How Using Different Equipment for the Same Exercise Can Activate Muscles Differently
When it comes to strength training, there are many different exercises that you can do to target specific muscle groups. That exercise variety serves many purposes, including keeping your motivation to train high, constantly providing new stimulus to the muscles, and providing new challenges to your fitness and movement.
But did you know that using different equipment for the same exercise can actually activate the muscles differently? Performing an exercise with bodyweight, barbells, dumbbells, cables etc will all result in different stimulation to the muscles.
This is because different pieces of equipment offer different levels of resistance, stability, and range of motion. As a result, they can force your muscles to work in different ways. This isn’t just the case with free weights either - variations of exercise machines put your body into different positions. They change the lifting angles, the range of motion and the position of the joints - all of these have an impact on how the exercise affects your body.
An example of how different equipment changes the same exercise…
Let's say you're doing a horizontal press for your chest (bench press, but we won’t call it that because you don’t ‘bench press’ on a cable machine. When performing a horizontal chest press, you could use a dumbbell, a barbell, or a cable machine. Each of these pieces of equipment will activate your muscles differently.
Dumbbells allows for a greater range of motion than a barbell. This means that your muscles have to work harder to lift the weight. You will also be lifting unilaterally, meaning both sides have to work as hard as each other.
A cable machine provides constant resistance throughout the entire range of motion. It’s also unilateral, but the machine offers a little more stability than you’d get with the dumbbells.
A barbell offers more stability than a dumbbell or cable machine, because both sides work together at the same time. It means you can lift heavier weights too, as both sides contribute. You have a shorter range of movement however.
As you can see, using different equipment for the same exercise can have a significant impact on how your muscles are activated. This is why it's important to mix things up and use a variety of equipment in your workouts.
There’s even variation amongst similar items of equipment. In 2020, scientists performed a study titled A Comparison of Muscle Activity Between the Cambered and Standard Bar During the Bench Press Exercise. Both exercises were performed in the same way, with the same weights. The only difference was the bar - one was a standard bar, the other was a cambered bar.
The researchers concluded…
‘The results indicated that the cambered bar was superior in activating the anterior deltoid muscle compared to the standard bar during the BP exercise, whereas the standard bar provided higher pectoralis major and triceps brachii long head sEMG activity at 90% 1RM.’
So the same exercise with different equipment led to different outcomes. It shows that tweaks to an exercise will lead to new stimulation and therefore new progression and gains in fitness.
If you look around, you’ll see opportunities to mix things up everywhere…
Barbell squats switched for dumbbell split squats: The barbell squat is a way to lift heavier and activate the trunk more. The dumbbells allow for a greater a stretch of the hip flexors, and unilateral strength gains.
Standard deadlifts switched for trap bar deadlifts: The standard deadlift puts the weight in front of the body, placing more emphasis on the back. The trap bar spreads the weight to the sides, placing more emphasis on the legs and allowing you to lift more.
Overhead dumbbell presses switched for overhead kettlebell presses: Research concluded that when performing overhead presses with kettlebells, muscle activity of all muscles except the upper trapezius was always higher for kettlebell pressing.
As you can see, there are many different ways to activate muscles with the same exercise. By using a variety of equipment, you can create a more challenging and effective workout. So next time you're at the gym, don't be afraid to experiment with different pieces of equipment. You might be surprised at how much of a difference it makes in your workout.
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