I say the Nautilus Super Pullover is the best exercise machine ever made:
http://leeapperson.com/bookone/intensitypagezero.html
Caution: Use of this machine may lead to scapular satiety, much like Olympic Cleans.
Tell me why you feel that this machine is so darn good?
Heck no! The torso-twist machine is way better for getting huge and ripped!
RIT Jared
ZEB,
Reasons:
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stretching of rib cage
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activation of abdominals, pec major, teres major, lats, serratus anterior, rhomboids, and even the pec minor
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plus the Nautilus cam makes some requirement of full effort through the whole ROM, even if you use the machine explosively, not the Arthur Jones way
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and the machine transforms the barbell pullover into a safer exercise than the free weight version.
I have noted that the cam effect referred to above has an unexpected bonus of leaving the muscle feeling “positive”, never whacked or “negative” as free weights can do because of dropoffs in leverage throught the ROM.
With your chinning ability I’m surprised you don’t prefer the machine. Nautilus brand machines give a purer cam effect than the knockoffs.
Ok I am going to say this as nice as possible but I am doing research (taking a break) and i am hungry so I am in a bad mood. But after this post and your spiraflex post I cant hold it in anymore. Stop being a sissy and put a bar on your back and squat, put a bar in your hands and deadlift and bench press, clean, snatch or something else with a damn barbell. If you want to push your sissy machines push them on some other sissies. Now Feeding Time!
Why assume I don’t do those lifts already? Shit, I think the best lift anybody can do is deadlift, and that it is the best way to surpass yourself going.
Pushing the machine on you? Have you ever used one? The whole point of the post is the way the cam addresses leverage dropoffs. You can use any machine you want, or none at all. As for Spiraflex, it’s new technology so I was wondering if anybody had had any experience with it.
These are points anybody with a little insight could have derived from the posts. That’s a different kind of “development” though, and you have my encouragement in developing yours. Look how far you traveled with your assumptions.
The barking of the dog.
Frogs:
As far as anybody pushing anything on you, if I had a wrestling coach that was “pushing” a workout like you described on me I’d ask him to justify every exercise, too.
Seriously, on a more mature level, the Pullover machine and the Hip/Lower Back machine are probably the only Nautilus machines that are truly that laudable.
Something for you to think about: the guys at Westside are truly professionals, yet the sons at Metal Militia don’t train their way all the time.
The workout cops at Arthur Jones blew their chance to develop their handling of leverage dropoffs. I’ll pass on the bands. Danke.
I use the HAMMER STRENGTH pullover machine. I warm up as it can be hard on shoulders. I use 6 45lb plates and 2 25lb plates for 10 reps. I never see anyone else at the gym use more than 4 45lb plates.
I am truly glad you deadlift, squat, etc. Yes I have used the pullover machine a long time ago and I felt it was not worth my time. If you want to pass on the bands fine with me. Although my program has alot of influence from Westside I do not always follow them exactly either. I experiment with alot things but I will pass on all machines. They put you in a fixed path, reduce the activity of the stablizers, and I feel their are better ways to accommodate leverages. I think the original idea of the cam was to accommodate leverages but unless you are weak near the initial part of the lift (depends on the exercise) I dont see it helping now as it did not before. I do not apologize for what I wrote earlier but I do apologize for the way I wrote it because it is normally not my intention to start fights with name calling, especially on the net, but rather intelligently discuss. So what we have come to is you have your ways and I have mine.
Frogs:
Chains and bands are attempts to address change of leverage. As I said to Zeb, the machine (pullover) renders a formerly dangerous (at heavier weight)(why do any other type?) exercise safe. I remember days after a Nautilus pullover workout, one in which I used over 3/4 of the stack, when every muscle I described to Zeb was very sore, even my f#cking solar plexus! Now that’s effective. Especially when you don’t have a partner or spotter. Also, the movement of rotating the scapula up and back, the way bodybuilders pose the traps, when rotating it under resistance – that feels right on.
I agree about the stabilizers – but you can’t have it all.
And I understand you humor – but sissies don’t workout explosively.
I’ve read some of your other posts. You have a good down-to-earth knowledge of these things. No apology needed.
I’m kind of ramblin’…most people who view the Nautilus trainig with contempt do so because of Jones co. insistence on performing the reps slow and in control. But no animal relates to objects that way on this planet. Inertia is to be overwhelmed, not stroked off. Jones co.'s way of training caters to the weakest muscles involved in the motion, at the expense of the stronger muscles. This is wrong --reverse thinking, and exactly why they accuse them of dicking with their heads.
If you train their machines explosively, by the time you reach the range where the weaker muscles are called on they are called on by greater weight than they can handle by themselves. A pretty good overload, and more satisfying than catering to an instructor.
Reverse hypers are an example of a good machine. They are the Mule Kick of martial arts, the most powerful kick there is. And they don’t even use a Nautilus cam.
Avenues to explore.
Thanks for the compliment but I have to say I am learning as much as everybody else and just go by what I have experienced. Reading leads to my experiences in the weightroom. Lets not forget that machines are not completely safe. If somebody were to load up to much on the machine and miss , good luck escaping. I believe most people hurt themselves with free weights because they use bad technique and/or they are ego lifters, and no injury prevention in their training. Where the technique problem may be fixed the ego is not when using a machine. About the soreness, you will be sore anytime you add a new stimulus. I got sore as hell the other day from doing wide grip benches, which I normally have not done. You probably do not get sore anymore if you have been consistent with your workouts. Me adding wide grips for the first time in a long time= not consistent and a new stimulus. If you do still get sore then something is wrong. But as they say, there are no bad training methods only bad applications. But you still have some work to do to convince me that the cam accommodates leverages sufficiently. This is fun.
Are we doing the machines vs free weights argument again? Been a while since I have seen this one on the boards.
Look…it has been proven over time that free weights offer the best frame of movement in which to build muscle. Many stabalizer muscles come into play, balance etc.
With that stated variety is the spice of life and also in the weight room. The device that the original poster is referring to is a good machine, and will work certain areas of the body quite well. Does that mean you give up free weights and work exclusively with machines? Not if you know what you are doing!
Personally, I like free weights, however I have trained with machines on occasion and have used them to finish off a session as well.
For example, I might do four sets of overhead presses, then when I finish the fourth set I wait no more than :30 and go to my overhead press machine and knock off as many as I can knowing that I do not have a heavy weight actually hovering over my head. This gives me the opportunity to perhaps train to failure (that’s another argument) without any problems.
Free weights, machines, rocks, logs, bands, free hand movements…it’s all good depending on how you use them, and how much you use each.
Zeb has summed it up well. Machines should be used to regain fluidity of movement, maybe as a blood pump. I wouldn’t use them for more than 25% of training volume. I’d always noticed when switching back and forth between free weights or Nautilus exclusively a dramatic change in my perceived experience of body motion. Free weights brought a blockiness or abruptness that would go away after several Nautilus workouts. It’s the cam effect: it’s designed to require the user to exert a constant intensity of effort throughtout the full ROM. This is the leverage point: free weights have sticking points that are associated with changes in leverages, and which can drop off suddenly. Hence chains, etc. Because of the shape of the cam, nautiloid, sudden drop offs are largely removed.
The virtue of free weights is that the need to suddenly overwhelm inertia leads to tremendous CNS activity, and that recruitment cascades biologically, and the Russians found that the CNS is the key. It is a kick-start that is hard to get from a machine. The way to acquire similar results from a machine is to dominate it, and you have to dominate a Nautilus machine if you use it explosively because the sticking points have been removed. The machine attempts to train you to roll right over sticking points. As an adjunct to intense free weight training that rolling over could lead to some useful adaptations.
It became too consistent for me to ignore: the rolling over produced a positive feeling in the muscle/joint relation. Free weights removed that feeling consistently.
Machines do not tend to be tailored to your specific body dimensions, but a barbell certainly is!! The end point is that the only natural way to relate to an inertial task is to overwhelm it, and enjoy the cascade. Training is fun.
There is some value in trying to perfect these machines.
Hip-belt squats are worthwhile. And the similarity Reverse Hyper and Hip/Lower Back machine is notable.
I’ve used other pullover machines: none felt as good as the Nautilus.
And just to clarify, the SpiraFlex through Schwinn is probably gimmicky, but there may be aspects to it that could be excised, butcher the rest. It probably is largely similar to Bowflex. Marketing forces.
Compound free weight movements as the core, select Nautilus machines as warm-up/warm-down/days off.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
Are you trying to sell these things?
Sounds like a religion to me… 
Jared, only to the unwitting.
I’ve explained myself fully. I personally wouldn’t buy the Spiraflex – it’s probably not a good workout and it’s probably overpriced. If NASA has endorsed it, I’d hold it at arms length – they do after all state that any drug use is entering a black hole…
Gentlemen: are our thought processes a little slow of late ? Seeking information or viewpoints is not trying to sell something.
Enough.
Is your name Lee? 
To all you guys having trouble understanding at this point I’d recommend you get together and buy several sets of bands, fasten a custom fit harness for each, and loop once over, twice under, back over and any which way over any unsuspecting object available, taking care to hang like a bat, inverted, at the end. Ha.