machine to compound barbell exercises. No doubt if you do only isolation machines you will make little progress. But most machines are also sompound exercises.
With skill I don’t just mean knowing how to lift a barbell overhead. I mean the extreme complex combination of neuromuscular coordination and timing. Olympic style lifting requires a lot of that skill. Watch closely and you will often see a lifter performing better than his rival because he has superior technique. He weighs the same as his rival is not bigger or stronger but still performs better that is skill. You cannot ignore that factor.
After doing all manner of advanced yoga and plenty of gym exercises I can safely say that weighted compound exercise is simply the best in adjusting overall flexibilities and blockages..
Your’re right weighted compound exercises are the best type of exercise but that is not limited to barbell training. In fact most exercise machines are compound exercises.
I can press or use a pulley or dumbell raise or squat 2-3 times over some small women who can double my overhead squat and certainly lift more on the snatch if not double.
My point exactly you are clearly stronger than those woman yet they outperform you on highly specialises technical lifts because they have superior skill!
The bench press is not a compound lift? Where did you get that idea man? A compound movement is one that requires several muscular structures to work together and involves more than 1 joint. In the bench press/chest press the pectoralis minor, pectoralis manor, the frotal and lateral deltoid the triceps and quite few other muscles work together. The shoulder elbow and wrist are involved. I think I can safely say it’s a proper compound exercise. Yu assume that the bench press would build strength quicker than the chestpress but that is not my experience at all. When I started training I did benches when I hit a plateau I tried everything, nothing worked. Disgusted I stopped doing benches and started doing cp’s my strength skyrocketed. Later I tried to see if this strength could be used in benches and off course it could. I could press double than I could when I did benches. Many people I trained with experienced a similar thing.
But lets try to look at the issue a bit more scientifically. What does a barbell do? A barbell provides resistance against movement powered by muscular contraction. That’s it as simple as that. A machine can do the exact same thing. I can easily build you a machine that simulates the forces involved in a bench press exactly but that machine would not provide a benefit over the regular bench press. I could also build a machine that has a greater range of possible movement that varies the resistance as your strength changes throughout the movement. That machine would be a lot better than a bench press. However I have a better example to illustrate this point. But first I’d like to discuss what is actually required for proper strength training.
1 Full range exercise. If a muscle is not exercises throughout a full range of possible movement than that exercise can only ever train a limited portion of that muscle. A muscular fibre works by contracting. The more fibres contract the bigger the output of muscular force. But as more fiber contract that muscle also becomes shorter for obvious reasons. This lead us to the second point of great importance:
2 Resistance in the position of full contraction. Only in the position where the muscles are shortest fully contracted can the maximum numbers of fibres be involved in the exercise. So only in the position of maximum contraction you can train the entire muscle. All conventional barbell exercises offer no resistance at all in the position of full muscular contraction and therefore exercise only part of the muscle. And most barbell exercises are limited range due to the fact that they offer only linear resistance. Which leads to the next point.
3 Omni directional resistances. Since barbell exercises use gravity to generate resistance the resistance is linear. That is in a straight line up and down. In a compound exercise like a squat/bench press etc the barbell moves in a straight line (or should at least). The resistance is the same through the entire range of movement. But the force the muscles can generate varies enormously throughout the movement. This changing strength curve creates so called sticking point in the movement. You will fail when the muscle is in its weakest position but have than not yet worked the largest part of the muscle (in its strongest position) to a point of failure. In a single axis barbell exercise such as a biceps curl the resistance varies 100%. When the arm are straight there is no resistance for the biceps muscle. At 90 degrees, the sticky point, the resistance is 100%. At the top of the movement where the biceps is at its strongest there is again no resistance for them. A proper designed (and again they are rare) machine varies the resistance so that it matches the strength curve of the particular muscle it provides resistance for. This means that when you work at 100% of your available strength in the weakest position you can still continue the movement to the strongest position where you can also work to 100% intensity. Only a machine designed in that way will allow you to work the muscle throughout the entire range of movement at 100% intensity.
4 Direct resistance. The resistance should be exposed to the body part that is moved by the muscle you are trying to train. For example when you are trying to train the quadriceps with squats the resistance is opposed upon the torso. But the quadriceps moves the lower legs. In the squat the lower back fails long before the quadriceps are being worked even close to their maximum potential. To work the quadriceps maximum you need to expose the resistance to the lower legs via a leg extension. These types of isolation exercises are not always necessary because the indirect effect from training large muscular masses with compound exercise usually build them to a desirable strength. If however one wants to build the quadriceps to their maximum possible size (for bodybuilding or certain sports) or wants to train that muscle with minimum risk of injury (rehabilitation on an injured knee) the leg extension is a vital component of training. The leg extension should not be used to exclude squats but should used with squats. The leg extension can pre-exhaust the quadriceps so that when squats are done immediately afterwards the quadriceps are trained equally hard as the lower back.
5 Resistance in the negative part of the exercise. Lifting is positive lowering is negative. However to the muscular fibres there is little difference they are generating force against a resistance. With fresh muscles you are 40% stronger negative than positive meaning that you can lower a weight under strict control that is 40% heavier than you could lift maximal. This is because of internal muscular friction that helps you when lowering but hurt you when lifting. The simple physics law “everything that has both mass and motion also has friction” applies of course also to a muscle. I don’t want to go into how exactly this friction is generated (but I could) because this post is already way to long. We can however use this friction to our advantage When its is no longer possible to lift the weight due to muscular failure we can still lower it slowly for a few more reps. This means after failing in the positive movement that you cheat, or preferably be helped, to the top and than lower it under control. This allows you to train the muscle harder, more intense. The payoff is a greater stimulus for growth. The negative part of training has been extensively studied and have shown to have a very significant part in exercise. When eccentric (negative) only training was compared to concentric only training the eccentric trained trainees gained more strength and more rapidly. This strength was not limited to eccentric movements but could also be used in concentric movements. Which is logical as they are the same thing just with a different direction. One study proving the necessity for eccentric(negative) training.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1859341All isometric training (like your rope pulldown machine) offers no eccentric work whatsoever.
6 Resistance in the starting position. When the body part is in its fully stretched position there should still be resistance. This resistance is constantly stretching the muscles and therefore increases flexibility greatly. The body has a protective mechanism called the stretch reflex. When an body part is stretched close to its limit the opposing muscle is automatically activated to pull the body part back to reduce risk of injury. Without this reflex your elbow would be dislocated the first time you straighten your arm fast (like in punging). It isn’t because just before you reach maximum extension the biceps is activated to slow the arm down and prevent injury. When training we can use the reflex to our advantage. Just before we initiate the positive movement you lower a bit more allowing the weight to stretch the muscles a bit this activates the stretch reflex. As it is activated we start our movement. If you do this than you can use a larger than normal percentage of a muscle. This is because a part of your muscle cannot be reached via normal neuromuscular pathways nut is wired into this reflex mechanism. This allows you to get that extra rep that stresses the muscle just a bit more. Most barbell exercises don’t provide resistance in the starting position but a propely designed machine can.
7 Rep ranges to suit muscular fibre type. All muscles have a unique mixture of both fast and slow twitch fibres. Some people have lots of fast twitch some have more slow twitch. Some have lots of fast in one muscle and slow in another muscle. However most people have a rather balanced mixture of both types in most muscular structures. Muscles with lots of fast twitch fibres need low rep ranges or will suffer overuse atrophy. Slow twitch need high rep ranges to prevent underuse atrophy. Most people have the usual mixture and should do 8-12 reps. This has nothing to do with the kind of training equipment but is nevertheless a very important factor.
To apply this to a practical example I repeat my question what barbell exercise would you use to train the latimus dorsi?
The only exercise that meets all those requirements is the pullover machine as designed by Arthur Jones. All conventional (barbell/bodyweight) exercises expose the resistances to the hands thereby including the much weaker biceps and forearms muscles. Those weak muscles will fail before the lats are trained to their max. All conventional (barbell/bodyweight) exercises are limited range exercises. Chins/pulldown 180° Bent over row 160° Barbell/Dumbbell pullovers 140°(with about 60° of resistance). A proper machine pullover can provide the 300°. Most people have a range of movement in their shoulders of about 240° That quickly increases to 270° when machine pullovers are done properly. Off course Machine pullovers provide resistance in both the starting position (for improving flexibility and induce the stretch reflex) as the finished position (position of full contraction where the entire muscle can be trained). Machine pullover vary the resistance to match the changing strength output of the latimuss dorsi.
When I introduced machine pullover to my training schedule with no other changes my strength in the lats skyrocketed. My bw went up 15lbs in 6 weeks. My lats weren’t very big when I did pulldown, bent over rows etc. But now they are very big. All my training partners (I’ve been through quite a lot since most couldn’t handle the intensity) had extremely good results with the pullover. I recently started training with a mate of my who had some but not much training history. He followed my program with a lot of machines and gained 40 lbs in 4 months. Admitted he’s genetically gifted but still.
That is why I think properly designed machines should be a very important part of any trainings schedule. If however only poorly designed machines are available (such as a rope pulldown machine) it is better to stick to conventional (barbell) exercises. If people ask my for a workout plan and I don’t know there gym I always give them a very basic barbell program. Make no mistake a properly designed and executed barbell program is very hard and will produce extremely good results. It just can be eve better when proper machines are sensible included in the program.
