Has anyone tried this equipment? The way it was explained to me, it involves air power in the machines, and is geared towards sports performance. A friend of mine is a trainer at a sports facility and he said they recently bought some of this equipment, I’ll probably try it out in the next few weeks, I’m just looking for what to expect.
There’s a 15 piece circuit in the facility I work out of. Like most machines that feature a fixed movement path, they would be low on my list of tools I’d prefer to use for training anyone interested in “athletic” strength and performance. Bodybuilders who’ve reached the level where they need to perform supplemental direct work for specific muscle systems might find them useful however. In addition, I’ve found them of use with some clients who are rehabilitating injuries, because the resistance can be set extremely low and fine tuned to a greater degree than most selectorized equipment.
Having said that, I generally encourage people to try every type of equipment they can lay their hands on and come to their own conclussions. Listen to what others have to say who’ve gone before you, but make up your own mind.
Who knows, you may love the stuff and have great success using it in general. Even if you try it and find just one exercise that works like gang-busters for YOU, then it’s worth your time.
I have never tried these but for athletic purposes i wouldnt think that they would be so usefull cause you will not be able to generate explosive power in the same way as free weights do it…
But a friend of mine with a Torn ACL swears by them in his gym for rehabilitation purposes. this is because the machine have been fine tuned for his purpose… he just puts in his initials on a computer or something on the site and it loads the machine with the weight and TOT that he is supposed to be using for that exercise.
But for what to expect. id say it will be like a smith machine just without the possibility of accerlerating the weight ?
I have tried a few and they generally suck. They are not meant for strength trainning as it is really hard to measure progress on these machines since resistance comes from air. Rehab sure, strength and hypertrophy no.
Depends on which models they have. Keiser makes a functional tranier(column with two adjustable swing arms, replaces the old-fashioned double cable stack). I have only used this piece, and their squat rack. Both units allow you to adjust the amount of air pressure, measured in pounds of force(same as loading a barbell).
The air pressure is actually more relevant than say a regular plate-loaded stack, since you cannot gain any momentum on the unit. If you whip a cable fast enough(doing say, cable chops), past a certain point you can lower the amount of force you are generating because momentum you already generated will carry the plates along. With the Keiser, you cannot reach that moment of inertia, since the pressure remains constant throughout your range of motion.
The Keiser squat rack has a cable system(under air pressure) with collars which will slide onto any standard Oly bar. The cables will follow the path of the bar, due to pulleys and sliders along the bottom to keep the cable directly vertical under the collars(and thus the bar). With the collars on, you can then put whatever plates you want on the bar as well, or just work with the air pressure, or both. I only got to use this piece of gear for a week, but liked it. I think it would be great as a DE bench supplement, similar to bands.
Keiser is expensive though, I just priced a squat rack for our gym to buy next FY, and it was around 10Gs after all accessories(pullup handles, dip attachment, bench, etc).
I like to use the Keiser every now and then. The machines I use can tell you how much power
you are making which is nice to know.