What's The Goal?

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What is the goal of the exercise you are doing?





To move?  To sweat?  To get your heart rate up?  To get your mind off of your day?  To create a general level of fatigue?  To created a specific sensation?  To challenge specific tissues?  To create a specific level of fatigue within those specific tissues?

Having a clear, well-defined idea of what exactly you are trying to accomplish when you do a specific exercise will not only better direct you toward reaching your desired goals (assuming you understand how to progress yourself there), but it will also help you to determine if the exercise is actually allowing you to accomplish what you it is intended to.

Example:  Are you doing dumbbell chest presses to practice the performed motion of pressing or to challenge the tissues that are performing the pressing motion?  If you desire the latter, who greatly are you attempting to challenge those tissues at this moment?  Until you start to feel a sensation in those tissues?  Until you start to experience a moderate level of fatigue?  Until you can no longer perform a controlled pressing motion?

Additionally, what you are trying to challenge and the extent to which you are wanting to challenge it may also play a part in the amount of passive restraint you use to design your exercise.

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Example:  If your goal is to maximally challenge the muscles that horizontally adduct your humerus during a chest press (for example pec major) while not having to worry as much about trying to control the position of your torso or stay standing, you may want to utilize the passive restraint offered by a machine as opposed to performing a "standing cable press" or something in which there isn't anything passively restraining your torso.

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Again, understanding exactly what you are trying to accomplish with everything you do is vital to ensuring your ability to reach your bigger goals.

Your body.  Your training.
 

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