The honest answer is both. Machines guide your joints through a fixed path, making them safer for beginners and perfect for pushing to failure. Free weights build stabilizer muscles and allow custom adjustments for individual body mechanics. The best training programs at Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby, near Brentwood, combine both — and here’s exactly when to use each one.
Watch: Machines vs Free Weights
In this video, Josko and Brandon from Kraken Fitness in Burnaby break down when machines make sense, when free weights are better, and how to use both in the same training session for maximum results.
Why Machines Are Great for Beginners
Machines are one of the safest ways to start strength training because they remove the guesswork from joint positioning. A machine guides the weight along a fixed path, which means the joints move through a pre-set range of motion designed for that specific exercise. For someone who is brand new to the gym, this matters a lot — it is very hard to put yourself in a position of injury or harm when the machine is controlling the movement pattern.
This is exactly why Kraken’s trainers in Burnaby often start newer clients on machines before progressing to free weights. The learning curve is shorter. A beginner can load a machine, sit down, and start building strength on day one without needing to master complex movement patterns first.
The mental barrier matters too. Walking into a gym for the first time is intimidating enough. Machines give people a clear entry point — there’s usually a diagram right on the equipment showing what to do, where to sit, and which muscles get worked. Nobody has to stand in the middle of the free weight section wondering what to grab.
That said, machines aren’t a permanent home. They’re a launchpad. Once someone has built baseline strength and confidence, Kraken’s coaching team starts introducing free weight variations that challenge coordination and stability. The machine work doesn’t disappear entirely, but it becomes one tool among many instead of the entire program.
Why Advanced Lifters Still Use Machines
Here’s something that surprises most people: advanced lifters and bodybuilders actually rely heavily on machines. The reason has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with fatigue management and muscle isolation.
When a set gets hard, the first thing to break down on a free weight exercise is stability. Grip gives out, shoulders drift, the core fatigues. The target muscle might have three or four more reps left, but the supporting muscles can’t keep up. The set ends before the target muscle has been fully challenged.
Machines eliminate that problem entirely. Because the weight travels along a fixed track, there’s no stability demand. A lifter can push to absolute failure — that point where not a single additional rep is possible — without worrying about the bar drifting, balance collapsing, or the weight going somewhere dangerous. The stress stays exactly where it’s supposed to be: on the target muscle.
Josko demonstrates this in the video with an incline machine chest press. The machine is specifically designed to isolate the pec muscles. Julian can push until his chest is completely exhausted without his shoulders or triceps giving out first. That level of targeted fatigue is difficult to achieve with free weights, where the weakest link in the chain always determines when the set ends.
This is why competitive bodybuilders use machines extensively in their programs. It’s not because machines are “easier.” It’s because they allow a type of intensity that free weights physically can’t provide once fatigue sets in.
Why Free Weights Build More Than Muscle
Free weights demand more from the body than just the primary muscle group. When someone does a dumbbell incline press instead of a machine version, the pecs still do the pushing — but now the rotator cuff, deltoids, and core all have to fire to stabilize the weight in space. Those muscles get trained whether the lifter thinks about them or not.
This additional stability work makes free weight exercises more transferable to real life. Carrying groceries, picking up a child, playing a sport — none of those activities happen on a fixed track. They require coordination between multiple muscle groups working together. Free weights train that coordination in a way machines can’t replicate.
The other major advantage is customization. Every person’s body is slightly different. Shoulder structures vary, arm lengths differ, mobility ranges aren’t identical. A machine locks everyone into the same movement path regardless of individual anatomy. Free weights allow small adjustments that make a big difference.
Josko gives a clear example in the video. If someone’s shoulders can’t handle a wide-grip pressing angle, they can bring the elbows slightly closer to the body. If that angle is still uncomfortable, they can flare a little wider. A dumbbell press allows infinite micro-adjustments until the movement feels right for that specific person’s joints.
At Kraken Fitness in Burnaby, the trainers use this variability constantly. Two clients doing the “same” exercise might have slightly different elbow positions, grip widths, or bench angles — all based on what their individual bodies need. A machine doesn’t offer that flexibility.
How to Combine Both in the Same Workout
The smartest approach isn’t picking one side of the debate. It’s using both strategically in the same session. Kraken’s trainers in North Burnaby program this way for a reason — each modality covers the other’s weakness.
The general principle: start with free weights when you’re fresh, then finish with machines when you’re fatigued.
Early in a workout, energy and stability are high. Free weight exercises performed here get the full benefit of stabilizer activation, coordination training, and customizable positioning. A barbell bench press or dumbbell row at the start of a session challenges the entire system.
As the workout progresses and fatigue builds, stability starts declining. This is where machines become valuable. Switching to a machine press or a cable row toward the end of the session allows continued work on the target muscle without stability being the limiting factor. The muscle gets pushed harder than it could with free weights alone.
There’s one more consideration that Josko highlights: functional transfer. If someone is training for a sport, for physical demands at work, or simply for better movement in daily life, free weights should be the priority. The stability and coordination they develop translates directly to real-world activities.
If someone is training purely for muscle growth and body composition, machines deserve a bigger role. The ability to isolate specific muscles and push to complete failure is a powerful tool for hypertrophy.
Most people at Kraken fall somewhere in between. They want to look better, feel stronger, and move well in everyday life. That’s why the programming blends both — free weights for functional strength and coordination, machines for targeted muscle work when fatigue sets in. No dogma, just what works.
FAQ
Are machines or free weights better for beginners?
Machines are generally better for true beginners because they guide the movement along a fixed path, reducing injury risk. Once baseline strength and confidence develop, free weights should be introduced for the coordination and stabilizer benefits they provide.
Can you build muscle with just machines?
Machines can absolutely build muscle. Advanced bodybuilders use them specifically because they allow pushing to complete failure without stability being the limiting factor. However, a program using only machines will miss the stabilizer and coordination benefits that free weights develop.
Should you do free weights before or after machines?
Start with free weights when energy and stability are high, then transition to machines as fatigue builds. This way, free weight exercises get the full coordination benefit early, and machines allow continued work on target muscles when stabilizers start giving out.
Do free weights burn more calories than machines?
Free weight exercises generally recruit more total muscle mass because stabilizers and accessory muscles are working alongside the primary movers. More muscle activation means slightly higher energy expenditure per set, though the difference shouldn’t be the main reason for choosing one over the other.
Why do bodybuilders use machines if free weights are “better”?
Bodybuilders use machines because muscle isolation and training to failure matter more for hypertrophy than stabilizer recruitment. A machine lets them exhaust the target muscle completely without worrying about balance or grip giving out first. Free weights aren’t “better” — they serve a different purpose.
Ready to Start?
Kraken Fitness is a personal training gym in North Burnaby near Brentwood. Whether you’re a complete beginner who needs guidance on the basics or an experienced lifter looking for smarter programming, Kraken’s coaches build programs that use the right tool for the right job. Try a free week — no commitment, no pressure.
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Watch on YouTube
- YouTube – https://youtu.be/MpQapDsZX3E
About the Author
Josko Kraken is the founder of Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby near Brentwood, and Brandon is co-owner. Together they host the Kraken Power Podcast and have over a decade of combined coaching experience helping everyday people transform their health at a gym built for non-gym people.
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[Josko]
Is it better for you to choose a machine for your exercises or free weights? Let’s settle that debate today. So depending on what you’re going to try to achieve in the gym, there’s going to be benefits to actually both of using these modalities.
So for instance, if you’re having a really hard time getting into the gym and you’re a fairly a beginner, a machine might actually not be the worst thing for you to choose. Reason being is because the machine is already going to articulate your joints in a certain pathway that the machine is designed for. That way, if you’re very much of a novice lifter, it’s going to be very hard for yourself to put yourself in a position of injury or harm.
On the other hand, you’ll actually find more advanced lifters actually go towards using machines, especially bodybuilders, because you don’t really have to worry about fatigue as you near the end of your set or your workout. You can really push to failure and not worry about the stability aspect, but still put the stress on your tissues in which you want to do in order to build muscle. And lastly, these machines are especially designed to target the muscles that you’re trying to build.
[Brandon]
So for example, this incline machine press is really good at aiming at building and isolating his pec muscles.
[Josko]
Now if you choose the exact same exercise in a free weight version, it is going to require a little bit more skill and ramp up till you know how to do them really well. But the benefit of that is being able to make slight modification. So for example, if Julian’s shoulders cannot handle a certain angle of press, he’s able to bring his elbows a little bit closer to his side or flare them a little bit more open.
It has that variability to allow him to be a little bit more custom. The next thing is when you’re doing a specific exercise like an incline chest press, not only the pecs are being isolated when you’re doing free weights, you’re going to actually have to use the accessory supporting muscles around it, like the rotator cuff, deltoids, etc. to actually get a little bit of work in as well.
This might make it a little bit more transferable to other functional things in your daily life or even your own sport. So in summary, there might be actually a benefit of doing both maybe even in the same workout. So for example, if you’re doing a bodybuilding workout, you might want to start off with something like free weights.
And when you get really fatigued, you can even continue to push yourself on a machine. But if you’re going to be transferring this movement into a sport or something that’s more functional in your daily life, you might want to choose something that requires more stability and coordination like your free weights.
[Brandon]
If you like that video and you like this type of content, make sure you like and subscribe to our channel and we’ll see you in the next one.