Does anyone have experience with Cybex Eagle machines?

I want him to be benching his body weight before he goes to free. Part of that is I want to know that he has the strength to spot me when I get into trouble.

Dumb as hell, being able to bench his body weight on a machine will have zero carry over to free weights.

Lifting free weights is mostly about developing inter muscular coordination at the beginning.

He is the perfect age to take advantage of a linear progression program to gain tons of muscle if he will put the work in, in the kitchen i.e. 1000 calories before 9am.

You are doing the right thing having him lift but doing him a huge disservice at the same time by restricting him to machines.

As far as spotting, you should never be going to failure anyways, always leave on in the tank on compound lifts.

If he is an athlete then I suggest you get him on the power athlete bedrock program on the train heroic app.

If not an athlete, put him on the greyskull lp, aesthetics template.

If he isn't strong enough or you don't feel he is ready or you are ready for barbell work, I highly recommend ppsa db strength. Won't be disappointed in it, promise. It's a bad arse program, run 4-6 times then hit barbell lp program.

I don’t mind taking good advice if I’m in the wrong. Started lifting with him when he was 12, because he decided he didn’t want to play baseball anymore. He’s not interested in athletics, but I told him he has to do something to keep his body active and strong (not a v body by video game).

I was working under the assumption that free weights would have more potential for injury as well.

He’s a big kid, just turning 13, 5’8” and 170ish. I really wish he wanted to stick with baseball, but he just has no interest.

Looks like I need to transition to free weights. I’ve got my own goals and felt pretty good about hitting 300 on the Cybex bench, but I don’t mind backing off to get better gains.

I think you need to get on a proven program that someone else wrote and quickly. I highly suggest ppsa db strength to start with.

As far as your kid, that is a good place to start too. With him not playing athletics, help him get in real shape for looks. Help him clean up his diet and put some muscle on.

Much appreciated. I’ll look into the ppsa program and go from there.