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kovalchuk71

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Great post salming,

  You aer absolutely correct in your assertions and your description of the Nautilus cam system and why it works.  But again, your illustrations are for single joint isolation exercises.  I agree entirely that the Nautilus double bicep is better for isolating the bicep than freeweight curls.  And for a bodybuilder or an older desk jockey ;) , or someone rehabbing a bicep tendon rupture, that is great.  But for an athlete, why would we do that??

  Part of what needs to be emphasized is that the whole body works together at all times.  To work your hamstrings, don't lie on your stomach or on your side and kick your heels to your butt.  Rather learn proper form and do SLDL's RDL's or even deep squats.  Regarding the weight limit on squats, I had a huge hold at the bottom of my squat.  SO I picked a light weight and did 10 sets of ten reps with it all the way down.  "Ass to the Grass".  I ws only able to do that once or maybe twice a week due to soreness.  In about two months my 100rep weight was more than my half squat weight when I started.

  There is no machine that can duplicate the total body stimulation that freeweight squats and heavy deadlifts can.  No machine can stimulate the affect and feel of a good snatch ;)  ;) .

  If some of the machine companies are coming around to simulate more closely the feel of freeweights, then that is great and I think they are on the right track.  Until they get it totally mirrored, though, I still think that for a moving athlete, freeweights are the best.  If one wants to oeverdevelope the arms, then isolation exercises are the best way to go.  If one wants to develope explosiveness, speed, balance, and totall body strength, then cleans, squats, sandbag lifts, barrel and keg lifts are still the way to go.

  One machine from the Nautilus line that I still love, and would own if I could find one, is the super pullover.  Man that just rocked!!!!!  The last club I worked at in the late 80's had a new forearm machine.  Have you seen that?  It had two handles that could work all four or five ROM's for the forearm.  If they have developed a little since then, that could be an effective machine as well.  SOme muscles and groups respond well to isolation.  But most are better working the way thery were designed, and that is with all the rest of the muscles in the body...

agrre with you, I think companies like Nautilus,... focuses on machines beacuse the wanna bring the more people possible into their gyms.

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I do majority work with my own bodyweight, so i do not overdo anything with strains...stuff i can't handle.

Weighted puck stickhandling with exaggerated movement, lower arm will build up in no time.

Stomach cruches & sit-ups w/twists

pressups

squats, not sure if flat footed or on the toes is better for skating muscles, maybe someone could verify?

cardivascular work to improve your recovery rate is very important

skipping....lots of that

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Squat on your heels. Up on your toes can cause loss of balance injuries. Go all the way down and all the way up. This will work your entire thigh, butt, hip girdle. SKipping is awesome, do not stop doing that..

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Why would free weight be bad if you do the perfect technique? I mean, do it with less weight if you can't do the right technique, go from there and lifts heavier weights when you're stronger. There are so many ways of thinking on weighlifting, maybe you're right...

Free weights wouldn't be bad if you do the perfect technique, but they have limitations -- more so than machines do, particularly the later models. Further, AT MOST, 20% of the people in gym use perfect technique, regardless of the weights or machines, and this exacerbates the limitations.

I'll give you an example. There was a guy in his early twenties at the gym Friday. Let's just say, at the very least, he does a lot of shopping at GNC, if not elsewhere. He was doing sitdown military presses with two 45's on each side for a total of 225. That's a lot of weight, which most people aren't strong enough to handle -- and he wasn't an exception.

He grabbed the bar about four inches from the end. What does a wide grip do? It limits your range of movement but, more importantly, it places your arms closer to their strongest position, allowing you to lift a heavier weight. To understand what I mean, put your arms over your head about shoulder width apart and pretend you are lowering a barbell until your triceps meet your sides. Your hands will probaby end up around your ears, although a barbell makes it difficult because you actually need your hands to be able to spread about two inches toward the bottom.

Anyway, that is the full range of motion for that movement; if you want your shoulder to not have "pockets" of weakness, you need to keep your hands in this position. Now, move your hands out about six inches on this fake bar and pretend to lower the weight. You won't be able to lower your hands as far -- probably closer to the top of the head. Right away you can see that a barbell itself slightly limits your ability to strengthen the shoulder over its entire range of motion, while improper form greatly limits your functional strength.

So why do people lift this way? Because they intuitively understand that they are weaker at the lower position, so spreading their arms allows them to skip the part where they weaker, allowing them to lift heavier weights. It's great for the ego! The guy I saw the other day was probably lowering the weight about four to five inches, instead of the sixteen to eighteen inches he should have.

So, tell me, based on the main argument of this thread that we want our exercise to replicate the movements we make on the playing field, who's more likely to have strength over the entire range of motion that we'll encounter on the field? The guy who uses a barbell with his arms spread wide to allow him to lift heavier weights, or the guy who chooses a machine with some slack in its movement that allows him to go from the full peak (hands slightly closer than shoulder width apart above our head) to full stretch (hands just past shoulder width apart next to our shoulders)?

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Guys who cheat will cheat no matter what they are doing. I saw more guys than I can count following a strong guy around the nautilus floor and making notes how many plates the strong guy was using so they could bulk their ego by doing the same amount of weight. Machines do not preclude poor form and cheating. In fact, for many many exercises it is easier to cheat with a machine than with a set of dumbells.

If you uare using a machine for overhead press, you can twist and squirm in the chair and push against the rails on the machine as much as agianst the weight to cheat the weight up. If you cannot handle the dumbells, well they just end up on the floor.

This is a further argument against not only machines but against barbells for most upperbody and even may lower body exercises. Machines just do not have enough slop built in to adequately mirror freeweights. They guy you noticed should have been doing dumbells. Of course, there is something to be said for doing extremely high weights for very short motion. These are called lockouts. For example, in the squat you put the rack at the height you normally take it from. They you pile on about 50 to 60% more weight than you normally squat with. Now stand up. THat is the range of motion. The effect is in essence shocking your body. Obviously this is a pretty extreme thing and shold be done only if you have expereince and only once every several workouts at most.

You can do these with deadlifts, theyare called thigh lifts, and with incline bench, and overhead press. To get the very most from an overhead press you shold use dumbells and do them standing, not sitting.

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I think companies like Nautilus,... focuses on machines beacuse the wanna bring the more people possible into their gyms.

That's not a correct understanding of the industry. Nautilus is an equipment manufacturer, just like the different stick manufacturers you see at your LHS.

Just as the stick manufacturers continue to try to improve sticks to increase their sales to LHS's, so too do the equipment manufacturers to increase their sales to gyms or homeowners. Heck, many of the equipment manufacturers also make free weights, and they've improved those somewhat over the years (grips in the plates, rubber coating, weight-selected barbells), but they obviously are limited by gravity in just what can be improved. Again, a five pound plate is five pounds because a mass of that size is equal to five pounds when gravity is pushing down on it towards the earth.

And, just as not all LHS's understand the benefit of carrying all brands of sticks -- ;) ;) :P -- not all gyms carry all brands of machines. Money plays a huge part in the decision. Nautilus has been the undisputed king of machines; consequently, they cost more for a gym to buy than other brands. One thing that is a pet peeve of mine is the equipment buyer for a gym may be a free weight lifter who's never used machines, but he realizes he has to offer some machines...."for the women and the retirees." Since he has no experience with machines, he thinks they're all alike; because of that, he might as well save the gym money by buying LifeFitness or BodyMaster.

The difference between those machines -- at least the versions at my 24 Hour Fitness -- and the newer Nautilis or Polaris is night and day. I'm serious when I say this, but if 24 Hour ever opens another location closer to my house, I'm going to find out who the buyer will be and tell him I want to go with him when he buys the equipment...."because I actually use it!"

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Guys who cheat will cheat no matter what they are doing.  I saw more guys than I can count following a strong guy around the nautilus floor and making notes how many plates the strong guy was using so they could bulk their ego by doing the same amount of weight.  Machines do not preclude poor form and cheating.  In fact, for many many exercises it is easier to cheat with a machine than with a set of dumbells.

  If you uare using a machine for overhead press, you can twist and squirm in the chair and push against the rails on the machine as much as agianst the weight  to cheat the weight up.  If you cannot handle the dumbells, well they just end up on the floor.

You're right, gman. I wasn't trying to limit cheating to free weights -- I was just trying to point out that incorrect form exacerbates the limitations of either method.

I can't tell you how many times I've gone to the shoulder press machine and the pin is near the bottom. Now, I'm not the strongest guy in world, but there are times when there are only five others guys working out and I know they aren't three times stronger. :) Sure enough, the seat's as low as it can go, so these guys can push a heavy weight four inches.....

I've said it before: It's Quality, not Quantity.

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which one of those wrist exercises are the best?

Which of which? If you mean the alphabet in the air or the figure eights, do them both. The point is to put resistance, in this case in the form of weight and leverage from the length and mass of your stick, against the muscles and tendons of the lower arm and hand. You do not want to dive into heavy hand work too soon as the hand and wrist muscles are very small and take time to adapt.

If you are referring to the various exercises on the Brookfield site, they are all good. There is really no one single be all, end all for hand and wrist exercise. The more different things you do, the more well rounded and less burnt out and less prone to injury will be.

ya, i was talking about the website ones for hand strength

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ya, i was talking about the website ones for hand strength

It is really hard to say which one is the single best. As the squat is simply the king of all strength building exercises, there is really no counterpart in the grip world. What I would suggest is to go through the whole site, and pick out two or three that look fun and look like you may have access to all the materials. Then do them for a few weeks.

One exercise that I came across comewhere, maybe Brookfield's site, is the plate curl. This is a becep curl with only one plate. This can be a 25#, 35#, or if you are too studly a #45. You grip the plate with all four fingers and your palm underneath and your thumb on top. You curl from arm's length down up to your chin with the plate flat and the hole of the plate up and down, not to the side. This works your wrist like crazy, your fingers, your thumb for a pinch grip and your biceps. You cand even do two 10#, for even more pinch grip, or a 25# and a 5# or any combination. My hands are not strong enough yet to combine plates. There are TONS more, but bite off just a few at first.

good luck

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Guys who cheat will cheat no matter what they are doing.  I saw more guys than I can count following a strong guy around the nautilus floor and making notes how many plates the strong guy was using so they could bulk their ego by doing the same amount of weight.  Machines do not preclude poor form and cheating.  In fact, for many many exercises it is easier to cheat with a machine than with a set of dumbells.

   If you uare using a machine for overhead press, you can twist and squirm in the chair and push against the rails on the machine as much as agianst the weight  to cheat the weight up.  If you cannot handle the dumbells, well they just end up on the floor.

You're right, gman. I wasn't trying to limit cheating to free weights -- I was just trying to point out that incorrect form exacerbates the limitations of either method.

I can't tell you how many times I've gone to the shoulder press machine and the pin is near the bottom. Now, I'm not the strongest guy in world, but there are times when there are only five others guys working out and I know they aren't three times stronger. :) Sure enough, the seat's as low as it can go, so these guys can push a heavy weight four inches.....

I've said it before: It's Quality, not Quantity.

Those are great topics but I think we all want to mean the same thing and you resume it by quality over quantity.

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What do you guys do solely for wrist excersises?

I stickhandle with a weighted stick or shoot weighted pucks. Once in a while I'll strap a 25 plate onto the end of my stick and swing it back and fourth over my head and then on the ground and then stickhandle. It was sweet for my blade speed of my wristers and stuff.

How do you actually get the weight onto your stick?

I use olympic plates, so they have a large hole... I also have no knob on the stick, as I don't use it on the ice anymore. I use my stickweight buckled underneith it so that the weight won't slide down the shaft.

I still think that no matter what machines you are using, you are better off developing stability and preventing injuries in whatever range of motion you use.

However, I think it is optimal to do the excercises right... ;)

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Those are great topics but I think we all want to mean the same thing and you resume it by quality over quantity.

Kovy, I'm not exactly sure what you mean.

When I wrote Quality over Quantity, I meant people need to remove their egos when they are exercising. Regardless whether they are using machines (which I favor over free weights) or weights (which gman favors over machines) to get into optimal shape, the correct form and pace will produce quicker and better results than incorrect form.

Quality = Correct form

Quantity = incorrect form, generally due to using excessive weight.

Thus, It's Quality Not Quantity.

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Those are great topics but I think we all want to mean the same thing and you resume it by quality over quantity.

Kovy, I'm not exactly sure what you mean.

When I wrote Quality over Quantity, I meant people need to remove their egos when they are exercising. Regardless whether they are using machines (which I favor over free weights) or weights (which gman favors over machines) to get into optimal shape, the correct form and pace will produce quicker and better results than incorrect form.

Quality = Correct form

Quantity = incorrect form, generally due to using excessive weight.

Thus, It's Quality Not Quantity.

That's it!!!

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Salming, Kovy,

I think that is absolutely true. Whatever you do, be sure to do it correctly. And you need to pick whatever medium you will actually do. Some prefer machines and some prefer freeweights. Anything you do is better than nothing. As long as it is freeweights :P

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gman the only thing i dont understand with your arguement is why use ONLY freeweights when machines are available? Now i'm not saying one is better than the other, because they both have their advantages, but what Salming had said is that a mixture of the two kinds of lifting would end as a more complete workout(with working all muscles with freeweights and full ranges of motion with machines, etc etc with both of your opinions).

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gman the only thing i dont understand with your arguement is why use ONLY freeweights when machines are available? Now i'm not saying one is better than the other, because they both have their advantages, but what Salming had said is that a mixture of the two kinds of lifting would end as a more complete workout(with working all muscles with freeweights and full ranges of motion with machines, etc etc with both of your opinions).

Sorry edge, dadgummit my bad. My last post was written tongue in cheek. There is no clickable smilie for tongue n cheek so I used the smart ass toungue hanging out. It was meant to be a joke. I am very sorry it was not more clear. I meant no disrespect whatsoever to salming or anyone.

In fact, If I had access to a state of the art training facility with the latest cutting edge Nautilus equipment AND a full set of Eleiko competition bumper plates, I would probably use it quite happily for the exact reasons outlined above. I do not have access to a cutting edge facility and so must amuse myself with my own freeweights and sandbags.

My opinion is still, and take this for what little it is worth, if your choice is between Freeweights OR machines, for an athlete freeweights are better. If you can do both, then do both as long as the machines are top end like Nautilus. It sounds like Nautilus has made strides in trying to simulate more closely the advantages of freeweights.

Sorry for the misunderstanding :(

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No, gman, i wasn't saying you were trying to offend anyone i was just trying to understand why you had believed that only freeweights benefit athletes. Don't worry, you haven't offended or attacked anyone at all.

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No, gman, i wasn't saying you were trying to offend anyone i was just trying to understand why you had believed that only freeweights benefit athletes. Don't worry, you haven't offended or attacked anyone at all.

Phewww! thanks for that. My comparison is between freeweights and 99% of all the machines out there. Machies (non-Nautilus) work only one range of motion and do nothing for any of your stability muscles. If you do not have developed stability muscles you will get hurt once you leave the comfort of your machine's range of motion.

You are light years better off doing hindu pushups, burpees, hindu squats, neck bridges, pullups and dips than working a single very limited range of motion. You may be going a very long distance in your range of motion, but it is only one direction.

If you have access to only lilmited machinces or older machines, then you need to find freeweights or a big sandbag. For an athlete, I will even say that older machines are worse than nothing and you need to do bodyweight calisthenics. A machine may develops a big muscle, but that big muscle will have no foundation.

Think of a big huge truck with a huge engine driving on one of those 50mph donut tires. Are you going to take that truck off road or for that matter even very fast on a smooth road? Probably not. "Where the rubber meets the road" is what matters in the end. And having a big beautiful show muscle is fine if that is what you are after. But if you wnat more, then decline the show and go for the substance.

gman

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gman, it's quite ironic when you say that one can only develop show muscles with machines, not athletic muscles, since the bodybuilding community generally poo-pahs machines for not being conducive to building large muscles. :D

I don't agree that older machines are worse than nothing -- at least, not all of them are. I've used Nautilus machines since 1980 and even back then they were full range. There's no doubt that subsequent revisions have improved the machines, mostly the smoothness or slight changes to the strength curve, but not much to the range of fully contracted to fully stretched.

And I don't understand how having superior strength over the entire ROM of a muscle with less strength in the supporting muscles is worse than having pockets of weakness over the entire ROM while having greater strength in the supporting muscles. Even if balance is taken out of the equation, it's not that machines do nothing for supporting muscles, they just do less. Conversely, there is no doubt that comparable movements with free weights definitely leave pockets of weakness, that lifters try to overcome by doing two or three different exercises. That's inefficient to me.

But here's what I really have never understood about the machine-weight argument, although we have to lay a ground rule first. Referring to a gym, can we accept that there are essentially three choices: free weights, hybrids (apparati that accept plates, but move over a specific track) and machines? And can we further accept that a free weight is totally dependent on gravity; i.e., regardless of the direction it is moving, its resistance is always running in a straight line to the ground?

Given all that, the thing I find unfathomable is that MILLIONS of hours and dollars have been spent on researching form, function, motion, kinetics, whatever, and yet none of these researchers were able to improve even slightly on one of the simplest Laws of Physics. Let's forget the fact that some muscles are virtually impossible to adequately stress without machines. (Hamstrings may be stressed during squats, but effectively some apparatus is needed.)

But for those movements that cross over, researchers have determined we need full range of motion, variable resistance, rotary resistance, stressing of auxiliary muscles, etc. And these researchers have spent MILLIONS constantly finetuning designs to improve upon the shortcomings of Nature as it impacts the exercising of humans.

And the essential response from too much of the sports community is these researchers have failed. That these researchers have figured out all the shortcomings of relying on gravity as resistance, but they've failed at creating improvements to it.

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Salming, I find all your posts logical, well-written etc... but I have to disagree with you on this one. I've still think that for a hockey player free weights are better than machines. Hockey player needs stability, power more than pure strenght. IMO, for hockey you are 10x better to do freewight Squats on a Balance board than on a Nautilus machine. You are better to do 1-leg squats than doing any machines for quads.

For Harmstrings - you can do deadlifts...

I believe a lot in exercises that requires a lot of supporting muscles like the lunges, deadlifts and cleans.

In ice Hockey Conditoning, a book written by Peter Twist, he suggest hockey players to work with freeweights, not with machines. I talked to a guy that train NHL players and all they do is with free weights, elastics, medecine Ball, Balance board, Dodge ball etc...

What do you guys think?

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I'm thinking of doing an "all-out upper body workout to strengthen my chest, back, and shoulders. My arms and legs are pretty good, but I've never really had pectorals. Can anyone recommend some good upper body workouts to do other than the common bench press which is what I'm doing now? I'm looking to gain about 15 pounds in weight, but i'd like it to be in my upper body rather than my gut. LOL.

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I'm thinking of doing an "all-out upper body workout to strengthen my chest, back, and shoulders. My arms and legs are pretty good, but I've never really had pectorals. Can anyone recommend some good upper body workouts to do other than the common bench press which is what I'm doing now? I'm looking to gain about 15 pounds in weight, but i'd like it to be in my upper body rather than my gut. LOL.

Hey buddy, do you want a beach or a hockey workout? Depends on what you want. Hockey is all about legs and core.

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my legs and core are fine, i have huge legs and my core is solid, i'm just looking into getting bigger in the upper body, so i don't have this gigantic physic under the waist line and I can't hold my own in the corners or in front of the net. I can stand there and take a punishment with the best of them, i'm just looking for the better upper body for other aspect of the game like playing the body and working down low, thats all. I don't need a beach workout in the middle of nebraska LOL. The added weight I want will help in the long run and the best place to improve my strength in my opinion would be with upper body workouts.

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I'm thinking of doing an "all-out upper body workout to strengthen my chest, back, and shoulders. My arms and legs are pretty good, but I've never really had pectorals. Can anyone recommend some good upper body workouts to do other than the common bench press which is what I'm doing now? I'm looking to gain about 15 pounds in weight, but i'd like it to be in my upper body rather than my gut. LOL.

Incline/Decline bench, dumbell flys, deep pushups (go on two chairs with your feet propped up so you can get very deep.)

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