Mike Mentzer makes the observation that the "Anti Machine" rhetoric in the fitness industry never originated with bodybuilders or actual lifters
It was a propaganda campaign promoted by free weight manufacturers who were upset the by the success of Nautilus in the 1970s
Prior to Nautilus, there was no major machine manufacturer
then Arthur Jones came along, and Nautilus took off
Hammer strength was started by Jones son, Arthur, and mimicked Nautilus but with plate loading instead of the cam
Free weight manufacturers were PISSED...
The general public liked machines, and bodybuilders liked machines, and kinesiology and exercise science departments liked machines
How could they make people NOT want to use machines?
->"theyre not FUNCTIONAL"
->they dont work to build "real" muscle & strenth
At the commercial level it did not work, gyms obviously buy machines to this day.
It was somewhat successful though in the 1990s and beyond,
there is still a stigma against machines in parts of the fitness community that persists, usually its newbies, or barbell zealots
When I became a personal trainer in 2010, it was very much en vogue to critique machines as nonfunctional and pointless to use
This sentiment has changed massively in the past decade,
Now its marker of archaic thinking if someone is anti machine
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