Oddbean

It would be more advantageous to skip all that and just learn squats. Take it slow and keep it tight. 3 seconds down and 2 seconds up. Keep the knees from breaking in, keep your core tight and watch the lower back. It will change your life. Squats are the ultimate exercise. Start with just the bar and work up slowly. No need to be a hero on these.

Agree with Muzan’s assessment. If strength and overall health/fitness is your goal, I recommend the back squat (low-bar/high-bar) or front squat with a barbell. If you need a reference, pick up Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. An analogy I once heard that stuck with me: “You can’t shoot a cannon from a rowboat”. Translation: If you want to get strong/big/fit then the barbell squat is the equivalent of an “Aircraft Carrier” upon which everything else (big arms, big chest, big back, calves, abs, etc) is built. All that said, happy to see you’re getting in the gym. Anything is better than nothing and you’re better than the other 90% of Americans. Welcome to the game, brother.

Maybe if one is doing the sports of powerlifting or weightlifting either as a hobby or competitively. In almost every other scenario where the purpose of exercising/resistance training is to improve muscle strength, size, metabolic health, soft tissue strength, and bone density, then doing leg extensions, leg presses, and hamstring curls using machines that optimize for and align with the muscle’s strength curve among other things are better exercise selections if for nothing else because they don’t require learning a skill (squatting with a barbell) and they have a much lower risk profile. Can’t make gains if you’re banged up every other month. And for the chads with perfect form that “never” get hurt, there is still no health benefit from being skilled in squatting vs not. The believe that compound lifts or “functional movements” are somehow superior than what would be considered old school bodybuilding exercises is based on folklore and superstition, specially when the user is not training for a sport that uses those movements. It is shocking how few trainers and big names in the fitness industry actually think from first principles when it comes to exercises recommendations. I mean, football players still do power cleans and snatches to allegedly develop “explosiveness”. Jay Vincent and Doug Brignole have long form content covering what I pointed out if you are interested. I blame fiat for the state of the fitness industry.

Yea all that's fair. I typically think of machine work as more of an "end of workout" type thing when you're tired, or supplementary in super sets. Definitely have their place and lower risk of injury. The thing I knock on them for though is machine work typically takes out the element of core/back stability that you would get by doing free weight work (squats, rdl's, Bulgarians, etc.). "Keeping it tight" helps to improve you all around vs just one muscle, and helps to improve your overall fitness level and greatly decreases risk of injury in the future. I do a mix of both but try to make free weight work the center of the workout, where in my mind the machines purpose is there to tire you out the rest of the way, work ancillary muscles, and frankly just to help you improve your squats and other compound exercises.