Is Using the Smith Machine for Bench Pressing Cheating

When I first started lifting weights seriously, it was under the guidance of my swim coach alongside the high school swim team. However, instead of accessing the school's expansive free-weight room, which was used by the football and wrestling teams, we were confined to using a classic 1970s Universal Gym behind a steel fence on the stage within the gymnasium.

Despite the less-than-ideal setup, our team made the most of what we had and gained noticeable muscle during our training. However, we occasionally faced snide remarks from the football and wrestling teams, insinuating that we weren't using "real weight." I thought to myself, "How can the weight be fake when these muscles are obviously real?"

It wasn't until five years after high school that I tried training with free weights for all my lifts. And to my chagrin, those football players had a point. Unless you experience controlling a weight as it moves freely through space, you can't fully appreciate the difference between a free-moving weight and one guided along a fixed path.

What about the Smith Machine?

The Smith Machine is appealing for several reasons. It looks like a standard Olympic-style weight bar with hooks attached, allowing you to roll it forward or backward to secure it in place along its pre-set path. Functionally, it operates like a multi-dimensional machine weight, where the bar moves along a guided path, and you choose the training motion.

From a safety standpoint, especially when lifting without a gym buddy or spotter, the Smith Machine offers a great bailout option. If you get stuck, you simply roll the bar to secure it and slide out of the way.

Using the Smith Machine for Bench Pressing

The predetermined path of the Smith Machine weight is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that the weight won't move outside the vertical plane. The curse is that you can't develop the crucial mind-muscle connection needed for manipulating heavy weights in real-world scenarios.

For example, when doing a dumbbell bench press, every muscle in your chest and midsection fires to hold and guide the dumbbells. Training with dumbbells helps diagnose and correct strength imbalances. On a Smith Machine, however, the weight can only move up or down, allowing for wriggling and contorting, which can reinforce bad habits.

How Should You Use Smith Machines

If you choose to use the Smith Machine for bench pressing, limit its use to pushing your pecs to near-complete failure after you've done the bulk of your chest work with free weights. This way, you'll have already taxed your stabilizer muscles during heavy lifts.

It's worth noting that while the Smith Machine lowers the risk of serious injury, calculating the rollback or roll-forward space for the bar can be tough on your wrists. You might find yourself pressing over 200 pounds off the rack with compromised wrists, rolling that weight forward, and hoping your hands find an optimal position before the bar descends to your chest. Completing your set and rolling the bar back into its latch when you're fatigued can be challenging. Despite its safety latch, a spotter may still be necessary.