Hacker News Reader

There's no way I'd try to pull the rep max on a free barbell that I would on a smith machine

Why not? So long as you're not being stupid, a spotter and/or the safeties built into the cage/rack or bench should do fine.

View on HN

You'd be almost guaranteed to fail the lift. Smith machines let you use higher weight because you don't have to spend energy stabilizing the barbell. With safety bars failing isn't a huge deal, it's just pointless.

Oh, he's talking about raw numbers. I guess in retrospect, that's obvious, but when I replied I thought he was saying he doesn't push himself as hard with free weights.

Yeah, can see how it read lol. There's no cage, just a smith machine at my local gym (and there's only two in town), so I do freeweight squats at home, then smith there, going for the max on each.

As the original article pointed out, the effect of strengthening the stabilizing muscles is WHY free weights are superior for fitness.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com