Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2295: How to Build an Effective Machine Only Full Body Workout

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

There is a time and place for machines. (2:00) The value of working out with machines only. (3:47) There is an order of operations. (10:22) A Machine-Only Workout Utilizing the Machines We Deem to be Most Effective. #1 - Hack squat (greater range than leg press). (11:33) #2 - Seated or lying Hamstring curl. (15:35) #3 - Cable row. (17:52) #4 - Plate loaded chest press. (21:35) #5 - Smith machine seated press. (23:52) #6 - Dip machine. (27:33) #7 - Preacher curl machine. (29:46) Sets and rep ranges. (32:23) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit NASM for access to their premier all-in-one membership program, NASM One for Mind Pump listeners. March Promotion: MAPS Anabolic | MAPS Anabolic Advanced 50% off! ** Code MARCH50 at checkout ** Mind Pump #1782: When Machines Are Better Than Free Weights Build Your Legs with the Barbell Hack Squat - YouTube How To Properly Do The Seated Cable Row (IT MATTERS!) The Viking Press: How to Perform and Include Them In Your Workouts How To Do Chest Dips For A BIG Chest! - YouTube Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

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Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we give you a full body machine only workout that you can follow for great results. Now this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors,

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When it comes to strength training, you have many options. Most notably, free weights and machines. In today's episode, we're gonna talk about the best machines or, to be more clear, a machine-only workout that you could do for your body utilizing the machines that we deem to be the most effective. I like this.

This is- Yeah, different. I mean, well we all, we all, we're so negative about them usually. I'm trying to be nice on this one. Well, you know, and I think it's important to explain that, right? Why I think is the benefits of free weights

and barbell training is just far superior than training on machines, regardless of what you hear on the internet and the arguments that are there. And we've talked about that at length in other episodes. But I do think there's time where you're traveling or, hey, I've been training this way for a long time. This is a nice interruption. And so I think the idea of putting together a workout that one of us would do at a gym where we're not gonna do any free weights, what would it look like?

What machines would we choose? Why might we choose those machines? Yeah. And how would we put together a really good workout? If I had to do like a total body type workout, like what would that consist of? Like there's definitely a few machines I'd probably steer towards more so than others.

Yeah. Now, ideally, now I know a lot of times that the question is posed as machines versus free weights and we've had episodes like that, but the truth is a good, well-balanced routine, especially one that you follow for years and years and years. And hopefully that's the case. Hopefully you start a workout routine and you never stop. You always follow it. It shouldn't use both, machines and free weights because using them both gives you the best of both worlds, ideally speaking. But there are times when you might want to just do machines. They tend to

be faster, easier. Big box gyms will typically have these machines that we're going to talk about to be available. And they're just, they do feel different. There are pluses. A little less damaging, I would say a little bit. Yeah. So I'm, I've been now using primarily machines

for the last maybe six weeks on purpose. I've never done a machine only workout for any length or period of time. Typically when I do it's like what you said Adam, when we're traveling. And I'm noticing a few different things. Of course they require less stability and support than free weights do, which means that you're not going to gain the same stability and support type of gains or strength that you would get from full weights. However,

the other side of that is it's less damaging. I mean, when I do a press or a row or whatever with a machine versus its free weight counterpart, for the same reps, same intensity, let's say I'm pushing them both really hard, it just damages the body less. Now that allows me the ability to train more often. I'm less likely to over train. I could do more sets, add more volume. Um, of course that means with free weights, I might be able to do less and get the same type of results, but it is, it does cause less damage. And so it feels different on the body, you know, going real hard on a machine

overhead press just doesn't hammer you like a barbell overhead press. And there's some value. Sometimes you're tired, sometimes you're overstressed, or sometimes you want to work out longer, which is what I'm doing right now. I'm going in there, I'm trying to get more volume in, and I can't get away with that with free weights. Yeah, I think we've always recognized that there's value, especially too, if you're rehabbing and there's limitations with, uh, you, your function at the time. So you have to be mindful of, uh, certain, um, uh, certain amounts of ranges of motion and, um, you know,

your capacity with that, uh, and being supported in positions like in some positions. And, um, I think like that's where machines really shine in terms of helping you to still express your muscle contraction and get blood flow and still kind of that really does then aid and contribute towards rehabilitation and healing. So, you know, there's benefit with that. And then to the fatigue point, like you do get fatigued So, you know, there's benefit with that. And then two, the fatigue point, like you do get fatigued, um, with free weights and then it becomes a little bit more, uh, risky, because if you can't really brace and really control, uh,

your body to its full degree, you know, that you kind of leave yourself open for injury sometimes. So I've actually, uh, trained for an extended period of time like this for a long time, way too long. Uh, cause I came from that camp of, uh, feeling a muscle, right? Like that was like the best way to build or work a muscle was like, how well could I target it and feel it? And you know, there's one of the great things about machines is do a good job of targeting

specific muscles. Oh, it's why bodybuilders like machines. Right. Easy to isolate a muscle on machine because everything's supported. Yes. And so I definitely was in that camp for a long time. Now the reason why I think we probably haven't done this episode, uh, and why we talk primarily towards like why everybody should be training and lifting free

weights is because like all of us at one point had figured out, like I've seen the difference and it's like a drastic difference of the gains that I got from training free weights in comparison to all the years of training on machines. And so I definitely am way more of a fan of teaching my clients freeway training, but there are places for training like this. So I'll still interrupt my freeway training

with a day like this occasionally. And a still interrupt my freeway training with a day like this occasionally. And a lot of that time is when I'm either one felt like I've overreached and I've trained too much and so I'm kind of sore and so I want to go in there. I'm not trying to reduce intensity or if I've just been consistent with freeway training for a while and I hadn't done that or if I'm traveling. Like those tend to be the reasons why I would interrupt my normal training cycle now with this. Yeah.

I think there's also a lot of value for the advanced lifter because the advanced lifter, when you've been practicing with strength training for a long time, you're able to activate more muscle fibers with a set than somebody who doesn't have that same experience. Using a machine, isolating a muscle group, and then pushing the intensity, you're going to get some good hypertrophy benefits. This is why what you'll notice with high-level bodybuilders is they typically start with free weights. This is where they build the majority of their muscle and then they start to move more to machines as they become pros and

get even bigger and larger. If you're a 270 if you're a 270 pound bodybuilder, you know, doing a standing barbell overhead press, you're going to exhaust yourself after five sets. It's going to be tough to finish the rest of your workout versus sitting in a shoulder press machine that puts, the track is set, you just push, come up, you don't have to stabilize as much and balance as much on the body. It allows you to finish training the rest of your body. Now for someone who's not a pro bodybuilder or whatever is listening right now, it's great to combine the two. So now you can look at higher volume workouts, lower intensity, higher intensity, and you can start to piece these things together. This is why workout programming can sometimes be so complicated because all these factors come into play, like a squat machine versus a barbell squat, same volume,

same intensity, same tension, not the same effect on the body, different considerations for what exercises you follow up with, how many sets you do and so on. Like one of the big things I notice with machines is I push the intensity harder and I feel okay. Like if I go to failure on a machine, it does not feel like going to failure on free weights. And this may be why sometimes we hear in social media, these fitness influencers say you always have to train to failure.

I wonder if it's because that's what they train primarily on machines. And they notice that that intensity needs to be there. It could be a factor for sure. It could be. And I'm finding myself pushing that intensity higher with machines than I would with free weights. But the isolating part is a good one. If you sit on a machine and try to isolate your rear delt or try to isolate your triceps

or your upper chest or mid chest or the mid back. You're not worried about stabilizing, controlling. You're not worried about having to hold your body in a particular way. You are there. You're set in that position. In fact, when I would train clients, I would often use machines to teach a client to contract the muscle in a particular way, move a particular way, so that later we would have some of the strength to then be able to do the free weight version

of that particular exercise. Now you talk about programming and why it can be very nuanced, right? But there are some rules that still apply, regardless if we're talking about free weights or machines, and one of those would be how you prioritize exercise selection, right? We started off with legs. I do want to explain though to the consumer that's the general population that might follow this

is that we prioritize them in big muscle groups, right? So most of your energy goes to like a leg machine, but if you were someone who had a specific body part that you were trying to develop, that would take priority. You would put that first. Yeah. So just keep that in. Generally speaking, you would start with legs and move through to the smaller muscle groups and

you'll get better results this way. Now this is a full body workout and you could follow this workout two days a week and you could get away with this workout without developing muscle imbalance or anything for a good six weeks or so and you'll probably get some decent results but you will want to mix this up at least after that period of time because it's the same exercises over and over. There is no stability component and you may start to develop movement pattern issues. Now the first exercise we said legs and in this we discussed a little bit about whether or not we would put a leg press here or a

hack squat. I think those are the two best lower body compound lift exercises that you could do that will produce that's kind of the biggest bang for your butt. Most muscle, most strength, most performance. I think initially I thought of a leg press because you could really load it substantially but you guys talked me out of it with the range of motion. You do get a superior range of motion with a hack squat so you can express that you know a little bit more effectively and really get that posterior chain a little bit more. I also thought that we you know we, on machines that should be in pretty much every gym too. Right.

Because there's examples of like, I mean, I would love a belt squat machine right here. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. But not easy to find. No, not easy to find at all. I mean, it's rare to see them in a gym. But I mean, it would be awesome. But reverse hyper. Yeah. The idea. And really, I think what we thought about was like, man, most, everything in here would almost be in a hotel gym.

I mean, most of these exercises can be. They're staple machines. Yeah. They're staple machines in every major commercial gym. And so as the listener that might be go, oh man, I would do this. Cause you have some really cool machine at your gym that nobody else has. You know, one thing I want to add before we continue, in our time of working in gyms, which has been a while now, I've been working in gyms for two and a half decades, we saw

the emergence of plate loaded machines, which didn't exist before. Before machines were selectorized, meaning you moved the pen and it was a weight stack. And then all of a sudden, hammer strength, they were the first ones to come out with plate loaded. You used to sudden hammer strength, they were the first ones to come out with plate loading. And they became very popular because, and now you think to yourself, what's the difference if you add a plate to a machine versus moving a weight stack? Well, the difference was hammer strength tapped into how tension works throughout the body and it mimicked free weights more than machines did.

In other words, with a press or a row, what you'll find is one portion of the rep will be easier than another portion of the rep versus most cable-led, you know, selectorized machinery. If you put 75 pounds on the machine, it's 75 pounds from the beginning to end. Whereas with the hammer strength or other plate loader equipment, now there's lots of plate loader equipment, what you'll find is it'll be loaded. It'll feel the heaviest at the part you're the strongest and easiest at the part where you tend to be weakest because the way that they design them with the angles and the leverage, the free weight will get heaviest or oppose gravity most at the times when they're most opportune.

This actually makes plate loaded machines more effective in my opinion in many ways. We will talk about one particular plate loaded piece of equipment here. But a hack squat, we think it's better than a leg press because the range of motion. Do a leg press, see how far you move the platform, do a hack squat, see how far you move the platform. It's just a greater, fuller range of motion. And it probably has a little bit more carry over into the everyday world because it's mimicking a squat. Whereas a leg press is, you know, I'm on my back pushing something away from me,

which you don't really get too much. Might as well be in a recliner. Just like throw some weights. Yeah. Well, I've seen, I mean, and have you guys are, I've seen, I've seen someone, if you, if you can hack squat really good way you're you're sometimes a decent squatter. Yeah there's some carryover into even the barbell squat there. I've seen people that could stack and load the entire

leg press that can't squat 225. So that there's because there's no stability in the core. Yeah it is just they're always the biggest peacock. It's that different. I mean it's that different that you could get really strong with the leg press and yet still can't even squat 225 pounds You you start pushing three four hundred pounds on a hack squat You're probably able to squat 225 barbell back squat. So there's a lot more carryover I think to it too So I think it's just another example of why that why we chose chose a hack squad over the leg press. Next would be a seated or lying hamstring curl. Now here's an exercise you can't really mimic very well with free weights.

There really isn't a leg curl. I mean, I guess you could do like a, uh, what's a Nordic curl. Good luck doing that. Those are really challenging. Unless you're really strong. Yeah. A lot of skill involved. You can do a physio ball really challenging. Unless you're really strong. Yeah. A lot of skill involved. You can do a physio ball leg curl, but you're not getting the same

Yeah, well, stability. And both those are great movements, right? Not to knock them, but one of the things that lying leg curls also keeps tension on the muscle, the entire full range of motion too, where you lose that with Nordic curls, you're at the top of the curl. It's much easier. The very end. It's extremely difficult. So finding a range where you can actually complete the rep and then actually still get a good workout all the way through.

I'm curious. Are you guys more prone to doing the seated or the lying? I personally prefer doing the lying hamstring curls. You know what? I enjoy both. I don't... You know what, I enjoy both. I don't, I don't, um. I like the seated because the seated puts my hamstrings in a more of a stretch position at the end of the motion. See, I feel more in lying. To stretch? Yeah.

Oh, interesting. I don't think it's a big difference, although both of them are loading it a little bit differently, but the main motion is the. I think, I think the seated, um, is easier to have better form. The lying you people's hips tend to shoot up and come off of it. And they also tend to move and flex their feet and their ankles. And so it ends up filling it in their calves or they let their hips rise off. So it takes a little bit better or a little bit more technique to do the lying.

I think I feel like the seat is really easy to do but I'm with you I feel the stretched more in line. I like both I mean these are actually movements that even if I'm training mostly free weights I still will have this this is one of the few. How do you work the leg so the hamstrings I mean there's there's there's a few heads of it but one part the leg bicep you really only work when you flex the knee like fully and you can't do that with free weight now deadlifts the flaky deadlifts Romanian deadlifts I mean you work the whole hamstring but you're not getting that leg curl yeah you know that which is why that

still this is one of the few that actually still find its way into my free weight training totally I'm still going to do this exercise totally next is the cable row. Another exercise that I would say if I was only doing free weights, I would inject cable rows in there. I like cable rows because you can load them. There's still a stability component, but you're not bending over holding a weight, which requires a lot of stability. Like one of the drawbacks, we can also make it a plus, but I'll say one of the challenges of like a barbell row is you need to be able to stabilize and hold yourself.

That's an advanced movement. Yeah, while rowing the weight. Yeah. With a cable row, the positioning, you're not fighting gravity, you're still fighting the weight, but it's easier to stabilize yourself. Now, what I love cable rows with clients because to get a client to depress, right? Bring their shoulder blades down and back to get that nice open chest, squeeze back position, teaching them in a bent over position with a barbell row or two dumbbells is so hard. It's like it naturally makes them want to roll their shoulders forward.

It's valuable for anybody. Even if they're like a beginner or not a beginner, like just to learn how to combat a lot of the daily habits that we have of reaching for things in front of us, sitting with our protracted shoulders, to be able to get back in good posture and retract the shoulders and keep that chest high, but then also reinforce that by strengthening it. They feel an immediate difference and a good feeling.

So this is maybe, and I'm trying to rack my brain right now and go like, was there a time that this isn't true? As far as I can remember, this is true. The single most used exercise I'd ever done with every single client. I don't think I've ever had a client I did not teach to. In fact, this was the first exercise I would do a lot of times.

This is a teaching moment. It's such a teaching moment. I even do it in my assessment. Yes, for overall posture. Even before I got, we talk so highly of like things like the barbell back squat. If your client doesn't know how to retract and depress their shoulders to even set the bar on their back, you want to be able to... They're not going to be able to bench press. Yes. So this is such an incredible movement that I would say if I had to go back and assess what exercise did I use the most out of all exercise in the gym, I'd probably say the seated cable row.

I don't care how old you were, I don't care what your goal was, this was a staple movement that I either used to teach and get you going on it or it was a staple movement in your routine all the time. For trainers, this is invaluable because what you do is you put your client in position, you have them sit upright, and it's not hard for you, of course, get the permission from the client, this is invaluable because what you do is you put your client in position, you have them sit upright, and it's not hard for you, of course, get the permission from the client, to place your hands on their shoulders and help them move in position and move and contract and get this nice full squeeze in the mid-back, which they probably haven't

felt for a long time. Try doing that with free weights. You can, and I've done it, but it's really hard because now you're battling gravity. You're fighting them trying to round their back and they have to learn how to hit pinching. Still work on bracing properly. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Well, and it directly opposes what everybody is almost like everybody is challenged with. I don't think I ever trained a client that didn't have some form or another of forward shoulder and forward head. And so we just, we do everything in front of us that that movement is so important to develop those muscles that bring the posture into that position that it was a

go-to, it was a starting for everybody. It was a staple exercise I kept. And so that has to be in this. For just pure muscle building also up there. This is also a great exercise for just general overall muscle building of the back. Now as far as handles are concerned, there's a lot of different handles

and people make arguments for each one. The traditional narrow handle I think is probably the easiest for most people to use. If you go real wide, now you can get more upper back and rear delt and all that stuff. But just in general, cable rows gotta be one of the best ones. All right, next up is a plate loaded chest press. Now I wrote plate loaded here instead of

machine, selectorized because when hammer strength is the first one to really do this. But what you'll notice when you do these is first off the way the resistance feels as you press the weight up allows the weight to feel heaviest at the end where your strongest lightest at the bottom, where you're not as strong. So it follows this natural strength curve, which we know through training with bands and chains makes a big difference. Also, hammer strength was the first one that I know of, at least, uh, you know, in mainstream to change the angle of the press so that your hands are further apart at the beginning and they slowly come together at the top, which is like, if you understand what the pecs do,

they bring the upper arm, the humerus, into central line. So rather than pressing straight out, which a barbell fixes your hands, right? So you still get that motion. But with a plate loaded, because the hands come together, you actually get a greater range of motion. This actually makes it a pretty damn good exercise for the chest. Now did you guys have a favorite, because what's kind of cool about these is they have

the upright vertical press, they have the inclined version of it, they even have the flat, at least the gym that I was at, they had the flat. Oh, where you lay on your back? Yeah. That's my favorite. I like the one where you lay on your back. Yeah, you can get a hold of that one that's my that's the best. I always see the incline the most I think. Yeah that's one I usually do. That's probably my second

favorite right? So if I had an old pick if they if the gym had a lying on your back press then I would do that then the second one would probably be inclined. Now here's a, here's a, you know, kind of a side note. I like the sitting up plate loaded chest press for my elderly clients, my clients with high blood pressure, my clients who had trouble laying on their back. And for trainers watching this, you know, if you're watching this, you're on the workout, you think, what are you talking about? Well, you take a client in their fifties who's out of shape or sixties who's out of shape, you have them lay on their back. Ooh, it's, some of them can't even touch. Out of shape, you have them lay on their back. Ooh, it's some of them can't even touch out of it.

Sometimes they'll pass out. Yeah. And sometimes they can't even touch their head to the bench because they have such bad forward head and you'd have to put things underneath their head. It is a sitting up chest press made it easier for me to get them in that motion. Of course, the goal was to get them to be able to lay on their back at some point. All right. Next up one exercise on the Smith machine.

I love that you had to put this in here. I actually went to the bathroom and then somebody said, Hey, if you go back, if you go back far enough on the podcast, you've heard me talk about especially bodybuilding days when we would talk about the Smith machine. And I know we would roast it a lot of times. And I agree. I admitted that I love, I used to love doing it for a shoulder press. Um, when I, because I didn't need a spotter for it, right? So I can exercise that I could really push the way also made a great for strip sets or drop sets, which I love to use it for too. So I actually really liked the Smith machine for shoulder pressing, which

is I believe the original purpose of it. It's been used for a million different things now, because like everything else in the gym, we get creative with it. We make up exercises that you can do on it. But I believe that it was, yeah, it was designed for upper body. And I think primarily for shoulders is was what it was originally for. I had to look up the creator of it. But I remember when I'd see people doing lower body movements on it, I'd always comment on like that's not the intent. The creator of it did not intend it to be for lower body exercises. Do you do it with the back supported incline where you bring it all the way to vertical when you're pressing? Yeah, so I'll have like a, well, I mean, I actually like just

slight incline. Yeah, slight incline. So it's way, way higher than a chest incline, but it's not quite fully 90 degrees. It's not fully upright. Mm-hmm. And then I can get, that way I can bring the bar all the way, right all the way down to my collarbone. This is why I like the Smith Machine-Seated Press. Most bodies can do it, whereas machines,

sometimes if they're too tall, too short, doesn't work. And it's a barbell, so you can move your hands in and out, again, fitting most people. And it's a nice full range of motion overhead press. In fact, the Smith Machine seated press was how sometimes I would teach a client to be able to get full extension. If I put them in a seat that supported their back and then had them press up and so this happens to with a lot of clients they don't get it can't get that full extension. They can't get it all the way up. Then what I would do is I place my hands on the barbell

I'd press it up for them and pull their hands up and then I'd see if I could let go and create a nice Isometric contraction. I remember clients like that And it was always a tell for me when I would see them go to press and they would lift their heel Yes, and you realize that like that's just a natural inclination is to get higher up Yeah, your body just kind of comes up. Isn't that funny? Yeah. By the way, some Smith machines, I'd say, I'd say a good percentage of them now, don't just move the bar straight up and down. What you'll notice is there's a slight angle to the, to the, to the barbell.

This is actually beneficial when you're doing an overhead press. When you press up with the barbell, you bring the weight up and then you kind of bring it back over your head for a nice straight position With a Smith machine that goes straight up and down if it goes in front of you it stays in front of you Some of them many of them now actually have an angle to where it actually ends up directly above your head when you press it Up so if you have the option get the one that has a slight angle most people don't even notice But that would be the one that I would. Yeah.

Again, though, this, I mean, the idea of picking the Smith machine was knowing that every gym has even your hotels have a Smith machine because I mean, you can make the case for like a Viking press. I think is one of our favorite. I wish you could, but I mean, again, you don't, you don't see. So I know again, there's going to be people that hear this and be like, Oh, man, this shoulder. I will get put an honorable mention.

If you're learning to do an upright row for your shoulders, Smith machine is a great way to learn it because you're it's on a track and some people have a lot of trouble trying to figure out what to place their elbows and do an upright row. Smith machine makes it a lot easier. Although the free weight version is I think superior. Next up for triceps. This is much more common nowadays. In fact, I rarely ever see a normal gym that doesn't have this machine.

In the past, it was actually quite rare. In fact, when I was a kid, if I saw one of these, I'd run to it. It's a dip machine. You actually see these quite a bit now where you sit in the chair, you grab the handles behind you, and you push them down. I like it.

And they usually have the plate-load loaded ones where it gives you that support. Yeah. You put your knees on it. What do they call that? Oh, you're talking about the Gravitron. Gravitron. Or the knee supported one. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, just because honestly, like it dips, it seems like it's a very simple exercise. A lot of people have a hard time with the strength involved in a dip. And so

A lot of people have a hard time with the strength involved in a dip. And so if that's your issue and you know, a lot of our alternatives is like, like taking a rubber band and kind of helping aid in that support. But you know, a good machine they have for that is pretty helpful. Yeah. In fact, I would say that's the best version of the dip. They have that a lot too. That's a common, that's a pretty common like different versions of that, but basically the, the, the, the Gravitron or whatever that supports the knees when you do that. That's the brand name by the way. Gravitron was an actual machine.

Is it? Yeah. I know. I know. There's a bunch of different ones that they- It's the one you put your- Just don't do the, the leg extension version of that. Please don't turn that into an influencer's- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I It's up there for us too, is it's like a compound movement for your triceps. Right? So it's such a great movement and why would we not do kickbacks or overhead extensions or push downs? Like those are all isolation movements and you get so much more growth and gains from doing dips.

Plus you get good range of motion in the shoulders. You get some nice functional development. And dips in general are one of the best movements you could do for the upper body. And most people can't, or I'd say many people can't do a good full body, you know, full body weight dip. When I first started lifting, I'll never forget the first day of getting our gym membership

and my buddy took me over to a dip bar and I couldn't even do a single one dip. I couldn't do, I couldn't have enough upper body strength to do it and so avoided it for a really long time. It wasn't until coming back to it later on and realizing how much benefits come with the dip. Yeah. Alright next up would be a bicep exercise and this has got to be the easiest machine to find in any gym because I think any gym will have it. It's a preacher curl machine for the biceps. Now preacher curl, because I think it's easy

to set you in position, lock your elbows in place, work the biceps. I will say this, every machine, by the way, has a axis of rotation or a joint in the machine that you want to line your joint up with to make sure you're in the right position because your arms may be longer or shorter. And if you don't line up your elbow with the joint of the machine,

then you'll find your wrist in hand doing weird things as you're trying to curl the weight up. A preacher machine is actually another one of those exercises that even as I moved away from a lot of machine training, it still found its way regularly in my routine. Just because even though you can do a free weight preacher curl, the tension is different.

Yeah. When you're on the machine, you've got full tension the entire range of motion through the movement where when you're doing dumbbells, you get that great dumbbell stretched position. But then when you get to the top of the preacher curl, I mean, you could sit there all day and hold that in that position where when you're in the machine you've got that tension still there you can

you're in a flex position. So one of my favorite exercises to do. Now you'll notice we didn't put calf machines here because most people use calf machines anyway when they work calves and core because I don't know about you guys but have you guys ever used a good core machine? It's always contrived. It's always hip flexor Very yeah, I've never found it yet for success. No, you know, I find cables you could use not only that but I also feel like your core Because your your your core muscles the primary is to stabilize right the spine and support your posture It's such an important thing to learn how to do just your body, like to be able to do that. Like to, to fit in a machine just to build abs.

So my abs look good is one thing, but it's that, that your core muscle is so functional. So learning to train it through functional movements of just your, I think is superior anyway, so even if I was trying to, I mean, and you don't need anything, you could do it. You could do reverse curls laying on the ground or full lever sit ups or crunches. They have yet to use, invent a machine that really, in fact, I've used core

machines and I can make them work my core well because I know how to make my core do the work. I have never seen anybody go in one of those and, and do it and not turn into a massive hip flexor exercise. You know, so they feel it once the hip flexors are fatigued. And their abs feel tired from stabilizing, but that's it. All right. So sets and reps you can do because these are machines, you can go up to four or

five sets of each of these exercises and you want to keep your reps in that eight to 12 rep range, although cycling through lower and higher reps is probably a good idea, especially if you follow a routine like this for longer than just a few weeks. That being said, the way I use it is the way you just prescribed it though, which is I'm normally gonna do about four sets of this, I'm gonna stay somewhere between 10 and 15 reps.

100%. I mean I'm- The really low rep for machines? Yeah, and it's not that you can't do it, and it doesn't have video, there's plenty of science to support, there's benefits to that, it's just use it for that for this application the way we've explained how we all integrate and use machines This is like a day where I'm going in there and I'm doing 10 to 15 rep range and I'm gonna do probably four or five

Sets of each one of these exercises Look if you're a hard gainer if you have trouble building muscle gaining weight go to mind pump free comm Check out our hard gainer, if you have trouble building muscle, gaining weight, go to mindpumpfree.com. Check out our hard gainer guide. It's totally free. You can also find all of us on social media. Justin is on Instagram at mindpumpjustin. I'm on Instagram at mindpumpdestephano and Adam is on Instagram at mindpumpadam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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