Weight vs resistance

Question

I've always heard hardcore lifters saying that resistance is not the same as weight. Bascially that 100lb of resistance is not equal to 100lbs of weight. Imagine a bowflex vs a cable machine.

I'd imagine that the resistance type of equipment might not offer 100lbs through the entire rep, possibly ramping up on a curve especially with a machine like bowflex.

Is there a difference and if so, what is each type good for? Keep in mind i'm not asking about bowflex or if I should get one, it's the only machine I can think of ATM.

Updating my question to be clear: When all is equal (machines or not), what is the difference between resistance (be it from a spring or tension) and actual weight (moving a heavy object)

Answer 1

Using machines is vastly different than free weights for a number of reasons:

• Machines typically move the weight over a fixed path. Free weights require you to balance the weight yourself. This means the same exercise with free weights engages more muscles, but even more importantly, it allows you to develop neuro-muscular coordination. This coordination means that the strength you develop from free weights transfers much better to real world situations.
• The fixed motion of machines often does not allow for proper biomechanics. Everybody is a little different and you naturally make the appropriate adjustments to exercises when using free weights. These are typically not possible with machines, which leads to unnatural and sometimes dangerous movements. For example, check out the images below of a smith machine squat and a free weight squat. Because the smith machine only allows you to move straight up and down, most people end up leaning back against the bar, squatting behind their knees and rarely getting below parallel, which means the exercise almost exclusively uses your quads. The free weight squat, on the other hand, allows for a little curvature during the descent and results in the person squatting between the knees, going below parallel and engaging almost every single muscle in the body (quads, hamstrings, glutes, adductors, erectors, abs, obliques, etc).
• Machines are often focused around isolation exercises, where a single muscle/joint is used. For example, using solely the hamstrings when doing leg curls. These are unnatural - all normal uses of the hamstring (running, jumping, lifting objects, etc) always involve all the other muscles in the leg too - and also not as efficient for training. Although you can certainly do isolation exercises with free weights, you have far more options for compound exercises: squats, deadlifts, bench press, overhead press, cleans, snatches, rows, etc.
• Machines simply can't provide for certain types of exercises/loads. For example, the olympic lifts - clean, jerk, snatch - are phenomenal for building power ("speed strength"). However, they require very rapid/explosive movements that most machines can't handle. Also, most machines (other than the smith machine, which is just a barbell anyway) can't provide enough resistance for the heavy lower body lifts. Most males can very quickly work up to a barbell squat of over 200lbs and deadlift of over 300lbs.
• On top of all of that, machines differ greatly in what a certain amount of "resistance" means. For example, depending on the levels/angles/etc involved, 150lbs on one pull-down machine can be vastly different than 150lbs on another one. However, a 150lb man doing pull-ups is the same just about everywhere.

Answer 2

Your question has two answers.

1) If everything really is equal, then resistance is precisely the same as weight. Force is force, whether it comes from mass being affected by gravity or from tension on a spring or from hydraulic pumps or from a ray gun.

2) What Yevgeniy's answer gets at is that it's ridiculous, within the context of strength training (or lifting of any kind, even bodybuilding) to suppose that "all else is equal".

The resistance of a machine exercise is force in a certain plane. In the case of Bowflex-type machines, the force may change along the path of the exercise. With free weights (barbells, kettlebells, dumbbells) the only things involved are the weight, gravity and how your body is structured (your anthropometry).

Let's use your example in the comments of a "thighmaster for the chest" versus free weights. As I understand it: The resistance of the spring would be least in the "open" position and greatest as you get near the "closed" position. If you used dumbbells (say, from a position on your back), the force (from gravity) would be equal throughout, but your body would be applying force in different directions across the movement (always "upward", but using different muscles since the weight moves across different angles in relation to your body), in addition to stabilizing the weight in three planes during the entire exercise.

If you're asking about when to use one versus the other, see this question.

Answer 3

Nobody seems to be getting the OP question. I think he is asking about the difference between lifting a weight that stays a constant weight as you go through the range of motion, versus something like a bowflex or elastic band or a spring that increases the force the further you bend it. I have a buddy that says a bowflex is constant force, but i find that really hard to believe.

The idea of resistance over the range of motion is important, that is the whole basis for Nautilus machines, where they use the cam as a way to tailor the resistance over the range of motion.

For me, I chose a machine with weight stacks over a Bowflex since I felt that having a constant weight was better for the muscle and safer for my joints. If it is true that a Bowflex give the same resistance over the range of motion, than maybe I am wrong about that choice.

As to free weights vs a machine, a trainer buddy with a degree in PE tells me machines are safer for an old guy like me, but as the fellow above notes, free weights will give some benefit to all the ancillary muscles you need to keep balance and position. Still, just doing the machines will still do many of the smaller muscles in your arms and such.

Answer 4

By all things being equal, I understand to mean 20lbs of resistance to equal to 2olb of weight. However I don't think that the difference has as much to do with that as to how the two things differ in how the mussles develop from each technique. With resistance you are usually isolating a mussle and not using the supporting mussle around it. With but free weighs on the other hand allow for more mussle groups and supporting mussles to perform the action.

Answer 5

"Isolation machines" vs "Free weights"; I'll get to the reason for using quotes shortly.

I eventually would become injured at some point during weight training. Once I understood the reason for all the injuries; I've been pain free for 20+ years. No matter which muscle I thought to be working out, the pain usually ended up in my lower back, around the waist and hip areas.

I too would look for different approaches to muscle strengthening; "Isolation machines", "Free weights"... I asked similar questions and receive similar responses to which system is best.

In the past, I leaned more towards "Isolation machines" because, for me, they were safer. Well, that is what I thought, even through all those separate injuries.

It took several, but separate, visits to physical therapy sessions, when I realized; I was the cause of the injuries...

The trick is proper form, you know, body positioning. I was working out with 100 lbs. of "Isolation machine" weights prior to learning about proper form. Once I learned how to apply proper form to isolate and focus on a particular muscle, no more injuries, well not during weight training at least. It took awhile to learn how to apply the use of proper technique within a particular sport activity. Remember when I was using 100 lbs to work out? 10 lbs of weight and proper form left me feeling stronger and fit, confident. I am now using more weight. Have to listen to my body to learn when it is safe to move up in the amount of weight to use during a workout.

Concluding with the reason for using quotation marks with "Isolation machines" and "Free weights". What they both have in common, for safe and effective fitness training, is the application or use of proper form; proper muscle isolation.

Answer 6

Resistance and weight are not the same.

Keep in mind the weight you are lifting (i.e. on your barbell or at the end of a cable) is really a mass, not a weight.

The force (resistance) varies dramatically through the lift, and it varies more the faster you lift. If you perform the lift slowly (say 2-4 seconds) your resistance will be much more constant through the left than if you "throw" they weight - reps of 1.5 seconds or less (which you will see most people do). Throwing the weight makes it look like you are lifting more, and you are for a very small part of the lift. Lifting fast will use the same energy for the mass (mass * g * h) but the force will mainly be applied in the very early part of the lift.

The resistance with a spring (ie bowflex or elastic) or should not vary with speed, but will vary with length. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooke%27s_law. I would speculate the resistance is more constant through a typical range of motion for a lift with the bowflex than with cable or dumbbells.