Ingenious Combo Machines! How does it work?

It's nice to have lots of space in any gym, but sometimes there is a limit to just how many pieces of equipment you can fit in the space that you have. Think about the size of a home gym.. it's often only a small garage or maybe a basement. Commercial gyms usually have much more room to use, but it's still a good idea to make the most use of a space or piece of equipment that you can.

There are the old school weightlifting tools that can be used in countless many ways and provide a complete workout all by themselves. I think if you only had an adjustable bench and some dumbbells, you could workout great. Same goes for a good set of barbells. For that matter, there are bodyweight exercises that you could do exclusively and have a great, functional, strong body. However, for me machines offer much needed safety and stability. I also hate getting down on the floor for some push-ups while I don't hesitate to sit down and do a few sets of seated chest presses.

I don't often use the power rack, but when I do, I like that it offers all the safety of the machines, but all the freedom (and for me, the control challenges) of free weights. I always felt that if I were going to go the home gym route in the future.. I would have one of these for sure. You could do a whole body workout just using a power rack with a bar and some weight plates. (and a bench, too)

Here's another combo machine. (since it you can use to to do two or more different exercises) This one is great for pull ups or dips and since it you can set the counter weight, you can do those exercises even if you can't yet do those with your full bodyweight.

There are tone of pieces of equipment that can be considered 'combo', but the two that I want to show you all now are ingeniously designed to morph. They provide two great exercises that are normally found in two separate machines.. thus saving that additional space and also saving time moving to a new machine to do that exercise.

First is my favorite machine for doing hamstrings. You get to just sit and curl your legs down in order to work those hammies. (The one where you lie down on your belly and curl you legs up is ok, but I'd rather not have to lie down if I have the choice)

Here's the transformers part.. you just pull the yellow bar, which pulls the pin out, and rotate it.. set it to the opposite side of the circle.. and now the resistance is up, not down. That means its all ready for you to do some leg extensions.. just get your feet under the padded bar and extend your legs out straight.

This second one uses the same flipping of the resistance, but goes one further and moves the handles along with wheel, moving it into place for you to use for that exercise. How cool is that? Hats off to the person who figured out how to make this one.

Thanks for letting me share my little discovery with you,

Ben