Thanks for sharing your advice Fran, let’s add some more info to think about… to train smarter in the gym.

7 good reasons not to use strength machines in the gym :

1. Our body is made to move in 3 planes of motion : sagital, frontal and transverse plane, so it means forward-backward, lateral and rotation movements. Which strength machine do you know in the gym that works in those 3 planes of motion?
2. You have to sit mostly at the machines, while we rarely perform sports or other activities while sitting. The same idea with supine, prone, lying on the side position. Muscles react differently depending on their position with respect to gravity so please take this is into consideration while training.
3. You will get the best muscle reaction when you stretch it first. At which strength machine do you get a stretch before the muscle contraction? Bringing muscles in a stretched position (loading the muscle) before contracting (unloading) has also its advantages in flexibility and injury prevention.
4. If you like to have more advantages in what you are doing weight training for, first think it over what you want to improve (jump better, increase speed, injury prevention, become stronger, increase flexibility). Which muscles and movements do you want to improve to get better results and which strength machines/exercises look like that?
5. Is it possible that most strength machines and the movements you make using them don’t look like realistic movements… and is it possible that you’re making movements on these machines which you’ll NEVER make in real life? So what are the advantages if still using them? And do they have disadvantages for the body and its results?
You can play the body as a violin, how do you want to play yours?
Making unrealistic and artificial movements which have nothing to do with reality might confuse our nervous system and can have a negative impact.
You can make very beautiful sounds and music on a violin, but at the same time it can make a lot of noise. How do you want to train your nervous system?
6. Fixed strength machines have their safety rules, stable settings and safe positions so that nothing can go wrong using them, and most of the time there is an instructor or trainer available helping you to use them optimally and correctly. If you consider our above comments, what is a safe or correct position for you? The question is if it is that safe and correct to position a person in a certain posture and even limit the movement or range of motion? In how many positions do you end up while doing your sports or activities? Thousands, millions, no? And is it that safe to make smaller movements (limited range of motion) in your training than in your sport? So if you’re sitting at a certain strength machine, on a certain, safe position where we can only bend the elbows till 90° and not further because this is the protocol, what is the value of this training for a beginning or even experienced athlete?
7. Fixed strength machines are dividing our body in pieces, an idea from the bodybuilding world from years ago (in which the most important goal is hypertrophy, muscle mass) and this way of working found its way to other sports. I’m sure you already saw enough examples of very muscled guys with low athletic performance and coordination because they ruined the muscle balance and maybe more important… the nervous system.
Even in bodybuilding they combine isolated training (‘cutting the body in pieces’) with integrated training (‘putting the parts back together again’) now, developing not only muscled but also athletic and well proportioned athletes.
We prefer integrated exercises with a perfect timing for nervous system and muscles. Meanwhile, we have enough reasons to train the body as a whole, just consider the fascia/connective tissue which links our foot to our head.

Cheers,
Willem

hola:
añadiria busca un lugar seguro, ropa comoda, ten agua a disposicion,
acuerdate de estirar y relajar los musculos al finalizar la sesion