By equipment
Machine exercises
Fixed paths and quick weight changes. The easiest place to train close to failure alone.
39 exercises
A machine guides the weight along one path, so almost nothing goes into balancing and nearly all of the effort reaches the target muscle. That makes machines quick to learn and easy to push hard. The trade-offs: the path is built for an average body, so a seat or pad set wrong makes an exercise feel wrong, and the numbers on the stack do not carry over from one brand of machine to another.
Machines are the natural start for a first routine: the leg press, the machine chest press and the chest-supported row cover legs, pushing and pulling with no barbell technique to learn. For experienced lifters they are the easiest way to add volume after the free weights, and some muscles are simply easier to reach on one, like the hamstrings on the seated leg curl or the inner thigh on the hip adduction machine. Most of the gym's cardio equipment counts here too.
Because stacks differ between makers, track each machine as its own exercise in StackUp, and set its weight step to what the stack actually moves in.
