Bench press vs Smith Machine In my experience the smith machine is assisted and only one kind of movement is forced which is obviously the movement in which it let's you cause it's on a frame . In terms of how much weight to take off I find it's a matter if how much extra you can put on for example I can do like 140kg bench press for a couple of reps and I'm hooped for the rest if my session but with the smith I can do 158kg so it's like an extra 18kg's However in terms of ripping the particular muscle I feel the smith does something totally separate to the bench press as my soreness is different from both so I tend to do smith for 3 weeks then bench for 3 weeks then dumbbells fir 3 weeks and then back to smith again and it works a treat as I'm always sore!
Bench press vs Smith Machine I had a feeling someone was going to say this -_- I can rep 70kg comfortably for 8 rep's though. My guess is realistically the actual weight was more like 75kg considering how it felt and what I pushed. I think 80kg was wishful thinking Oh I did 32.5kg x 8 rep's on the dumbbell's what would this be on the flat bench then. I know these numbers sound small but it's part of what I enjoy about the gym, going up the numbers! It's not. Thankfully I just cancelled my membership
Bench press vs Smith Machine I think the smith is more isolated and free weight benching is more compound so it's bound to be harder. You can't just turn your wrists when it all goes west either.