Tuesday, April 15, 2008

5 Uses for a Smith Machine


1. Inverted Rows - Put the bar at waist height. Lay under and grab, pull your chest to the bar just like you are doing a seated row. Lower and repeat.

2. Push ups - if you can't do alot of full range pushups you and use the bar and improve until you get lower and lower and eventually all the way to the ground

3. Pull ups - I often make my clients use this for their pullups by putting the bar all the way up. For those that cannot do a pull-up I'll loop a band around it and that will help give them extra "spring" on the concentric part of the lift. With the bands it's easier to be able to stand and get your knees into them than having to jump to a higher bar.

4. Hurting yourself - Your body makes tiny changes throughout the range of motion of a lift and does not move in a linear path. If you are fixed in a linear path then forces can be displaced in a manner not natural to your body's movement which can cause injury. In may not happen for sometime, but when you reach threshold the injury will be devastating. There are some exercises you can get away with using the smith machine, but compared to the free weight varieties it seems unnecessary.

5. Coat Rack
--
Ryan
e: info@patrickperformancetraining.com

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