I'm sorry, I try very hard to avoid being the typical arrogant internet jackass, but I just can't not respond to that.
I'm an athlete first, and a technology worker second. And what you just said ("better to ... use a machine that isolates ... while not straining unrelated muscles") is the fitness equivalent of something that would be a top post on The Daily WTF.
That is almost exactly the wrong idea. I mean, so precisely opposite of correct information that I hope you didn't write that as a joke and I'm not getting it.
The only time isolation movements make sense is if you're already a very competitive bodybuilder who walks around with hundreds of pounds of lean muscle mass. Otherwise, isolation movements (especially when performed on machines rather than with free weights) are a genuinely terrible idea. At absolute _best_ they will make you gain muscle and lose weight vastly more slowly than you could. Most likely, they'll make you wind up with a chronic injury.
Please, please, please don't go to the gym and work on machines. Do compound movements instead. If you're interested in making physical improvements, go pick up Starting Strength. It's $30 and the author is an absolute genius.
[That was officially my first flame. I feel so hollow inside ...]
Push-ups give me a headache. I don't know if its the blood rushing to the head or the neck tension, but they are uncomfortable for me for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual excercise. Same thing for pull-ups, sit-ups or whatchamacallit.
Machines are comfortable while still maxing out my muscle capacity. They are the sole reason that I am now, after many years of repeatedly failing to start a weight regimen, enjoying gym excercise.
You are probably right in everything you said, since I know fuck all about fitness, but I know what I like.
You're asserting that the average person starting a lifting regimen is more likely to injure themselves on a machine rather than with fundamental lifts like dead, bench and squat?
I'm an athlete first, and a technology worker second. And what you just said ("better to ... use a machine that isolates ... while not straining unrelated muscles") is the fitness equivalent of something that would be a top post on The Daily WTF.
That is almost exactly the wrong idea. I mean, so precisely opposite of correct information that I hope you didn't write that as a joke and I'm not getting it.
The only time isolation movements make sense is if you're already a very competitive bodybuilder who walks around with hundreds of pounds of lean muscle mass. Otherwise, isolation movements (especially when performed on machines rather than with free weights) are a genuinely terrible idea. At absolute _best_ they will make you gain muscle and lose weight vastly more slowly than you could. Most likely, they'll make you wind up with a chronic injury.
Please, please, please don't go to the gym and work on machines. Do compound movements instead. If you're interested in making physical improvements, go pick up Starting Strength. It's $30 and the author is an absolute genius.
[That was officially my first flame. I feel so hollow inside ...]