Smith Machine for Squats

[brunobrown2001]

I know I know I know

Doing squats on the smith makes one lesser of a man.

The thing is, normal squats make my back ache and smith squats dont.

But, I have heard that the smith machince can cause injuries.

1. Has anyone had good results from smith squats?

2. Does the smth cause injuries?

Discuss, thanks

bb

[DanMc]

I don't know about being a direct cause of an injury as anything can casue them. A smith prevent the use of stabilizing muscles which casues weakness elsewhere. In the last few months the only thing I did with a smith is standing calf raises. But it has been a while. An example of casuing weakness would be you can squat 350 via a smith ..most likely you could not do 250 free standing. Surely you could not do 350 free standing if your max was 350 in a smith.

My advice stay away from it.

[Mark1T]

All I know is that I hurt my sciatic nerve a few years back, doing squats on the Smith. If anything is going to torque, it will be your back. The Smith just goes straight up and down. Besides a shoulder injury, that was incredibly painful, for many months. Most people would have opted for back surgery. I just did my own therapy, but suffered.

Lighten the weight and go free. Work on form. It is my opinion, that you do not need big weight to develop legs well. But for lighter weight squats, you must use strict form and try to maximize your range of motion by going as deep as possible.

[$AJ]

The difference between the smith machine and a free weight bench press is significant in terms of overall gains. There are several important neurological factors at play here:

balance proprioception: In every exercise you do there is an element of balance, or to put it more technically a feedback loop that constantly adjusts recruitment of agonist, antagonist and synergists in order to maintain the desired output. This is a facet of the CNS, so it's centrally controlled and can be improved by using primarily free weight exercises, and even more so by using CKCE exercise, closed kinetic chain exercises. Squats on the smith machine would be a very seriously bad idea, as squatting is THE exercise which improves balance proprioception to the greatest extent. For bench press it's less of a concern, but it's still a concern.
Other than the effect on the CNS, the fact is that using EMG study and simply common sense, a free weight bench press recruits more muscle fibres it's as simple as that. The body does not and cannot hypertrophy on the scale of an individual muscle, the synergists of that muscle must also hypertrophy or the body would be in a constant state of imbalance and injury.

force proprioception: force proprioception is another attribute that operates both peripherally and centrally, and boils down to this, how heavy does an exercise feel and in what is the specific adaption required to deal with that force? Many people erroneously think that the squat is the king of exercises because of hormone release, which obviously is completely wrong, the actual amount or change in hormone release whilst squatting is insignificant. If you want to release a lot of test go to bed, if you want to release a lot of GH go do some endurance training. The real power of squatting is that as a load bearing exercise is has an extremely strong effect on the force proprioception of the CNS.
Although you may be able to apply a RPE (rating of percieved effort) of 100% to both smith bench and free weight bench, or in other words you will be pushing with everything you have for both exercises. The actual response of the body will be quite different given the demands of the exercise. It just isn't true that load is load is load no matter what the source is, the body can tell a cable from a free weight from a machine.

In terms of injury I don't believe that it matters, it's not WHAT you do it's HOW you do it that determines injury rates. The body can adapt to cope with almost anything.

[homer77]

I don't know about being a direct cause of an injury as anything can casue them. A smith prevent the use of stabilizing muscles which casues weakness elsewhere. In the last few months the only thing I did with a smith is standing calf raises. But it has been a while. An example of casuing weakness would be you can squat 350 via a smith ..most likely you could not do 250 free standing. Surely you could not do 350 free standing if your max was 350 in a smith.

My advice stay away from it.

i have to disagree. though some exercises are easier on the smith, squats are not. I had a 700lbs max on free weights and could not touch 6 plates on the smith. the smith allows you to focus much more on your quads (if necessary). i have the opposite problem of mark1t. my back hurts on smith machine squats and not free squats. it just comes down to how the good lord put you together.
and smith squats dont change anything about your manhood.
unless your a dedicated hardcore powerlifter who cares about nothing else.
bodybuilders should know better

[Fit_4_Life]

I switched from the Smith Machine to the Squat Rack this week. My squat weight was a bit higher in the Rack (305 versus 295). There is a learning curve by way of the stablizing muscles that don't get worked on the Smith Machine. I like them both.

Having just switched this week, I'll give the Rack a few more sessions to see if there are any other changes.

[fitnessman]

Smith machine squats are the best way to get injured.

[Apo]

Smith machine squats are the best way to get injured.

seriously, just lower the weight a teeny bit and work on ur form. Either that or your back-leg strength is unproportional, and your back gives out much too earlier than your quads/hams/glutes

[niceasey]

I know I know I know

Doing squats on the smith makes one lesser of a man.

The thing is, normal squats make my back ache and smith squats dont.

But, I have heard that the smith machince can cause injuries.

1. Has anyone had good results from smith squats?

2. Does the smth cause injuries?

Discuss, thanks

bb

For about 3 months the squat rack was knackered at my gym so it was a choice of smith machine squats or try something else. I treis something else had had great results.

I did a triset-

legpress, hamstring curls, leg extensions. 3x8 1 min rest between sets as heavey as I could go.
Now the racks back I'm squatting but every three or weeks I'll replace the squats with the tri-set.

[BabyArnold]

I know I know I know

Doing squats on the smith makes one lesser of a man.

No, it does not.

The thing is, normal squats make my back ache and smith squats dont.

But, I have heard that the smith machince can cause injuries.

1. Has anyone had good results from smith squats?

2. Does the smth cause injuries?

Discuss, thanks

bb

I have personally had great results from Smith squats, and I would have to say that they are my most favorite compund exercise for legs (next to stiff-legged deadlifts). For the free-weight exercieses that I've translated to the Smith machine, squats are probably the one that does so the best. I've done both free-weight squats and Smith squats, and they are more similar than anyone is willing to admit or find out for themselves. Smith squats have always felt natural and safe, at least to me.

Smith squats will cause injuries just like free squats will, or any other exercise for that matter...if you have bad form. As long as you stand under the bar on the Smith machine like you would with free-weight squats, i.e. straight up, there is very little difference in how the lift will feel throughout your body. For some reason, alot of people tend to place their feet too far forward on Smith squats, and that might be potential cause for injury.

Just try both with good form, and decide for yourself which one you like best. If you can't decide, then switch them off from workout to workout. Good luck and listen to your own instincts.

[mischiev]

lack of stabilizer muscle development will give you an injury later on in the weightlifting game, whether smith machine squats are safe or not.

[BabyArnold]

Remember that there are no such things as "stabilizer muscles". Instead, stabilizing is something that one trains the muscles to do. So when someone uses the Smith machine, he or she will not be completely neglecting an entire set of muscles (these so-called "stabilizer muscles") that would then eventually fatigue with time and bring about injury. Free-weight squats are perhaps superior to Smith squats because the trained ability to stabilize yeilds some amount of additional strength/muscle growth, but for any one instance, or even in the long run, there is nothing at all wrong with doing Smith-machine squats.

[$AJ]

seriously, just lower the weight a teeny bit and work on ur form. Either that or your back-leg strength is unproportional, and your back gives out much too earlier than your quads/hams/glutes

fix rom isn't always good rom.

[musclenewbie99]

Smith machine squats are the best way to get injured.

..
* Rolls Eyes*.. to all these negative posts. At this point since im a female.. I cant lift what I can squat so I use the Smith Machine. I really don't think you can add muscle without heavy weight. Im trying to go from a 38 hip to a 42 hip and little 30 lbs dumbbells aint gonna cut it.

[stevemckenna]

..
* Rolls Eyes*.. to all these negative posts. At this point since im a female.. I cant lift what I can squat so I use the Smith Machine. I really don't think you can add muscle without heavy weight. Im trying to go from a 38 hip to a 42 hip and little 30 lbs dumbbells aint gonna cut it.

you do realize this thread is from 2004 and chances are, close to maybe HALF of the posters are deceased by now.