Strength Training: Free Weights vs. Weight Machines (Plus Hypermobility Considerations)
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When it comes to strength training, there is the age-old debate: Which is better, free weights or weight machines? The answer is: there is no answer. Both forms of strength training have their benefits and drawbacks and both are capable of increasing strength and power. So how do you know which to use?
Strength Training for Hypermobility
For people with Hypermobility Disorders and Connective Tissue Diseases, understanding the major differences between each type of training is essential for injury prevention and optimizing your exercises for progression. Hypermobility refers to joints that move with a greater range of motion than normal.
Hypermobile people often grew up being “double-jointed,” or able to do lots of bendable “party tricks” with their bodies. People with hypermobility often, but not always, have difficulty regulating certain body actions, such as blood pressure or body temperature. For the sake of this article, we will be focusing solely on the musculoskeletal aspects of extra-bendy bodies.
In this Guide to Strength Training with Free Weights or Machines, we will cover:
Why strength train at all?
Free Weights - The benefits and drawbacks
Weight Machines - The benefits and drawbacks
When to use free weights and when to use weight machines
Citations
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Why Strength Train at all?
Strength training is important not only for increasing muscle mass (a no-brainer) but also for a wide variety of health-related benefits including:
Injury Prevention
Improving Muscle Endurance
Improved Proprioception and Balance (Where your body is in space)
Increasing Base Metabolic Rate (Muscle “Eats” Fat)
Increasing Bone Density
Improved Sleep Quality
Easier Body Weight Maintenance
Easier Weight Loss
Avoiding Plateaus
Improved BMD (Bone Mass Density)
For people with hypermobile bodies, strength training also helps to regulate the autonomic nervous system (the part that controls automatic body functions like heart rate), improve joint stability and muscle recruitment patterns, and improve proprioception, which is an internal awareness of how the body is oriented in space. There are many safe exercises for hypermobility, and strength training is a valuable component of pain management and improving quality of life.
Free Weights - The Benefits and Drawbacks
Free weights include dumbbells, kettlebells, and straight bars. As with any exercise modality, they have a bunch of pros and cons that may influence your decision to incorporate them into your training. Hypermobility exercises prescribed for home by a PT, HSD/EDS-Knowledgeable trainer, or Physio, may incorporate the use of lightweight dumbbells.
Free Weights - The Benefits:
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They take up less space - If you are a home gym type of person, free weights may be the way to go. They typically take up less space and are less cost prohibitive than weight machines. Many people opt for traditional dumbbells in a few different weights, such as a pair of 5 lbs, 8 lbs, and 12 lbs Dumbbells. These can be purchased as individual pairs or in a dumbbell set.
There are, however, other space-saving options as well. The company CAP is well known, not only for its standard “hex” dumbbells but also for its plated dumbbells and barbells. You can buy a variety of weight plates and add them to a standard dumbbell or barbell rod allowing for weight customization. Also on the market are adjustable dumbbells, such as the Reebok or Bowflex adjustable dumbbells. These are typically more expensive but they offer a wide variety of weight variations without taking up any more space than a single pair of dumbbells.
They allow for a greater Range of Motion (ROM) - With free weights, you are not limited to the range of motion dictated by a machine, which may not be sufficient for your body. With free weights, you are able to move through your joints’ full range of motion, a factor that is slightly different for every person. Limited ankle ROM, for example, is associated with, and may contribute to, venous insufficiency which leads to varicose veins.
Important note: When working out - it is very important to achieve full Range of Motion (ROM) in the joint you are working, without going past a normal ROM, especially important for hypermobile exercisers. Using mirrors or videotaping yourself might be helpful with spotting excessive or limited ROM. Braces that have limited ROM may also be helpful for those with unstable joints.
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You can perform Compound Exercises and Combination Moves - Dumbbell workouts allow you to work multiple muscle groups with a single or combo exercise. For example, you can perform a lunge followed by a bicep curl which incorporates both legs and arms. Or, a traditional back squat with a barbell that uses your core, glutes, quadriceps, and calves. Because you are able to perform compound movements more easily, free weights mimic real-life movements much more effectively than machines can.
You use more stabilizer muscles - When you are training with free weights, your body is not supported by a machine and must do all the work to stabilize your joints and core, therefore, you use more small stabilizer muscles while training with free weights. This directly translates to better total body stability as well as strength and power. This is crucial for anyone participating in sports where the risk of injury is much higher when the stability of the joints is underdeveloped. People who lead a less active life are also prone to have weak stabilizer muscles and may benefit greatly from strength training with free weights.
Free Weight Exercises Can Often be Replaced by Resistance Bands - Traveling and can’t take your dumbbells? Free weight exercises are often easier to replicate with resistance bands than weight machine exercises, which also take up far less space and weigh practically nothing. This means you can take your routine with you on the go!
Free Weights - The Downside
Increased risk of Injury - Despite all the amazing pros to free weights, the biggest drawback is that using the correct form is critical and therefore the risk of injury is higher. If a person is lacking quality mobility, defined as the combination of strength and flexibility for optimal movement around a specific joint, they may be transferring forces into body parts that cannot handle the stress. For example, if a person lacks proper ankle mobility, they may lean too far forward during a traditional back squat which increases the sheer forces in the lumbar spine resulting in an increased risk of injury, usually in the form of a herniated disc₅. This is also crucial if you are hypermobile. You must be aware of where the “normal” range of motion ends so you don’t move past that point into a hypermobile ROM which can wear down ligaments and tendons, creating long-term problems.
It is harder to work the desired muscle groups - The vast majority of people have muscle imbalances due to their daily movement patterns and habits. These lead to some muscles being over-tight and overactive, and others becoming too long and underactive. This is true for hypermobile people just as much as it is for non-hypermobile people. During free weight exercises, the body will naturally want to use the “stronger,” overactive muscles which make it harder to achieve correct form and work the desired muscles correctly. The Split Squat is a perfect example. When done correctly, this exercise is more effective than squats or lunges for increasing glute activation and growth. Too often, however, people shift their weight incorrectly resulting in excess quad use and increased risk of a knee injury.
The Intimidation Factor - There is no doubt free weights can be more intimidating to newbies in the fitness world. People with hyperflexible joints might shy away from free weights in general, too. Possibly because they have a history of not making progress or because they tend to get hurt. This is a great reason why you should hire a personal trainer, especially if you are new to exercise. Certified fitness trainers are educated to look for and find muscle imbalances that may be keeping you from your goals. Additionally, if you are hypermobile or have connective tissue disorders, finding a joint hypermobility syndrome specialist is critical. There are total-body considerations that go beyond the scope of typical personal trainers. They are also trained to work with people of all levels and abilities to help them successfully work out safely and in a way that is right for them based on their goals and interests. Google and Youtube are terrible substitutes. All too often “fitness experts” are not certified or trained properly in technique which can result in sharing harmful or inaccurate information. Always look for the credentials of the trainers you follow. On a related note, fitness equipment, such as the Peloton™ bikes that come with Virtual Personal Trainers, are not truly providing “personal” training. There is a big difference between having someone coach your form versus watching a coach on a screen yelling cookie-cutter encouragement.
Weight Machines - The Benefits and Drawbacks
These include the Leg curl, Leg Press, Shoulder Press, Triceps machine, and more. Just like free weights, they have benefits and drawbacks that should be considered when designing your training program.
Weight Machines - The Benefits:
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They are good for learning movements - For those new to exercise, weight machines may be useful for learning how to recruit and use muscles for desired movements. Moving your muscles through a predetermined range in a single plane can help your nervous system learn to engage and coordinate the movement over time. This makes the transition to free weights much easier in the future. For people with Ehlers Danlos Hypermobility Syndrome or general joint hypermobility, this may be a great way to learn muscle movements within an ideal range of motion. By setting the machine to an ideal ROM, excess ROM can be prevented. It helps that many machines come with pictures that show how to set up the machine and perform the movement correctly, as well as pictures of the muscles being targeted.
Maybe less intimidating for beginners - Because machines take a lot of the guesswork out of how to move and which muscles you are targeting, they may be much more friendly for those newer to exercise. This is a huge benefit for people who are just starting to get into fitness or have had negative experiences with exercising in the past but are not in a place to hire a personal trainer. In general, they are designed to be user-friendly. Most gyms offer a consult with a staff trainer to help you learn some of the equipment and how to use it safely.
They isolate specific muscles - A Helpful Tool for Hyper Flexible Joints - Machines remove the need for multi-joint stabilization due to supporting the body from almost every angle during the exercise. Because of this, machines are great at isolating specific muscles and allowing them to be worked on one at a time. For people looking to build muscle quickly, this can be very useful. Less stabilizer work means more targeted work on the desired muscle. When considering hypermobile joints, sometimes the stabilizer muscles are over-challenge too often. In theory, this can prevent the muscles from getting a foot-hold on gaining some base strength. Isolating specific muscles, not just the big ones, can aid with developing enough to build upon for future stability.
More weight can be added than with free weights - And, because those stabilizers are taking a break, more weight can be added to the working, isolated muscle, than free weights would allow. This means that you can really work on bulking muscles, known as muscle hypertrophy, in a fairly short time compared to doing free-weight exercises.
You can train without a spotter - Lifting weights is no joke. Injuries can and do occur, which is why people typically use or need a spotter to help ensure safety when lifting free weights. With machines, the need for a spotter is gone. The machines keep the body in a supported, safe position and the machines only move in ways that allow a person to move a lot of weight with minimal risk of the weight falling on them or causing a related injury.
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Weight Machines - The Downsides:
They have a fixed ROM and may lead to overuse injuries - On the flip side, because machines have a fixed range of motion, they may be limiting the extent to which your joints are able to move. If your joints are not moving through your specific range of motion, you may be missing out on much-needed motion (or lack thereof) to avoid overuse injuries. Machines are not a one-size-fits-all situation. Some machines do allow for some adjustment to accommodate taller or shorter persons, however, most machines are built for the people that use them most - typically men around 6 feet tall and weighing 180 lbs.
Decreased use of stabilizers may lead to underdeveloped stability systems - using only machines can create overuse injuries because the muscles are developing in isolation and without the added support of the stabilizing system. For example, using the leg press exercise machine will help you develop beautiful quads and glutes, however, it won’t help you with ankle stability or lumbar spine stability. If a person uses only the machine for working out, they are putting themselves at a higher risk for lower back pain and ankle instability than a person would who uses a combination of weights machines and free weights to develop their squats.
They mimic very few real-life movements - While machines are great for learning movement patterns and muscle recruitment patterns, they aren’t very good at mimicking real-life movements. This is especially important for people who participate in sports or have labor jobs that require a lot of repetitive movements or lifting such as factory workers or construction workers. There aren’t any machines that mimic picking up boxes and putting them on high shelves overhead or using a hammer repetitively. Therefore these movements need to be trained with free weights or functional equipment and cannot be developed by machines alone.
When to use Free Weights and when to use Machine Weights
Both are important for developing a total body exercise program depending on your goals. No matter what your fitness goals are, it is important to make sure you are using Periodization. This is when you break your workouts into 2-4 week blocks and vary the type of training you do in each fitness block. Most people will benefit from 2-4 weeks of dedicated stabilization training, followed by 2-4 weeks of muscle endurance training, and finally 2-4 weeks of either hypertrophy training where you are trying to bulk your muscles, or power training where you focus on agility, quick maneuvers, and speed. Hypermobile people may benefit most from alternating between 2-3 week blocks of stabilization followed by strength endurance. Power and Hypertrophy training may or may not be beneficial depending on that person’s day-to-day symptoms.
Free weights, along with other modalities such as balls, resistance bands, cables, and balance fitness toys like the Bosu, are great for stabilization training, muscle endurance training, and power training.
Weight machines, on the other hand, are fantastic for muscle endurance, hypertrophy training, and maximum strength training. There is a small amount of cross-over to power training since it has been found that lifting a greater amount of weight during a back squat directly correlates to increased height and control during a standing box jump, however, this isn’t truly effective without including free weights for stabilization training.
In a perfect world, everyone would use a combination of free weights and machine weights by either using some of both every week or by switching the focus of their weight lifting every 2 to 4 weeks.
In the end, both free weights and weight machines will help you increase muscle mass and there is no statistically significant difference between the two types of weight lifting. One study did show that free weights may increase free testosterone in men more readily than machines, although the way this happens is still unclear. Even in the senior population, there is no significant difference between free weights and machines as far as building muscle goes. Free weights, however, may be more “enjoyable” and thus may lead to better compliance with an exercise program₇. This last bit is probably true for most people. The ability to create fun, variable, and fully engaging exercises is typically easier with dumbbells than with fixed machines, but that all depends on your personal preference!
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