Weight difference between machine and free weights
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Just because lifting 100lbs on a machine isnt the same as lifting 100lbs using free weights doesnt make free weights better. Just find where you on free weights and machines and switch it up every now and then.1
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beautifulwarrior18 wrote: »So that 70 lbs you're doing on a lat pull down isn't actually 70 lbs. That's one of the many major criticism of machines. You're always better off doing free weights.
Here is the thing: That 70lbs you are lifting on the machine is 70lbs.
Just as when I pull an engine out of a car, it is going to weigh the same if I use a pully, a hoist, or me and a couple of friends lift it out with our bare hands. Now, the amount of energy I have to use to lift that weight is going to vary depending on the method, but the weight getting lifted stays the same.
This is why you find that some machines don't tell you the weight you're lifting, choosing instead to tell you how many plates you are using... but the average guy in the gym wants a number he can relate to so the majority give him lbs/kg, even though they don't really relate to what you can lift any other way.
Just think of the numbers on a weight machine as the difficulty setting, keep pushing up the difficulty, and as long as you are feeling it at the end of the workout, then you are doing good.
I guess another way to look at is Free Weights are one video game, while Machines is a different video game. Do you try and compare your Machines score with your Free Weights score?
This is not entirely true. The pulley system being used will cause the actual weight of the lift to be different from the effective weight of the lift. Sure, if you're using just a single pulley, then the force applied to the weight must be the same as the weight itself, but once you start using double pulleys, or a more complicated pulley system, that effective weight will lessen.
The reason you're able to lift an engine out of a car is because while the pulley system used does not change how much the engine weighs, it changes the amount of force being transferred to you along the rope meaning that you have to use less force to pull the weight therefore effectively changing what you feel as the weight on the other side.
Hence, if you're using a machine which has a pulley system on it, you're going to be getting some sort of assistance. This also does not take into account the added effect of not using stabilizing muscles used for balance.0 -
*double post
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peachyfuzzle wrote: »beautifulwarrior18 wrote: »So that 70 lbs you're doing on a lat pull down isn't actually 70 lbs. That's one of the many major criticism of machines. You're always better off doing free weights.
Here is the thing: That 70lbs you are lifting on the machine is 70lbs.
Just as when I pull an engine out of a car, it is going to weigh the same if I use a pully, a hoist, or me and a couple of friends lift it out with our bare hands. Now, the amount of energy I have to use to lift that weight is going to vary depending on the method, but the weight getting lifted stays the same.
This is why you find that some machines don't tell you the weight you're lifting, choosing instead to tell you how many plates you are using... but the average guy in the gym wants a number he can relate to so the majority give him lbs/kg, even though they don't really relate to what you can lift any other way.
Just think of the numbers on a weight machine as the difficulty setting, keep pushing up the difficulty, and as long as you are feeling it at the end of the workout, then you are doing good.
I guess another way to look at is Free Weights are one video game, while Machines is a different video game. Do you try and compare your Machines score with your Free Weights score?
This is not entirely true. The pulley system being used will cause the actual weight of the lift to be different from the effective weight of the lift. Sure, if you're using just a single pulley, then the force applied to the weight must be the same as the weight itself, but once you start using double pulleys, or a more complicated pulley system, that effective weight will lessen.
The reason you're able to lift an engine out of a car is because while the pulley system used does not change how much the engine weighs, it changes the amount of force being transferred to you along the rope meaning that you have to use less force to pull the weight therefore effectively changing what you feel as the weight on the other side.
Hence, if you're using a machine which has a pulley system on it, you're going to be getting some sort of assistance. This also does not take into account the added effect of not using stabilizing muscles used for balance.
Dat weight vs. mass science malarkey.
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ForecasterJason wrote: »At 40 lbs total, I got in 35 reps
The estimated one rep max of my dumbbell test is 87 lbs.
You can't estimate a one rep max from that. What you did with 40 lbs was closer to cardio than weight lifting. You should find a weight that you can do max 10 reps with if you want to calculate a 1RM with any meaningful accuracy.1 -
Yeah, I do realize that the more reps I do, the lower the accuracy of the one rep max is. But unfortunately, I have nothing else to use. Based on the amount of time I have been lifting with the machine (and the fact that I know I started off from a fairly weak state), I would say the numbers I estimated seem like they could be close.ForecasterJason wrote: »At 40 lbs total, I got in 35 reps
The estimated one rep max of my dumbbell test is 87 lbs.
You can't estimate a one rep max from that. What you did with 40 lbs was closer to cardio than weight lifting. You should find a weight that you can do max 10 reps with if you want to calculate a 1RM with any meaningful accuracy.
Since it seems like in reality I can probably bench more than I thought, now it makes sense why my progress has slowed down considerably.
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Good news is that you're working out!!!!
One could debate the differences between riding a real bike outside, and riding an exercise bike, or spin bike, or a bike on a trainer, etc...? Again - the good news is that one is riding and getting exercise. Ditto on running outside on pavement, a track, on a grassy cross country course, on a dirt trail, on gravel vs. running inside on a treadmill. It's not all the same, but it is exercise.
Doing weights, resistance, with body weights, machine weights, free weights, lifting stuff in the junkyard, chopping firewood and lifting heavy logs, trees, and wood - hey, it's all good.2 -
So just in case there are others that have wondered a similar thing, I have now done actual bench pressing with a barbell. I can say it is indeed true that it's hard to make a comparison. When I started bench pressing with free weights, the amount I could lift was fairly close to what I could do on the weight machine I was using, as in not more than 10% less. Now, after doing barbell bench pressing for about 3½ months, I can actually lift more weight this way than I can on the weight machine, but I also haven't done any regular training on the weight machine in a long while.
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In my experience, there is no correlation between free weights and machines and also between different machines. Just track what you can do on that exercise and assume that there is no carry over to other exercises.
E.g. - Chest pressing 90kg does not mean you can bench press anywhere near 90kg.2 -
I can easily leg press sets of 12 x 120kg
I ain't squatting that weight any time soon2 -
Put a scale under the bar.0
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I can easily leg press sets of 12 x 120kg
I ain't squatting that weight any time soon
Two main things to remember why you can leg press more than you can squat ('tis true for all of us)....
Performing a leg press means you are only moving the equivalent of about 0.707 x weight because the leg press itself takes some of the weight. (So you should be able to squat 85kg, right?)
Performing a squat means you are actually squatting the weight of the load + your own body weight. You are sitting down during the leg press and don't have to lift your own body weight.0 -
SingingSingleTracker wrote: »I can easily leg press sets of 12 x 120kg
I ain't squatting that weight any time soon
Two main things to remember why you can leg press more than you can squat ('tis true for all of us)....
Performing a leg press means you are only moving the equivalent of about 0.707 x weight because the leg press itself takes some of the weight. (So you should be able to squat 85kg, right?)
Performing a squat means you are actually squatting the weight of the load + your own body weight. You are sitting down during the leg press and don't have to lift your own body weight.
I can leg press 650kg for reps. This should make me one of the best squatters of all time. I'm not.3 -
i'm just going to duck in here and point out that there's also a difference between cable/pulley and truly fixed-path machines like the smith and some of the stuff that i see for various presses, etc.
not going to debate weight-for-weight comparisons, but if my experience is worth anything, cables don't let you off from the balance/stabilization aspect. you probably don't stabilize in the same way as free weights since the direction of force with a free weight is always 'down' and cables usually introduce some kind of angle instead.
but you do need to use stabilizers on the cables. otherwise paloff presses would not be a thing.0 -
trigden1991 wrote: »I can leg press 650kg for reps. This should make me one of the best squatters of all time. I'm not.
You can?
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SingingSingleTracker wrote: »trigden1991 wrote: »I can leg press 650kg for reps. This should make me one of the best squatters of all time. I'm not.
You can?
That article is dumb2 -
SingingSingleTracker wrote: »trigden1991 wrote: »I can leg press 650kg for reps. This should make me one of the best squatters of all time. I'm not.
You can?
The irony here is that my post was ironic. Leg Press is great for hypertrophy but it is not a compound exercise.2 -
SingingSingleTracker wrote: »I can easily leg press sets of 12 x 120kg
I ain't squatting that weight any time soon
Two main things to remember why you can leg press more than you can squat ('tis true for all of us)....
Performing a leg press means you are only moving the equivalent of about 0.707 x weight because the leg press itself takes some of the weight. (So you should be able to squat 85kg, right?)
Performing a squat means you are actually squatting the weight of the load + your own body weight. You are sitting down during the leg press and don't have to lift your own body weight.
It's really hard to make a blanket statement with leg press machines since everyone is different based on factors such as angle of the sled, friction, angle of the leg plate, position of the stops etc. Some leg presses I could do over 1200lbs easily while others would be hard at 900.
Squats also load the core and have a lot of mechanical differences that create disadvantaged leverages compared to leg press. I can leg press over 1000lbs at my current gym but my squat maxes around 355. It's a huge difference.
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SingingSingleTracker wrote: »trigden1991 wrote: »I can leg press 650kg for reps. This should make me one of the best squatters of all time. I'm not.
You can?
That article is dumb
Your response was nicer than what I had typed up and then backed out of.1 -
SingingSingleTracker wrote: »trigden1991 wrote: »I can leg press 650kg for reps. This should make me one of the best squatters of all time. I'm not.
You can?
That article is dumb
Your response was nicer than what I had typed up and then backed out of.
Hint: It's from Gawker.
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