Difference In Smith & Free Weights

[candle25]

Until yesterday the only way to do squats at my gym was on a Smith machine. I never really liked it, but had no choice. Anyhow, I got up to 410 using a pyramid scheme on my 4th set. Not bad I thought...Well a few of us had requested that the gym buy a squat rack. The gym did & it came in yesterday. I loaded 320 on the bar to warm up with and to my suprize I almost busted my a$$...lol. There is such a major difference in the two methods! So instead of warming up with 320, I had to try really hard to pump out 9 reps.I know this is no revelation concerning the difference. I just wanted to share my personal introduction with real squats.

[jaketparker]

Yeah, i know what you mean, its ****ing amazing how much more difficult squats can be when you have to balance yourself. Your gym just got a squat rack??

[candle25]

We got the rack last week. The place is more geared towards rehab patients. I only go there because it's close to work and it's free to me. It's a really nice gym, we just didn't have a squat rack until we asked for one.

[jaketparker]

Yeah, deffinatley cant complain with free gym access. I jsut figured squat rack was more of a an essential piece of equipment. But if its more for rehab patients and smith machine deffinately makes more sense.

[kmac6225]

i hear ya man...I had the same ass kicking wake up call when i went from the smith machine to the regular rack. The smith machine lets you cheat by letting you push back against the rods as youre pushing up...you do that with regular squats you'll really end up on your ass haha

[Future]

Smith's create a false sense of strength.

[whale]

Smith also has a counter weight on it so you are not really doing that much weight but the truth is yes it is more difficult to control the weight in free weights. But as long as you get a good fatigue going who cares how much weight for that matter.

whale

[supersoldier]

After having shoulder surgery, I couldn't hold the bar on my back for free squats for 4 months, so I was doing smith squats holding the bar with only one arm. Smith squatting for me hurts my lower back. And when I finally got back to free squatting my poundages were down from my pre-op numbers.