I think it makes sense to get started exercising, using any kind of good program at all, and to pay attention to technique.
I don't have injury stats on machines versus free weights. Almost all the serious lifters I knew (bodybuilders or powerlifters) did plenty of free weight work. This included one 67-year-old bodybuilder in amazing shape who'd been injury-free for decades. He used a mix of free weights and machines, but he didn't squat the kinds of weights the serious powerlifters did, either.
You can make yourself a lot stronger than the average person with pretty low risk of injury, if your technique is good. As far as I can tell, you can do it pretty safely with a squat rack, some safety bars, a bench, a bar, and some weights. According to BroScience(TM), lol, the advantage of free weights is that if you have good technique, then you wind up working large parts of your body as a unified system, or something. (Bro science is like blog posts on unit testing; everyone's got a theory and almost nobody has numbers.)
But once you hit "a lot stronger than the average person", where do you go next? Do you maintain? Do you keep trying to lift more? Do you decide to go for a bit of hypertrophy?
And that's where I think it makes sense to talk to the old lifters, and look for patterns. Don't believe me. I'm just some guy on the Internet. Go talk to the old guys who've been doing it for 40 years and who aren't wearing tons of wraps and tape. By the time you need to make these decisions, you'll likely know some old guys at your gym, anyways.
I am not sure if you minimize risk of injury that much. You might get injured on machine or dumbbell if you go heavy.
Anyway with most machines you won't be able to load it heavy enough quite soon.
I think there is also happy middle ground where you train for strength but not into extremes - you progress at slower pace and prioritize form. I would say bodybuilders can also be strong and healthy but they can't use that strength properly (because of the type of training they do) and destroy their health with drugs.
> I am not sure if you minimize risk of injury that much. You might get injured on machine or dumbbell if you go heavy.
The thing machines have that free weights don't are in-built safeties, either by design or as a discrete component (e.g. smith machine). The only machine I can think of that you can get seriously injured on is a leg press machine, whereas there are a multitude of ways to hurt yourself with free weights, especially any exercise where you're under the bar. I say this as someone who has historically trained with a ton of emphasis on the Big 5/Golden 5 compound movements (i.e. not machines). The safety aspect is a big reason casual fitness clubs (e.g. Planet Fitness) have no barbells on the premises.
You are right. I meant it if you do excercises “properly” it shouldnt be big difference. But of course that already means freeweights are more dangerous.
I mean, if they are the type that are using steroids and such things, sure.
The other sort that are into drugs just gets stoned and lift weights. The risks just aren't the same: Sure, you are going to do some damage with pot, but not the same sort and you'll certainly not be so much worse than the person that gets stoned and plays games a lot of the day or gets stoned and works at a gas station.
(I worked with an ex-professional body builder: He was the second type and couldn't compete with the steroid crowd. He was OK with that)
My focus has been on calisthenics, but I still do some lifting. My thoughts have been that lifting free benefits from increasing the strength of all the stabilizing muscles. machines take away a lot of that so that you can target a particular muscle/group very effectively.
So my completely uneducated opinion is, machines might be worse in the long run.
In other words, train for power (rather than hypertrophy), but instead of using barbells, use dumbbells or machines, to minimize the risk of injury?