A purpose for the Smith Machine

There's a lot of machines at the gym that I hate seeing people use, mostly because they do very little for your overall fitness level. Sure, they work a particular muscle, but a lot of them ONLY work THAT muscle and nothing else.

A squat, for example, when done holding a bar on your shoulders (no other support) requires significant effort from all of the stabilizing muscles, not just your quads or your butt. However, a squat done on the SMITH MACHINE (see pic below) requires very few stabilizing muscles to actually work because the bar is held in place for you.

The Smith Machine is probably the machine that I like the least...

Today, however, I actually found a purpose for it!

My workout today was called "Diane".
21-15-9 reps of:
135# deadlift
Handstand push-ups

I did this workout once before on 5/16. I kept the weight the same on the deadlifts- still extremely tough for me! I did 5-6 reps at a time until I got to the required number of reps for that round.

But, I found a new way to do the handstand push-ups. Before, I did them with my feet on a bench, which isn't all that difficult anymore. I can almost do a handstand push-up on my own but not quite so I need a middle ground between the two. I raised the bar on the SMITH MACHINE and put my feet on that, stuck my butt in the air, and did my push-ups. It was much more challenging than with my feet on the bench (more of an incline so more weight to push-up) so I'm excited to get stronger at the handstand push-ups.

My time? 9:02! I beat my last time of 9:17 by 15 seconds!

Until tomorrow,
Kelsalynn