IN PRAISE OF (THE ORIGINAL) NAUTILUS MACHINES
By John Little

To begin with, why the name "Nautilus"? Well, according to Webster's, the Nautilus is a type of shell fish with a "smooth, spiral, chambered shell", and since this is almost an exact description of the spiral pulleys (or cams) that we developed for the purpose of regulating the required variations of resistance provided by the new exercise machines, I thought the name was unavoidably appropriate.

-- Arthur Jones, creator of Nautilus exercise equipment

While most bodybuilding authorities and fitness trainers will sit on the fence on the issue of free weights versus machines, I have no qualms at all about stating for the record that the early Nautilus machines, as created by Arthur Jones, are quite simply the best training equipment one can use to build one’s muscles. I differentiate between the machines that were designed by Jones and the ones that are now coming out of the plant bearing his Nautilus insignia.

Jones built his first Nautilus prototype in 1948 after years of wonder, study and experiment on the mechanics of muscular structures. Twenty-two years later, he released his first machine to the market. While Nautilus received a lot of press, a lot of it was negative. Weider’s publications in particular took umbrage with Jones’ machines, going so far as to run a series of derogatory articles about them, with bylines indicating that their authors were champion bodybuilders. The intent, of course, was obvious: to deter the market of bodybuilders and gym owners from purchasing Jones’ machines and to cast (at least) doubt upon their value for muscle building. Why? Because Jones’ new machines threatened the markets of the free weight manufactures and the muscle magazines that sold them. Witness the following tirade written by none other than Joe Weider in the January 1975 edition of Muscle Builder/Power:

Bodybuilders in general, and bodybuilding champions in particular, made an assault on Arthur Jones for the simple reason that he tried to stand the bodybuilding game on its head … and to think all the highly experienced, intelligent and hardworking bodybuilders are total fools …! (sic) …. Bodybuilders have learned through the years that all the standard weight-training equipment [read: barbells] is what works! …. It is so obvious that we have told only the truth in this in-depth analysis. Our conventional methods have been proven to be the best; the Nautilus has proved itself to be just the opposite! There is absolutely no argument about this comparison.

There was certainly no argument in Muscle Builder/Power as an argument requires the presentation of two sides of an issue under consideration and Weider was only interested in presenting one side (his own) -- neither Jones nor anyone who understood and advocated Nautilus were ever invited to the debate. No, this was not an argument but a smear job that ultimately backfired as many champion bodybuilders, including Mike Mentzer, Ray Mentzer, Casey Viator, Boyer Coe and Dorian Yates would ultimately employ Nautilus machines to great muscle building effect in their workouts. While Jones’ machines were big, heavy and expensive, their worst sin in the eyes of their attackers, truth be told, was that Nautilus threatened the existence of their barbell and dumbbell market. Moreover, Jones made no bones about having engineered these machines with an eye towards improving on, and overcoming the limitations of, barbells and giving the muscles precisely the type of exercise they required – and responded best to. As he wrote in his Nautilus Bulletin Number One in the early 1970s:

With the Nautilus machines, the required variations in resistance are properly provided; the resistance changes throughout the movements - in general, resistance is lowest at the start of an exercise, increases as the movement progresses, and decreases slightly near the end of an exercise. The actual rate of increase varies - depending on a number of factors. But in all cases, the resistance is exactly what it should be in all positions throughout the movements; when a set of an exercise is performed on such a machine, and when the set is carried to a point of momentary failure, then almost literally 100% of the individual muscle fibers contained in the muscles being worked are involved in the exercise - as opposed to less than 18% of the total number of available muscle fibers which are involved in most forms of conventional exercise, and as few as two or three percent of the total number of fibers in some conventional exercises.

Such an insight and innovation was a bona fide breakthrough in exercise science. And despite the carpet-bombing attacks of the muscle magazines, Jones’ machines and training theories prevailed. The reason may well be as the philosopher Will Durant once pointed out:

If one can clarify one need not agitate. Just to state facts is the most terrible thing that can be done to an injustice. Sermons and stump speeches stampede the judgment for a moment, but the sound of their perorations still lingers in the air when reaction comes. Fact has this advantage over rhetoric -- that time strengthens the one and weakens the other. Tell the truth and time will be your eloquence.

Indeed. By the late 1970s and particularly in the 1980s “Nautilus Centers” had mushroomed to an ever-expanding global audience; almost every gym had several pieces of Jones’ equipment, and some even carried his machines exclusively. It was during the early 1980s that I first read Jones’ two self-published Nautilus Bulletins and, like Mike Mentzer before me, came away thoroughly impressed by the insights of Jones and the benefit of his innovative machines. I trained for a while exclusively on Jones’ equipment, even taking a bus some 40-miles to train at a gym that offered a vast selection of the machines. While I never realized spectacular gains while training exclusively on the equipment (I would learn years later that a full range of motion is actually a detriment – rather than the sine qua non – to maximum fiber recruitment and hence maximum growth stimulation), I certainly did realize fuller muscular involvement training on the machines than I did (or could) training with barbells and dumbbells. I vividly recall witnessing Mentzer perform repetitions in smooth, controlled form on the pec deck portion of the Nautilus Compound Chest Machine with the entire weight stack – with one arm! And the sight of such a profound demonstration of human strength served to inspire my training on Nautilus equipment for many years after the fact.

Having had the opportunity to train on at least 24 different brands of exercise equipment over the decades, it might surprise some to learn that when it came time to purchase equipment for my Max Contraction Center, I opted not for any newly minted apparatus, but turned instead to 15 pieces of old, used Nautilus equipment. In fact, I made sure that each piece was as old as I could find – even if the pads were ripped, the paint was chipped and the rods were bent. I knew that such imperfections were easily reparable or replaceable; what were irreplaceable were the care, design and function of these early machines. The reason that underlay my selection of the more antiquated pieces was that the older Nautilus machines were the ones that Jones had spent the most time in developing and consequently they were (and remain) the most effective pieces of exercise equipment ever devised. The offset cam he created seem to me larger in these earlier machines, thus providing a wider radius and more resistance to the muscle in the one place it needs it most – the position of maximum contraction.

I should state for the record that I don’t subscribe to all of Jones’ engineering principles (one could only imagine what an “omnidirectional” rep would constitute) and I likewise don’t believe with Jones that “the barbell is an amazingly productive tool.” Indeed, such diplomacy is unfitting of a man of Jones’ intellect. The barbell is no more productive than a rock – both are inert chunks of matter, the design of which takes no account of the requirements of human muscle tissue. The principle of overload; i.e., of lifting heavier weights on a progressive basis, existed long before the advent of the barbell and the Ancient Greeks certainly built impressive physiques as a result of applying this early scientific principle – rather than this “productive tool” – to the rocks they lifted. Jones’ unique nautilus-shaped cam, along with negative cams, and the artistry of the design where muscular function dictated all, is what impressed me (and continues to). Circular cams, by contrast, such as those found on most pieces of exercise equipment, are no better than barbells, for the circular cam provides no effective resistance in the start and finish position of most exercises and usually too much resistance in the midrange point of the movement, where the muscle is not equipped – in terms of fiber recruitment or leverage – to accommodate it.

Jones’ cam, however, varied the effective resistance applied to the muscle being trained, diminishing it somewhat when the muscle was in its weakest position and increasing it proportionately as the muscle contracted, until maximum resistance was encountered in the position of full or maximum contraction. This was an absolute stroke of genius for which the bodybuilding world and bodybuilders in general (with noble and notable exceptions such as Mike and Ray Mentzer) have never understood nor attempted to apply (relying instead on such primitive and fallacious notions as “barbells worked for this guy and he’s a bodybuilding champion!” They fail to inquire however whether or not the bodybuilding champion in question had superior genetics (he always does), in which case almost any type of training effort or training equipment will produce results or whether the bodybuilder in question is loaded up with tens of thousands of dollars worth of contraband anabolic drugs (which he always is), and hence his muscles are merely puffy, swollen tissue that will deflate back down to mere mortal size shortly after he stops taking them (which he also “always does” eventually, usually for medical reasons).

The thinking bodybuilder, by contrast, doesn’t follow the herd, he – to turn around a certain biblical phrase – “follows not a multitude to do evil,” he attempts instead to understand the requirements of the enterprise he is engaged in; to wit, the requirements of building maximum levels of muscle strength and size. And once he begins this quest, if he pursues it honestly, he comes to the point where he learns that providing maximum resistance to the muscle in its position of full or maximum contraction is an absolute requirement for stimulating maximum gains in muscle size and strength, and then he looks for exercises that will allow him to do that. Pretty soon he realizes that free weights are very limited “tools” in this regard, as they can accomplish this with only a handful of exercises:

1. wrist curl
2. concentration curl
3. lateral raise (standing)
4. lateral raise (bent over)
5. calf raise
6. shrug
7. side bend

So, the individual looking to maximally develop his entire musculature uniformly quickly realizes that free weights can work his delts, traps, calves, biceps, obliques and forearms – period. When he checks out machines that allegedly work a muscle in the position of full contraction he notes that most of them have circular cams, which again, fail to provide maximum resistance in this position – save for one: Nautilus. Yes, I’m aware that Hammer Strength (designed originally by Gary Jones, Arthur’s son) also have offset cams that are similar to Nautilus, but give credit where credit is due; if Gary found this to be an important feature, he found that out at the feet of his father who had released his findings and created the first machines to incorporate this feature over 20 years prior to Gary’s even thinking about it. And so Nautilus becomes the machine of choice. For Max Contraction Training the Nautilus-shaped cam provides perfect resistance in the position of full contraction and there are perfectly designed machines that will allow you to isolate and thoroughly stimulate every major muscle group in the body:

1. Glutes – Hip and Back machine
2. Quadriceps – Leg Extensions
3. Hamstrings – Leg Curls
4. Abductor/Adductor – Abductor/Adductor Machine
5. Calves – Multi-Exercise Unit
6. Lats – Super Pullover or Behind Neck Machine
7. Pecs – Flyes on the Compound Chest Machine
8. Delts – Lateral Raise Machine
9. Rear Delts – Rear Deltoid Machine
10. Traps – Shrug machine
11. Neck – 4-Way Neck Machine
12. Biceps – Multi-Biceps Machine
13. Triceps – Multi Triceps Machine
14. Lower Back – Lower Back Machine
15. Abdominals – Abdominal Machine
16. External and Internal Obliques – Rotary Torso Machine
17. Forearms – Wrist Curls on the Multi-Exercise Machine

When you compare the two lists above it’s little wonder that the free weight manufacturers were concerned! Some of the first generation machines are hard to come by – but are well worth the search. I would love to acquire the old Compound Triceps and Compound Biceps machines as I believe they work the triceps and biceps more thoroughly than any other machine on the market, but, again, they are hard to come by (more on these machines in a minute).  Some machine companies have claimed to be “better than Nautilus;” citing the belief that they have better padding, better design and a host of benefits – but they don’t have the cam (which is patented). While I am certainly not an advocate of full-range training, the beauty of Nautilus (the original machines) is that you don’t have to train full range on them. If you plug in the correct amount of weight that you can (briefly) sustain a contraction against while in a position of full contraction on one of their machines – and Jones created enough machines to work every bodypart many times over – you can opt to train your muscles solely in the position of full muscular contraction and with a resistance that is legitimately what it should be and where it should be.

For Max Contraction training, only a handful of the seven to ten Nautilus principles (the number increased from 7 in 1970 to 10 by 1985, when Ellington Darden, Ph.D., then director of research at Nautilus Sports/Medical Industries. wrote the Nautilus Bodybuilding Book) that were incorporated into their machines are of particular import:

• Resistance at the point of full muscular contraction – this is absolutely the most important feature of Nautilus equipment. For, as Arthur Jones once said (and rightly):
  
  Human muscles are stronger in some positions than they are in other positions - in general, muscles are strongest in their positions of full contraction; and because of the way in which they function, the position of full contraction is the only position in which it is possible to involve all of the fibers of any muscle. Yet, in almost all conventional exercises, there is literally NO resistance in the position of full contraction - in the only position where it is even possible to involve ALL of a muscle, there is no resistance available to require the involvement of the then available fibers; as an unavoidable result in conventional exercises, muscles are worked only in their weakest positions - and are worked not at all in their strongest positions.

• Negative work – without the downward or back pressure provided by the “negative” portion of the lever arm, there is little or no effective resistance for the muscle to contract against. While a full negative repetition is not necessary (as the position of full contraction is the only one where all of the available muscle fibers can be recruited and stimulated thoroughly), the heavy downward resistance that one contracts against in the fully contracted position is an absolute necessity for optimal fiber recruitment. If it fell off at this position, as indeed is the case with positive-only machines such as Cybex (machines once manufactured for rehabilitation), static or motionless exercise is not possible as the effective resistance is terminated as soon as the forward or positive portion of the repetition comes to a halt.
• Direct resistance – The removal of wink links or compound exercises that utilize smaller and weaker muscle groups as their prime movers is crucially important in stimulating maximum muscle growth. An isolation movement does not dissipate the training stress through ancillary muscle groups, instead placing the resistance squarely on the muscle group you are training. By placing the resistance on the elbows (bent arm position) during a pullover or a pulldown (which is accomplished with straps) the resistance of the exercise is placed directly on the target muscle group – the lats – whereas with the standard pulldown (regardless of grip), or rowing motion, the biceps and forearms cipher off the bulk of the training stress, resulting in muscular failure in these smaller and weaker muscle groups, rather than in the one you are targeting.
• Variable resistance – It is important to have maximum resistance in the position of maximum contraction. Free weights, as we’ve seen, provide this only in a handful of exercises. Machines (with the exception of Nautilus) provide resistance in this position, but seldom maximum resistance. Again, the resistance has to be maximum in the one place where a muscle is capable of handling it – the position of full contraction. As the strength curve of a given muscle ranges from low (or weak) to high (or strong) throughout its range of motion, it is important that in the muscle’s strongest position (the position of Max Contraction) the resistance is maximum. For this reason, the low or “weak” end of variable resistance is not important – what is important is that the load is maximum in the fully contracted position; merely having some resistance in this position is not sufficient to recruit all of the available muscle fibers. The load imposed must be the maximum (or as near to maximum as possible) that the targeted muscle is capable of contracting against.

When Jones sold the rights to his company in 1986, what was not as immediately obvious was the fact that he also sold with it the one and only machines capable of stimulating maximum muscle growth. The new proprietors of the Nautilus company (shareholders?) do not examine muscle as Jones did; they have not conducted the design and research experiments that Jones did in order to determine and calibrate the requirements of each of the major muscle groups of the body. Instead they opt to be weather veins, blowing in whatever direction their “tell us what you think” forms indicate; the non-educated public now determine what machines they should create. The original Nautilus Compound Chest machine featured both the pec deck and bench press exercises, designed to be performed in a “decline” position. The reason? Because while the primary function of the pectoral muscle is to draw the humerus or upper arm bone across the midline of the body, the secondary function is to depress the scapula or draw the shoulders downward. The old Compound Chest Machine was designed with both of these functions in mind, and thus provided total and functional stimulation to the pecs, as well as perfectly graduated resistance as the chest muscles performed their primary and secondary functions.

But the Compound Chest Machine had to go because “a lot of bodybuilders get bored with only two exercises; some bodybuilders like more variety (regardless of whether or not such variety serves any purpose),” and  “more trainees would buy the equipment if it could incorporate free weights into it instead of a weight stack and duplicated some of the (useless) exercises that they like to perform” – all of these cries were directed at Nautilus. And, for some reason, Jones, et al, listened. Soon 40-degree incline chest machines were built, and 10-degree chest machines. Then the machines manufactured were made smaller (for easier and less expensive shipping), and had smaller cams, smaller weight stacks, and then came the “free weight machines” – which were called “leverage machines.” When this happened, the writing was on the wall. Jones had lost interest. “Give ‘em what they want and let me cash out,” seemed to be the attitude. And so he cashed out and the “new Nautilus” company continued the downward spiral.  Some of the older machines that took so many years to design were discontinued (and remain so to this day – such as the Compound Triceps machine, perhaps the greatest triceps machine ever made as it fulfilled both functions of the triceps; i.e., extension of the forearm and drawing the arm behind the body, and the compound biceps machine, and the compound leg machine), replaced by machines that were engineered to duplicate the feel and mechanics of compound exercises (such as a bench press machine, a shoulder press machine and a seated row machine) and free weights -- pardon? Yes, Nautilus now has a line of “free weights.” Why, you might ask, when the whole ethos was founded on overcoming the limitations inherent in barbells and dumbbells would they then produce barbells and dumbbells? A good question and, sadly, one for which the answer is all too obvious: It’s easier to give the public what it wants (or what the muscle magazines tell them they should want), than it is to educate them as to the true requirements of their own muscle physiology and of the superior benefits afforded by the Nautilus machines as originally designed. “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” was the unspoken refrain, and the new Nautilus company obviously has decided that they just can’t “beat” the bodybuilding power structure and they have, effectively, “joined ‘em.” Nautilus now produces some isolation machines, and more Compound exercise machines with attributes no different than that of a Universal machine, or a Bodymasters machine, or a Cybex machine – or a barbell. How sad to see the death of Nautilus – and the fact that its death went unheralded, with no one willing to attend the funeral and pay their respects. Even Arthur Jones, who potentially was bodybuilding’s greatest patron, has turned his back on bodybuilding, preferring to focus his time on his new MedX machines which are designed almost solely for injury rehabilitation rather than bodybuilding. Jones is still interested in measuring degrees of rotation, reducing friction in the bushings of the machine, other such matters as would better befit a lab technician or an accountant, or, indeed, a man who hales from a family boasting a long line of medical practitioners as members.

If you are a member of a gym that has a full line of the older Nautilus machines, or if you are lucky enough to have in your possession one or two of them yourself, glasp them to your soul with hoops of steel (as the Bard once said), for they truly are a “bodybuilder’s best friend.” Train with them in high intensity fashion – the Nautilus way, the Heavy Duty way or the Max Contraction way – but train with them. Your gains will quite simply be the best that your genetic potential will allow (and for some of you reading this that will be spectacular, indeed) and you can also take solace in the fact that by doing so you will have made an informed decision; i.e., you will have used your mind to build your body, rather than merely following the herd down a blind alley.

Here’s to Arthur Jones – when he still gave a damn. Here’s to (the original) Nautilus machines that he designed. And here’s to his insight that the position of full muscular contraction was the most important position for stimulating maximum muscle growth. It will be his original Nautilus machines – and not his new enterprise (Med-X) – that will prove to be his monument and his glory. And time will be his eloquence.