I watched a guy pull an actual seatbelt out of his gym bag last week and strap himself into the seated hamstring curl.
Not a lifting belt. An actual seatbelt.
I've seen people carry entire tubs of protein powder and Hollywood-style tripods in gym bags big enough to go backpacking in South America. I've never seen somebody whip out a fucking seatbelt.
I usually pay very little attention to how other people train, even when it's something I wouldn't have my clients do. But this one stuck with me.
The machine already gave him a seat, a back pad, and a thigh pad. Copious amounts of external stability. Yet he decided the missing piece was more seatbelt.
Machines give us more stability. That doesn't mean we get to go on autopilot.
External support reduces some of the variables we have to control. It can help us direct more effort toward the tissue we're trying to train. We still have to find and maintain useful positions within the machine, especially as load goes up.
Want massive hamstrings? Get really good at creating stability at the pelvis. If you're throwing it back like a stripper every rep, strapping yourself down harder doesn't necessarily solve the problem. If we want to maximize tension across the hamstrings, it's probably a good idea to keep the pelvis stable while the lower leg moves.
The same idea applies when someone moves a lateral raise cuff farther up the arm and assumes the exercise just got easier. Shorten the moment arm, and you need more force to create the same torque. Put the thing so high it's basically a blood pressure cuff, and you'll need a lot more load to make the shoulder work just as hard. Your core and scapula still have to manage that load. Maintaining position at the shoulder may become the limiting factor.
Changing the external constraint changes the demands. It doesn't make stability irrelevant.
Free weights generally ask more of us in terms of self-organization. Machines generally provide more external support. But if you can't organize yourself within the machine, another strap isn't going to do it for you.
Want this applied to your own training? See Online Coaching.
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