Seeing as this is the first entry for my DailyXY fitness blog, I felt a good place to start was my take on traditional gyms.
Walk into most gyms and the first thing you see is row upon row of machines. Each machine is dedicated to working a different body part.
In my mind, machines are a complete waste of time for two reasons:
1. They take up so much room, and can only be used by one person at a time.
2. Using these machines can actually be detrimental to your health. When you sit on one of these machines and perform your exercises, your body, as a whole isn’t learning to react to the stresses you are putting it under.
Let’s use a shoulder press as an example. Perform a standing dumbbell shoulder press and your core has to work to keep you from swaying; you use your back muscles to keep the weights from falling, and you use all the muscles in your shoulder to keep the weights from swaying. On a machine, none of those things happen. When you get into a real life situation where you have to lift something over your head all those other muscles that have to fire and activate don’t and you can potentially seriously injure yourself.
Unless you are a crane operator, don’t waste your time on machines. I am a believer in functional training: Exercises that help you deal with all the stresses that your body has to deal with daily and ultimately get you your best body. In the coming weeks I look forward to giving you functional training and nutrition tips and also share my opinion on fads and myths in the fitness industry.
