First Time at Gym Woman and Man :- If your plan is to build muscle, and to
make being fit a lifestyle, then I would strongly disagree, for
several reasons.
Once you start getting stronger, the
best way to do that will be with free weights, not machines, in large
part because machines have an upper limit. You can always get a
bigger bar and put on more plates with free weights, but can't add
more to the machines max.
If it's going to be a lifestyle,
something you do frequently, or if you're going to lift heavy, proper
form is THE MOST important thing to keep you from being hurt. With
machines, you don't have to learn how to lift with the proper form,
the machine guides you through it. If you ever make the transition to
free weights, it's going to be much harder to relearn proper form
rather learning it properly from the start.
I've seen several sources saying that
learning a motion and setting up your nervous system and muscles to
do it properly takes around 300-500 repetitions before it becomes
natural, while correcting a motion takes around 5,000. Not to mention
you'll have to decrease the weight for the whole period of
retraining. To learn proper form, watch a bunch of videos on how to
do a lift properly, and watch yourself in the mirror as you do them
(that's why gyms always have mirrors on all the walls).
Go slow, and pay very close attention
to what muscles you have to flex in what order to keep proper form. A
lot of the time, it's going to be stuff you wouldn't expect. For
almost any exercise, you're going to want to think about tightening
your abs and sticking your butt out. e.g. stuff like bench, you may
think your abs and but have nothing with bench press, but a slight
arch in your back (sticking your butt out) helps stabilize you and
keep your shoulder blades pinched (so you use your chest muscles and
not your shoulders), and abs is just always a good idea to
avoid hernias.
First Time at Gym Woman and Man :- If your plan is to build muscle, and to
make being fit a lifestyle, then I would strongly disagree,Whenever you lift free weights, there's
a ton of smaller accessory muscles that help stabilize your joints
and assist in the motions. If you start with machines and transition
to free weights, the machine will have been doing the job of most of
those muscles, and they will be weak and underdeveloped. When you
transition to free weights, those will be the first things to give
out, and can cause some very painful injuries around your joints that
take a long time to heal.
If your plan is to build muscle, and to
make being fit a lifestyle, then I would strongly disagree, If you try to use those muscles outside
the gym in the real world, all those accessory muscles become even
more important as they are strained even more when you do motions
outside the normal motion that is proper form in the gym. Until
you're experienced at lifting, straining those smaller accessory
muscles is very hard to notice until it's too late. The most obvious
sign of weak accessory muscles that I've seen is on bench press if
you do it with a barbell. Most new lifters will notice their arms
shaking once they get up to any kind of weight. Usually you see the
arms start to shake after a couple reps, long before their PCs are
even warmed up. This is those weak accessory muscles being at their
limit, even though it doesn't feel that heavy to them.
First Time at Gym Woman and Man:- If your plan is to build muscle, and to
make being fit a lifestyle, then I would strongly disagree, If you're already overweight, you've
probably got a lot of extra strain on your joints. If your knees ever
hurt when you squat down, your back ever aches just from going about
your day, ankles get sore from a jog, etc, machines will do nothing
to help that. Healthy joints should be one of your first priorities,
as it will make everything else that much easier and keep you from
hurting yourself which will be a huge setback and it's just that much
harder to keep your motivation and determination up.