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4 Exercises To Avoid At All Costs

5 Exercises To Avoid

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Want To Remain Injury Free? Avoid These 4 Exercises!

99% of exercises provided they're performed after a decent warm-up and with good form can be performed safely without injury.

Compound exercises? No problems!

However, there's a handful of isolation exercises out there that I see performed every other day in the gym, these exercises are first of all not particularly effective, and secondly they place your body at far too high of a risk of injury for me to even think of performing them.

Are you performing any of these 4 exercises?

Behind The Head Lat Pulldown

The original, forward lat pulldown is a great exercise for working the lats and building a wide, tapered back - no doubt about it.

The behind the head lat pulldown however is a nightmare for your shoulders and your neck.

Most people don't have an overly impressive range of motion when it comes to their shoulders, and as a result they tend to bend their neck forward while performing the pulldown, when lifting heavy this can often result in strains and sprains of the neck.

The behind the head lat pulldown involves externally rotating your shoulders to maintain the correct position while lifting, this places your shoulders in an extremely fragile position.
While in an externally rotated position your rotator cuffs cannot stabilize the joint and supporting muscle correctly, leaving you at risk to injury to connective tissue too.

See also
The Dinnie Stones: The ULTIMATE Test of Strength?

Behind The Head Shoulder Press

The behind the neck shoulder press takes external rotation of the shoulder to it's highest level.

The behind the head shoulder press, just like the behind the head lat pulldown involves externally rotating your shoulders to maintain the correct position while lifting, this places your shoulders in an extremely fragile position.
While in an externally rotated position your rotator cuffs cannot stabilize the joint and supporting muscle correctly, leaving you at risk to injury to connective tissue too.

When performed with an olympic barbell loaded with weight this is just asking for an injury.

Upright Barbell Row

The upright row, a favourite of many gym-goers for building both the traps and shoulders.

This is without a doubt the #1 exercise to avoid like the plague.

Correct form of the upright row requires internal rotation of the shoulders...

Overloading your shoulders while they are internally rotated with heavy weight while attempting to raise them upward impinges a tendon in the shoulder .

The result? Unnecessary wear and tear on your tendon - potentially leading to snapping or further injury.

Sit-Ups

"But SJ, aren't sit-ups the best ab exercise out there?!"

Nope.

Excessive stress on the lower back with not enough abdominal activation.

See also
Bodyweight Barrage: My Bodyweight Home Workout Routine

The abdominal activation from a sit-up is purely isometric - the hip flexors pull and the abdominals flex in their position.

The leg raise is a far superior exercise for the abs, check out my complete guide on leg raise progression from the floor all the way to the window wiper right here.

Particularly when performed quick and explosively, the sit-up places a ton of the power and speed you're utilizing to perform the movement straight to your lower back.

The movement, which as I mentioned is primarily through the hip flexors transfers that energy directly to your lower back via the spine, not good.

What's Your Take On These 4 Exercises To Avoid? Let Me Know In The Comments Below!

Scott J.
Scott J.https://ignorelimits.com
I’m SJ. I’m a fitness enthusiast and published author. I transformed my body from a skinny fat 135lbs with 18% body fat to a solid 192lbs at 8% body fat. I became qualified in a field I was passionate about. I founded several online businesses that allow me to pursue ideas and projects in my life that I am passionate about without having to constantly worry about money. I published several eBooks explaining the training and dieting techniques I used to achieve the body I have today. I learnt a plethora of new information on dieting and fitness by reading and applying what I read, to find out what does work and what doesn’t work, because as I’m sure you’ve noticed the health and fitness industry is full of non-sense claims and BS. I found out what was true and what worked for me and applied that knowledge. And you bet I had fun during the whole process.

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