Doing exercise is almost always better than doing no exercise. If you’re going to the effort to lift weights or throw your body around then that’s almost always going to be better than doing nothing at all.
But that said, not all exercise is made equal. Some exercises and moves are always going to be more effective in burning muscle or burning fat than others, and more to the point some can actually be potentially dangerous if you aren’t careful and result in sprained joints and pulled muscles. Whether they place too much pressure on the spine, involve too much explosive movement, or require you to move at awkward angles, there are plenty of exercises that are almost more risk than their worth and when weighing up the risk-to-gain benefit you’re probably simply better off not doing them.
Here then we will look at some of the exercises you’re probably using right now that you should probably ditch. Each of these exercises is either worthless or potentially dangerous, we’ll explain more in detail in each case.
Crunches and Sit-Ups
There’s nothing wrong with crunches and sit-ups per-say, but if you’re doing hundreds of them a day with the hopes of building amazing abs then I’m afraid you’re mostly wasting your time – there are much more effective exercises you could be doing which include things like myotatic crunches, incline sit-ups and others. Sit ups alone will only target one section of your core and won’t help you to burn fat in order to expose the abs (you need cardiovascular exercise for that).
And something you definitely shouldn’t be doing is sit-ups where you use your hands behind your head to ‘pull’ yourself up. The idea of having your hands behind your head is to isolate the stomach so that you can’t swing them. You should not be ‘bracing’ with your hands, otherwise you will only place strain on your neck and potentially cause yourself an injury.
Plank
Plank is the exercise you perform by simply holding your body in a static position for a set period of time – normally by resting on your forearms and toes while keeping your body straight.
This exercise is good for endurance, but you shouldn’t expect it to help you build much muscle around your mid-section as it is a form of ‘static contraction’ or ‘isometric hold’. In other words, you aren’t moving your body so you aren’t training your stomach through any range of motion. The net result is that you don’t really develop much muscle around your stomach even though you’re spending a lot of time in that static position and probably sweating a lot. Almost any core workout will do a better job than plank so you can stop doing it!
ATG Squats
ATG stands for ‘Ass to Grass’ which is the term popularly used to describe squats that have you bending your knees as far as they will go to almost sit on the floor. This obviously trains your legs through an even bigger range of movement than would doing a regular squat, which is a plus, but it’s also a great way to put tons of extra pressure on your knees with a high chance of causing them to buckle eventually causing you serious damage. If you don’t believe me, then just search ‘squat fails’ for some painful looking videos. That ought to put you off!
Bench Dips
Bench dips require you to place your hands on a bench behind you while keeping your feet out in front of you. From there you then dip your body down thus lowering your buttocks to the ground. In theory this is a handy way to train triceps if you don’t have any weights, except there are two problems…
The first issue is that this is a ‘contraindicated’ exercise. This means that the exercise is dangerous for some people but not others – the issue being that it places a lot of stress on the shoulders as they’re rotating inwards.
The other problem with bench dips is that you’re at such an awkward angle with your wrists, you’re going to struggle to dip down all that low anyway. For both these reasons you should stick to the far superior parallel bar dips if you have access to them. And if you don’t? Pulling up two chairs opposite one another can provide the very same effect.
Sissy Squats
Sissy squats are squats that involve bending your knees over in front of your feet and squatting while leaning backwards like Neo (if you don’t know what they are then you’re obviously not doing them and don’t need to stop so no need to go into detail).
Sissy squats look awesome, and they’re a great way to train your hamstrings and quads when you don’t have any equipment around. Unfortunately they also place a great amount of strain on the knees, which makes them a little risky when there are so many other options available for similar gains.
Good Mornings
Good mornings are an exercise that involve resting a barbell across your shoulders and then bending forward and standing up straight again. This is designed to train the lower back, but it’s also a recipe for disaster and a great way to get trapped nerves, pulled muscles or other sciatica inducing issues. Keeping your back straight during this exercise is very difficult and the angle of the weight coming down on you is all wrong. I can’t really think of any good reason to even attempt this exercise so leave it out.
Behind the Head Lat Pull Downs
When performing lat pull downs there’s an age-old dispute over whether you should pull the weight down behind your head or in-front. The answer nine times out of ten is that you should pull the bar down in front; as while the behind option is useful for isolating the back muscles during the movement, it also puts your shoulders at a very awkward angle once again. The only time you might want to use behind-the-head pull-downs is if you’re using a relatively light weight and a very controlled movement. For regular training, keep it in front of your face.
Seated Leg Extension
As with many of the exercises on this list, there are cases where seated leg extensions are useful. I’ve used these exercises myself in fact to actually rehabilitate knee problems.
But if you’re lifting a lot of weight and using this exercise to try and build big quads, then you’re much better off just sticking with the reliable squat. Using leg extensions places all of the weight on your knees at a very strange angle (one we’re certainly not designed for). For heavy lifts then, stick to squats or leg presses.
So there you have it, a bunch of exercises that you really needn’t be doing. Save yourself some time and injury by cutting them out and your workouts will be all the better for it!