Originally Posted by
zazenzach
hate to tell you this but no one (short of geriatrics) should ever use any kind of machine at the gym. they provide artificial range of motion and pressure points which will lead to injury down the road.
not only that, but youll never get truely strong doing machines.
stick to freeweights, bodyweight excercises and especially barbells (deadlifts, squats, lunges, chinups, dips, press, etc etc)
Though I agree with this, generally speaking, it's not like it's carved in stone. There are lots of smart exercise people who disagree.
It's complicated, like most things, and attempting to simplify it this far is silly.