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Welcome to the InForm Fitness Podcast series REWIND, a listen back to the classic interviews we’ve had with high intensity gurus & master trainers. Adam kicks it off with Biomechanics expert Bill DeSimone. In part 3 of 4, Adam gets Bill’s opinion on the machines vs. free weights debate. Then Adam asks the question, just what is functional training today?
Now listened to in 100 countries, The InForm Fitness Podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of InForm Fitness Studios, specializing in safe, efficient, High Intensity strength training.
Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise, nutrition and recovery with leading experts and scientists. We aim to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness and to replace those sacred cows with scientific-based, up-to-the-minute information on a variety of subjects. The topics covered include exercise protocols and techniques, nutrition, sleep, recovery, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more.
Arlene 0:01
The Inform fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of inform fitness studios specializing in safe, efficient, personal high intensity strength training, in each episode Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise nutrition and recovery, the three pillars of his New York Times best selling book, The Power of 10. He aims to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness. And with the opinions of leading experts and scientists, you'll hear scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects. We cover the exercise protocols and techniques of Adoms 20 minute once a week workout, as well as sleep recovery, nutrition, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more.
Adam 0:55
Hello, everyone, Adam here, welcome back to the inform fitness podcast rewind. It's our listen back to classic interviews with high intensity gurus, master trainers, authors and scientists. This is part three of four with author and weightlifter and personal trainer, Bill De Simone. In this episode, I thought I would get Bill's opinion on the old debate on whether machines or free weights are better. But before we got into that, I asked Bill, what exactly is functional training today? A lot of people feel and argue that machines are great, if you want to just do really high intensity, get really deep and go to failure. But if you want to really learn how to use your body and space, then then free weights and bodyweight movements need to be incorporated. And both are important, going to failure within the same machines in a safe manner that may be cammed properly. But that in of itself is not enough that a lot of people feel for full fitness or conditioning, if you will, you need to use free weights or bodyweight movements. So if you have an opinion about whether one is better than the other, they both serve different purposes. And they're both important. Or if you just use either one of them correctly. You're good.
Bill DeSimone 2:19
Well, I mean, let's talk about the the idea that free weights are more functional than machines. I personally think it's what you do with your body that makes it functional or not. And by functional. That's it.
Adam 2:32
Let's talk about that. Alright, so what? Alright, so let's, before we even go into the question I just asked, maybe we can talk about this idea of what because even people were throwing around the expression functional training nowadays. So CrossFit is apparently functional training. So what exactly was functional training? Well, see, I don't know what it has, what has it become?
Bill DeSimone 2:54
I don't know, I don't know what they're talking about. Because frankly, if I gotta move a tire from point A to point B, I'm rolling it, I'm not flipping it.
Adam 3:03
That'd be more functional wouldn't it.
Bill DeSimone 3:07
If I have a child or a bag of groceries, I have to lift I'm not going to lift the kettlebell or a dumbbell awkwardly to prepare for that awkward lift. In other words, I would rather train train my muscles safely. And then if I have to do something awkward, hopefully I'm strong enough to get through it to extend it. My thought was like when I started in 1982, or so, 84 83, somewhere in the early 80s, I started to struggle. Most of us at the time were very influenced by the muscle magazines. It was either muscle magazines, or the Nautilus one set to failure type training. But the people we were training in the early 80s, especially in Manhattan, they weren't bodybuilders and they weren't. They weren't necessarily athletes. So to train, business people, and celebrities and actors, etc. Like you would train athletes seemed like a bad idea. Plus, you know, how many times that I hear, Oh, I don't want to get big. Or you know, I'm not going out for the Olympics. Okay, fine. If someone has a hunched over shoulder or whatever, now you're tailoring the training to what the person is in front of you right to what's relevant to their life. You know, if 20 inch arms didn't fascinate them while you're training them to get 20 inch arms, right? Maybe, maybe a trimmer waist was more their priority. So to my functional training and personal training, back in the 80s was synonymous somewhere through since the 80s functional training turned into this anti machine approach. And, you know, functional training for sport was a book written by a guy named Mike Boyle. His his main point in there is, and I'm paraphrasing, so if I get it wrong, don't blame. Don't blame him. But his point was as an athlete, you don't necessarily need to bench heavier squat, heavier deadlift, heavy, although might be helpful, but you do need the muscles that hold your joints together to be in better shape. So all of his exercises were designed around rotator cuff around the muscles around the spine and muscles around the hips, muscles around the ankles. So in his eye, it was functional for sport, he was training people doing exercises, so that it would hold their posture together. So that that wouldn't cause a problem on the field. You know, that material was pretty good went a little overboard, I think in some ways, but generally is pretty good. But then it got kind of bastardized as it got caught into the commercial fitness industry. And it just became an excuse for sequencing like a lunge with a curl with a row with a push up to another lunge to a squat. It just became sort of a random collection of movements justified as being functional, functional, for what, right at least Boyle said it was functional for sport. His point was to cut injuries down in sport, where's the function and stringing together? Again, a curl to a press to a push up to a squat back to the curl like one rep of each. Those are more like stunts or feats of strength than they are? Yeah, to me. Yeah. Exercise.
Adam 5:59
I agree. So, you know, when you talk about the muscles around the spine, or the rotator cuffs, you know, they're commonly known as stabilizer muscles.
Bill DeSimone 6:08
Yes.
Adam 6:08
And when we talk about free weights versus machines, a lot of times I'll say something like, Well, if you want to work on stabilizing muscles, you need to use free weights. Can I tell you where to stabilize? Right? So what would you say to that,
Bill DeSimone 6:20
and I would say is, if they're stabilizing while they're using the free weights, then they're using the stabilizing muscles, right.
Adam 6:26
And if they're stabilizing while you're using a machine
Bill DeSimone 6:29
they're using the stabilizer muscles
Adam 6:30
could you work out those stabilizer muscles of the shoulder on a on a machine chest press the same way you can use strength and stabilizer muscles of the shoulder right on a free weight bench press.
Bill DeSimone 6:40
It's what your body's doing. That counts not not the tool skill is very specific. So if you want a barbell bench press, you have the barbell bench press,
Adam 6:49
is there an advantage to your state stabilizing muscles to do with a free weight bench press as opposed to a I don't see it machine,
Bill DeSimone 6:56
I don't see it other than to help the ability to free weight bench press. But if that's not why the person is training, it the person is just training for strength, the health benefits of exercise, right? There's a broadly, I don't think it matters if you stabili if you're on a machine chest press and you're keeping your shoulder blades down and back and you're not buckling, you're not buckling your elbows and you're tightening your your voluntarily controlling the range of motion. I don't see how that stabilization is different than if you're on a barbell bench press.
Adam 7:27
And you have to stabilize the same
Bill DeSimone 7:28
way. And that's if you're doing because
Adam 7:30
you're bouncing because you know you both arms have to work independently in a way.
Bill DeSimone 7:34
To me that just makes it risky. That doesn't add, again, back to your general question about whether free weights lend itself to stabilizing the core better or not. If that's what the person is doing on the exercise, then it is so if the person is doing the push up, and it's very tight, yes, he's exercising his core. If the person's doing the push up, and it's sloppy, one shoulders rising up one elbows to the size
Adam 7:58
that are that it's a push up, he's still not doing working is core.
Bill DeSimone 8:01
That's right. So it's really what the person is using their body, how they're using the body determines whether they're training their core appropriately, not the source of the resistance.
Adam 8:12
And I'm sorry, I mean, I you know, I've done compound rows with free weights and all kinds of ways over the years. And now I'm doing compound row with it with a retrofitted medics machine with with a cam that really is represent pretty, pretty good cam design. And I challenge anyone to think that they're not working everything I need to work on that machine, because you got to keep your shoulders still got to keep your shoulders down and you got still got to keep your chest up, you still have to, you know, not not hunched over your shoulders, when you're lowering the weight, it means a lot of things you've got to do right on a compound machine. Just like when you're using free weights, and I don't personally I've never really noticed much of a benefit and how do you measure that benefit anyway? Like, how would you be able to prove that free weights is helping? In one way? Where machines not? How do you actually prove something like that?
Bill DeSimone 9:02
You know, I buy a lot of a lot of claims and exercise. A lot of the chain of thought goes like this, you make the claim the result? And is this big black box in the middle? You know, there's no explanation of why doing this leads to this. See, I was gonna say, tricky getting to like CrossFit, boot camp type things and even following along with DVD program, whatever brand name you choose. The problem I have with that from a joint friendly perspective is you have too many moving parts for you to be managing your posture and taking care of your joints. So if especially if you're trying to keep up with a kettlebell class, I imagine it's possible that you can do certain kettlebell exercises and protect your lower back and protect your shoulders. It's possible but what the user has to decide is how likely is it? I know for me personally, I can be as meticulous as I want with a kettlebell or with a barbell deadlift. And at some point, I'm going to hurt myself, not from being over and over ambitious, not from sloppy form, something's going to go wrong. Somebody else might look at those two exercises and say no, I'm very confident I can get this. So you pay your money, you take a chance.
Adam 10:15
There's a nautilus tricep machine that I used to use. It was like, kind of like one up here. Yeah. And your karate chop, right? And for those in Europe was a stabilized on the PED. And I'd karate chop down with an old Nautilus machine. And I got the sharp pains on my elbows. No one else that I trained on that machine ever had that sharp pain in their elbows, but it bothered the hell out of my elbows. So I would do other tricep extensions. Without ever a problem. Does it make that a bad exercise? For me,
Bill DeSimone 10:44
but if it did, but if you notice certain machine designs have disappeared. There's a real talk. And there's a reason why that was because machine designs disappeared. So there's a reason why. I think in the nitro line, those old machine you're talking about, they used to call like a multi tricep, right? I think so. Okay. And it held your upper, your upper arms were held basically parallel, and you had a kind of karate chop to handle and it wasn't,
Adam 11:13
it wasn't accounted for the carrying angle,
Bill DeSimone 11:14
your elbows weren't your elbows and your elbows are slightly above your shoulders, and you had it you had to move your elbows in a parallel. Later designs, they moved it out here. They gave him independent axes, right? That's not an accident, right? I mean, so a certain amount of ligament binding happens and then,
Adam 11:31
right, like, my ligaments we're just not coping with that very well.
Bill DeSimone 11:35
That's right, and how much so for instance, exactly what joint angle your ligaments bind that is individual. But if you're going in this in this direction, there is a point where the shoulder ligaments bind and you have to do this. Well, that machine forced us in the bound position. Yeah. So when movement has to happen. It can't happen at the shoulder because you're pinned in the seat. It was happening in your elbow might not be the same with everybody. Sure. Well, that is how to model how the model worked.
Adam 12:11
Okay, that was part three of Bill DeSimone's interview on the inform fitness podcast rewind coming up. In part four, we will fly through topics like posture and mobility, what feel is in exercise and we will look back at past trends and training and compare them to current trends today.
Arlene 12:30
This has been the Inform fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman for over 20 years Inform fitness has been providing clients of all ages with customized personal training, designed to build strength fast, and now Adam and his staff would be delighted to train you virtually. Just visit informfitness.com for testimonials blogs and videos on the three pillars exercise nutrition and recovery.