Lifting weights is an exercise as old as civilization. The tale of Milo of Croton from Ancient Greece exemplifies this, as he was supposed to have lifted a young calf every day, until many months later he was able to lift the now fully grown bull. The progressive nature of strength development was thus known, and, if not understood on a biological or physiological level, practiced extensively to produce athletes and circus strongmen throughout the ages. Today, however, most people in commercial gyms ignore the barbells except perhaps for the ever popular bench press. Is it that people have discovered something better, or should people return to using barbells?
In the 1970’s, a gentleman called Arthur Jones invented a kind of exercise machine that revolutionized the fitness world. It was based on the principle of ‘variable resistance’, and allowed people to isometrically train each muscle by a resisting static force. A machine was invented for each muscle or limb, and the trainee could change the amount of resistance by selecting the amount of weight to be used. While exercise machines had been around forever, Arthur Jones revolutionized the fitness world by creating a circuit of them, and claiming that by moving from machine to machine and exercising each muscle, you could gain incredible strength through precision and targeting.
Why did the Nautilus catch like wildfire? Despite its short comings which I’ll discuss in a moment, it allowed gyms to put a bunch of machines on their floors and not need to train their employees on how to use them. They were simple. Whereas before training an employee on the intricacies of barbell training had taken time and effort, now relatively clueless gym trainers could walk their clients through the Nautilus machines, saving the gym both time, effort, and expense. More people could train at once, and the gym industry took off.
However, human bodies were not designed to train isometrically. Ever muscle has its counter. The hamstrings balance out the quads. The biceps balance out the triceps. By training just one side, imbalances are created, and the whole system fails to grow cohesively. Strength does not result, and after a few months most people quit for not having achieved results.
The reason that barbell training is fundamentally better than Nautilus training has to do with how the body is designed, but also one more crucial aspect: all the muscles are harnessed and put to use by the neuromuscular system. By training with the Nautilus machines, this system is ignored, left undeveloped, and those complete, cohesive strength fails to manifest. When training with barbells, however, the whole body is engaged, core strength is built as stabilizers are brought into play, and compound exercises cause complimentary muscles to grow together as they are harnessed to the neuromuscular system. There is simply no better way to train, and as any Nautilus circuit trainer that has attempted to gain strength through circuits and then moved to barbells when frustration wins over, free weights produces rapid, profound changes in the body, resulting in startling strength gains and muscular hypertrophy.
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