Only those experienced body builders who has been lifting weights for years know a little better.

The experience body builders will agree to one thing. Free weights are definitely better to muscle building in comparatively to machines.

Here’s why: Free weights will cause your body and muscles to build and work against resistance in a 3 dimensional environment. This means that when you work on a particular muscle group, you are working the muscles all around that area.

When it comes to machines, they normally only allow your body to build and work against resistance in either 1 or at the best 2 dimensional environment.

Not only not, working on free weights increases your strength which overall are used in your daily activities as everything you do and movement in your body requires strength from all 3 dimensions.

There are small skinny guys which load the bench press machine with 4 plates on the side but can’t even perform 2 plates on a free weight bench press. I almost guarantee that if you see someone performing a 4 plate per side on a free weight bench press, they are usually a large person.

However, they are advantages to using machines. Since machines focuses the work on muscles in a 1 or 2 dimensional environment, they can be used to be more focus on building up more muscle to a specific area. They are used by experienced body builders who know what they are doing to shape their muscles.

But overall, I strongly suggest that free weights to be used as the majority and priority exercises which are more important for beginners and intermediates whose aim is to build strength first.