Commercial Smith Machines & Systems

The Smith machine is an item of equipment used in weight training. It is built with a barbell that is fastened to slide only vertically upwards and downwards on steel runners or linear bearings.

Invented by American Jack La Lanne, who rigged up a sliding apparatus in his gym in the 1950s. It was spotted by Rudy Smith, a bodybuilder, who contracted Paul Martin to build a better working model that could be used commercially. Smith then installed the improved model in a gym he was managing at the time, Vic Tanny's gym in Los Angeles. By the end of the 1950s, Rudy Smith was an executive in Tanny's chain of gyms, and the Smith machine was being manufactured and sold more widely.