Weight training for women can proceed in 3 different ways when training with weights is your goal, you can workout with free weights, machines or by combining the two together to help achieve overall health for women.
I’ll be honest with you I prefer the latter (dumbbells and barbells) for the majority of exercises
The demand on your body is greater with free weights and yet allow your limbs and joints to move more naturally . Your body will move in a motion when using machines dictated by the make and design of the machine .
Most joint injuries and muscle strains comeas a result of using machines that puts stress on the body that is not natural by locking it into a rigid unnatural position.
In the past when I have noticed prople injured during training , it’s generally come about when using machines (and improper form) instead of dumbbells and barbells.
Dumbbells and barbells will provide you with the ability to isolate individual muscles and train your muscles in very creative ways.
When you use free weights it doesn’t matter what your height, weight , length of your limbs (arms and legs ) you can have a total body work out.
Many machines today are of great quality and design , and you are provided the ability to make adjustments to the machines for your particular physical proportions. Now that I have said that, quite a few machines still seem to be geared towards the average person in mind, you do stand a higher risk of injury, if you are not average.
Don’t think that I am wholly against machines I do use them in my training, lat pull downs, leg extensions and a few other exercises. I believe that you should be using free weights 60 to 70% of the time in your training.
Machines will keep the resistance working along one plane only, this will result in the muscle group your training using less muscle while performing the exercise. The idea is to use as much of the muscle group at the same time to create maximum growth.
The muscle does react differently to the different types of resistance created by using free weights or machines. When a muscle is being hit from various angles and directions constantly as with free weights the resistance will be different and more positive then using machines which are always along a foreseeable line.
Sometimes you will just have to make do with the equipment that is available to you. The main matter is, that you do workout .
