Only Machines for Arnold Schwarzengger, why? No free weights? No big lifts? (bench press, bodybuilding)
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The amount of sheer ignorance in this thread is astounding.
1) Old age doesn't automatically preclude you from doing free weights. However your injury history might. You have to account for individual differences here. Jack Lalanne lifted free weights into old age, and lived a very healthy life until 96.
2) No, machines aren't stupid and/or pointless. You can reach your desired goal, whatever that may be, using machines as well as free weights, especially today when there are lots of great machines out there. This wasn't the case back in the 70s. There are often many paths to the same goal. Dogma is one of the most annoying things about people in the online fitness world.
Free weights are best bang for your buck in strength/muscle development, but machines have their place too. Are they necessary? Of course not. Can they be helpful? Yes. Every exercise is just a tool. Why limit your toolbox to only a few?
Last edited by Valhallian; 10-05-2016 at 09:19 AM..
Reason: comma
And I (for the most part) pretty much agree with them.
Machines are almost completely pointless if you are able to use free weights, so unless you are either disabled or just too old to use free weights (in which case, use the machines. Better than nothing), there is really no reason to just not use weights or calisthenics. I would even go a step further and argue that as long as you have a weighted vest and something to hang from even free weights are largely overrated.
... ... <shaking head> I know the genetics are against you, but there have been some pretty impressive Scandinavian bodies built with the use of heavy weights (and drugs probably). Either machines or free, the item of importance is the poundage. Not Olympic weightlifter or powerlifter poundage, but muscular hypertrophy inducing poundage and reps. Admit it, you wouldn't mind looking like a male stripper or nightclub bouncer. You could do that using some real weights (machines are real weights) and maybe a little juice. A little. We aren't talking a full stack of four different anabolics and two different estrogen blockers. Arnold is living proof that a person can do boatloads of anabolic steroids and live to a ripe old age. Stop the pointless shaming of men (and women) that have more guts than you and make the decision to live their dream, whatever it takes. How are they hurting you?
I'm gonna go with Arnold knows what the **** he's doing. Dudes almost literally a machine. I know it's corny but some of the stuff he's done; reaching out to obese people trying to lift, talking to kids taking their dying Fathers to his movies, I mean the way he responds to them is just magnificent.
I absolutely love Arnold. But I don't lift weights....they're too heavy.
Oh, and I'll leave you with this, emphasis added...from a question a fan asked about what he'd do differently starting over;
Arnold: "The only thing I would change in a perfect world is I would add the training I couldn't do, because of the lack of equipment. I would add much more direct calf, rear delt, and hamstring work. We didn't have machines for those things in Graz. It was all barbells and dumbbells, which was great but not the best for bodybuilding."
I'm gonna go with Arnold knows what the **** he's doing. Dudes almost literally a machine. I know it's corny but some of the stuff he's done; reaching out to obese people trying to lift, talking to kids taking their dying Fathers to his movies, I mean the way he responds to them is just magnificent.
I absolutely love Arnold. But I don't lift weights....they're too heavy.
Oh, and I'll leave you with this, emphasis added...from a question a fan asked about what he'd do differently starting over;
Arnold: "The only thing I would change in a perfect world is I would add the training I couldn't do, because of the lack of equipment. I would add much more direct calf, rear delt, and hamstring work. We didn't have machines for those things in Graz. It was all barbells and dumbbells, which was great but not the best for bodybuilding."
This was all well and good until you decided to highlight the last part in red and underline it, which will only serve to confuse people. He's not saying that machines are better than free weights for bodybuilding (People might think so upon reading the line you chose to emphasize). He's saying that the best way to do bodybuilding would've been to have the barbells, dumbbells, AND, i repeat, AND machines.
If you read any of his advice for how novices should train or look into any of his programs, he is a big advocate of using the big compound lifts as the base of your program: squat, bench, overhead press (he preferred the behind-the-neck seated OHP), etc., and free weights in general.
That sentence is clearly meant to be viewed in the context of that paragraph as a whole, where he says he would "add the training he couldn't do." Not substitute, add.
Last edited by Valhallian; 10-05-2016 at 11:31 AM..
A ridiculous pretense stocky man. This guy, Arnold, has absolutely nothing to prove these days.
His record speaks for itself. Let him retire. You are needing attention stockyman or what is this post about ?
Strength diminishes with age, tendons snap, spinal discs are compressed, he simply ain't 21 anymore.
The efficiency of the recovery process suffers, joints wear out and become arthritic. Anyone with any knowledge of physiology knows this.
Nothing lasts forever and no one needs to carry that extra weight around anymore, whether fat or muscle
it will wear the frame because it is excess weight no matter where it comes from. Age is Kryptonite.
He and Franco are still living the dream.
Good for him, every individual's situation is different. At this point in his life, Arnold really doesn't have anything to prove to anyone. He's a kid from a small town in Austria that improbably became the greatest bodybuilder of his era and arguably all time, a famous movie star and governor of the most populated state in the U.S.
Dude can walk around in a pink tutu, flip flops and a scuba mask for all I care, nobody's flexing on him.
And I (for the most part) pretty much agree with them.
Machines are almost completely pointless if you are able to use free weights, so unless you are either disabled or just too old to use free weights (in which case, use the machines. Better than nothing), there is really no reason to just not use weights or calisthenics. I would even go a step further and argue that as long as you have a weighted vest and something to hang from even free weights are largely overrated. I work out at home, and literally the only time I use free weights is when I do either overhead pressing or bicep curls. Everything else is weighted calisthenics. And for the most part isolations are a waste of time, with the possible exception of bicep and tricep exercises. s.
Free weights are the king of training. Always have been and still are. Ideally, free weights should make up a large portion of a person's workout, whether they are training for bodybuilding, fitness, or performance functionality.
Who knows why that montage was done like that. Maybe he was embarrassed by doing a free weight session because that could have shown how little weight he was pushing. Maybe he was injured and could only do machines. Maybe he has some bad osteoarthritis that prevents him from doing the big free weight lifts. Maybe they filmed it in a "gentrified" gym that had no free weights.
From what I have read and seen regarding Arnie's current training regimen, he does predominantly machine workouts. He does something like 30 total sets per workout, split between two body parts, so 15 sets per body part. And I believe he does each body part twice per week, so 30 total sets per body part every week. Machine weights can be very effective; as long as a muscle is being properly targeted and stimulated, it will grow. Many free weight exercises include many helping muscles into the movement, which may reduce stimulation of the targeted muscle. Recruiting stabilizer muscles and/or surrounding muscles will make the workout harder and will probably increase overall lifting strength, but will it necessarily stimulate and isolate a particular muscle better than a machine?
Obviously. And? He wanted to become an outstanding pro bodybuilder. He did what had to be done to get there. If you know another way to obtain and keep a pro-bodybuilder physique and excel in competition with genetic freaks who also happen to be juiced to the gills, please, share.
I think he meant the current Arnold is juiced up. I'm sure he is taking things now.
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