Is The Smith Machine Bad

Taking a free weight barbell and turning it into a crappy machine designed originally for uppe.

Is the smith machine bad.

Oddly enough it is still one of the most popular machines. The rack or cage has safety bars that can be adjusted to catch the barbell if you lose control. How are smith machines bad for you. After all it takes some balls to move away from gym equipment as tried and tested as barbells.

This may sound like an extreme comment to make considering almost every gym and even some rehabilitation facilities now have them for their people to use. But are smith machines all bad. The smith machine is a weight machine used for weight training it consists of a barbell that is fixed within steel rails allowing only vertical or near vertical movement. There are a lot of people who really enjoy using the smith machine and there are those who will not get near them.

I personally have been on both sides of this but i am one of those who won t touch the thing now. The smith machine takes a squat which is an incredibly complex movement requiring the coordinated effort of your entire body in unison and essentially turns it into a leg extension. Of course you can and should use both free weights and machines looks like i spoiled the ending. The smith machine has been one of the biggest mistakes in strength training equipment in my opinion.

Smith machines good or bad smith machines are very popular and can be found in any gym whether big or small. The smith machine has been one of the most criticized pieces of equipment in the gym for the past 7 or 8 decades. Some smith machines have the barbell counterbalanced the machine can be used for a wide variety of exercises though it is most commonly used to perform smith machine squats. The barbarian and megatec smith machines come with a built in half racks that allows you to switch from free weight bench press into 45 degree incline smith machine press or a decline chest press.

A power rack is basically a smith machine without the safety rails. You will never go into a gym that does not have at least one smith machine. So there are legitimate reasons for people to dislike smith machines and i think the above reasons are completely valid. It prevents the stabilizer muscles from doing any role as all the stability that s needed is already in place with restriction of bar movement.

And the vertical movements provided by the smith machine is not natural. Please let me elaborate before you stop reading.