You won’t see a lot of free weights
Posted on | September 4, 2008 |
I’m going to start off with a slightly serious note of local interest. A friend of mine sent me this link http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08228/904499-85.stm
It’s worth a read, and pretty depressing. I think a lot of the attitudes reflected in the article show exactly why I dislike mainstream “health” clubs. A choice quote of mine from the article is “You won’t see a lot of free weights,” said John Cardone, Downtown branch executive. “We’re more about core stability exercises”.
The implication here seems to be that machines improve core stability better than free weights. The sad part is that the majority of people are going to eat this line of nonsense up, then get discouraged when they don’t get results from it.
This seriously defies logic. Can someone please explain to me how a machine will possibly work stabilizer muscles more than a weight that is not locked into any given plane of motion?
Reading the article further, it appears that this rube goldberg esque machine may attempt to simulate free weights. Congratulations, you’ve engineered a multi thousand dollar piece of equipment that replicates the function of a piece of iron.
Just once, I’d like to see a major corporate fitness center that kept things simple and effective. Buy some barbells, buy some bumper plates. A few treadmills even.
Clearly I have no idea what I’m talking about.
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February 26th, 2009 @ 12:47 pm
What a friggin’ waste of time! That is most definately a Rube Goldburg contraption! This shows that many people find the good ol’ iron to be so intimidating that they need to invent things like the Kinesis machine in order to circumvent real training. Oy vey! Just to show them up I’m going to go to the gym today and work bottom-position heavy bench presses, barbell bent-over rows, standing military presses (with the bar cleaned to the shoulders), and some Hindu Push-ups/Sqauts and wrestler neck bridges.