Machines aren't an inferior tool compared to free weights
There's a persistent hierarchy in gym culture that ranks free weights above machines, treating machine work as somehow less 'real' training. But for the primary goal of most lifters — building muscle — studies comparing matched machine and free-weight programs for the same muscle groups consistently find similar hypertrophy outcomes. Muscle doesn't know or care whether the resistance came from a barbell or a cable stack; it responds to tension, volume, and progressive overload regardless of the tool.
Where free weights genuinely win is in demanding more stabilizer muscle activity and motor coordination, since you control the bar path yourself — useful for building the kind of full-body strength and balance that transfers to sports and daily life. Machines win where free weights struggle: isolating a specific muscle without other muscles becoming the limiting factor, training safely to failure without a spotter, and letting beginners learn a movement pattern with less technical risk.
The smart approach uses both: free weight compounds as the foundation for overall strength, and machines to safely push isolation exercises closer to failure or to work around an injury that makes a free-weight version risky. Neither one is the 'lesser' choice - they solve different problems.
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