Come take a trip with me today to the Iron Graveyard. We're going to dig up 5 of the
worst exercises that you can be doing.
Now, why do I call them worst? Well, first of all, guys, we have to qualify.
As a Physical Therapist and professional Strength Coach, I have to judge the merits of an exercise
on its risk-to-benefit ratio.
When I talk about that, I mean, if I have overhead-throwing athletes, pitchers, quarterbacks,
a heavy, overhead snatch is not the best exercise choice for me,
especially when I know I have better options, right? One bad rep can end a career. Realizing
that I don't have all professional athletes watching my channel,
I still have to be able to provide you reasons why I feel that these may not be the best
options for you,
even if you're after just aesthetic growth, even if you're after just the purposes of
looking better, ok.
So, what I want to do is break down the 5 of them, and give you my reasons of why I
don't feel they're the best options, and then let you decide, ok.
No discussion of the worst exercises starts without bringing up the Flys. Now, the controversy
can get started right away.
Guys, you know how I feel about this exercise. We know that a lot of people make the argument
that doing Chest Flys increases the stretch on the chest, right?
Simply not true because we know that the origin insertion of the chest prevents that from
happening.
We know that with the chest we can actually feel where it goes. If you put your hand across
your upper chest, you can feel where it inserts over here onto your upper arm.
Basically, when we're here, or we're here, once we get to the bottom of what would be
a Bench Press,
this is the maximum amount of stretch we get on the chest. So, if we open our arm up even
further, that doesn't do anything.
That doesn't add any extra stretch. There's no more excursion here of this muscle.
What we are feeling is a stretch on the coracobrachialis which actually comes from here, down into
here.
Now, we can see if the arm were to go further back that that increases the stretch here
on that muscle.
But what are we doing here? Chest Flys or Coracobrachialis Flys? We're not.
I mean, if we open up the arm, and we increase the load that's out here and increase the
length of the lever arm,
that could potentially cause one bad rep, one bad overload, and cause us to have a torn
pec.
Again, if you're doing it for the abduction that we get from a Chest Fly, which is a great
reason to do it, there are better options.
As a matter of fact, why don't we get on our feet like we try to with ATHLEANX, and do
something more like the 3D Cable Crossover.
But that's number 1. Now let's go onto the shoulders.
Number 2 are Behind the Neck Shoulder Press. We all know that there are a lot of ways that
we can push a bar up overhead.
I'm telling you that there's a better way, especially when we're looking at the health
of our shoulders and the risk-to-benefit ratio.
We know that any way we can get that bar up overhead is going to overload those shoulders,
the plane that we're doing it in can make all the difference.
So, when we talk about a Behind the Neck Shoulder Press, my issue with this, guys, is that
we're pushing in an abnormal plane of motion when we look at the orientation of our shoulders
in the joint.
The glenohumeral joint is our shoulder joint, the ball and socket. They will angle forward
at a slight degree forward like this.
So, basically, if the ball and socket moves inside that, the natural plane of motion is
to be slightly ahead of us, ok
slightly out in this direction that way. If we go straight out to the side, not only are
we causing the rolling of the ball and the socket to be abnormal,
but we're also causing an increase in the likelihood for impingement.
The reason for that is right here where I can show you. Basically we have our ball and
socket like this, ok.
If we take the ball in there and we go to move it up in the forward, the correct plane,
you can see that it rolls inside that socket with plenty of room to come all the way up
to the top, ok.
If we have our arm way out to the side over here, ok, it's going to be hard to show. But
basically, the arm's going to be going up this way.
If we have it there, because the socket is rounded here, we start to hit the lateral
portion of the socket right away, ok, as it goes up.
That causes impingement. Secondly, when we're able to get our arms in front of us, and push
straight up,
we're able to activate a nice balance between the upper traps and the serratus anterior.
What that does is it causes the upper traps to pull this way, the serratus to pull down
and around this way so that our shoulderblade actually tips.
By tipping here, we increase, again, the amount of space that we get in here for the glenohumeral
head.
So, lots of reasons why we don't really want to be pressing way back here. And it's just
as good to get our elbows in front of us and press up.
Next up, Upright Rows. Sticking with the shoulder, and sticking with a concept that I've covered
in depth in another video.
The Upright Row is one of THE worst exercises I feel you can do for shoulders, especially
again because we have so many better options.
And small tweaks can lead to big and positive changes.
The problem I have with the Upright Row is the nature of the exercise itself puts us
into an impingement position.
Again, as a Physical Therapist, if you were to come into my clinic, and I was going to
test you for shoulder impingement,
I would put your arms in this position. Literally, like this, and push down. Ok, push down right
here.
That is exactly the position of an Upright Row, and I don't care how wide you grab the
bar.
If you're going to grab the bar, the weight is pulling your hands down, and you're trying
to raise your elbows up.
That is an Impingement-Provocative Test. We don't want to be doing Provocative Tests,
Clinical Provocative Tests on a rep-by-rep basis.
All you're asking for, guys, is to develop an impingement if you already don't have one.
And you might argue you've been doing the Upright Row for years and years and years
and it's a great shoulder exercise.
And you never had problems. Just because you've never had problems, doesn't mean that you
won't have problems
even on a given, particular day or one single rep. It's that kind of thing, guys, where
overuse and overload in a consistent way
can lead to a breakdown, eventually of those structures inside your shoulders. So, number
3, and one I firmly believe belongs in that iron graveyard.
Number 4. Good Mornings. This might be an exercise that you think was already in the
Iron Graveyard a long time ago because you don't see many people doing them any more.
The reason why? Probably, too many people have gotten hurt doing them that they've abandoned
them.
Here's the ironic thing about this exercise. I actually think it's a good exercise in terms
of the movement pattern that it's requiring you to do.
However, I find that so many people lack the thoracic extension necessary to do this exercise
properly.
As you can see as I'm demonstrating here, I have a proper hip hinge which puts me in
a safer position.
It's not a hinge straight forward at the waist that could really compromise my low back.
I'm actually allowing my hips to absorb most of that energy, and do this thing properly.
The problem is that thoracic extension is an absolute requirement here. And one of the
areas that we are so limited on.
As guys who tend to work sitting at a desk, or just guys who tend to do all of our work
in front of us, thoracic extension becomes a problem.
When you cannot have that proper thoracic extension, all of that force gets driven down
above and below the area that's affected.
Mostly in this case down below to the lumbar spine, and you have issues.
So, there are, again, a lot of different ways to strengthen our paraspinal in our lumbar
area
without having to subject ourselves to an exercise that most of us are just not mechanically
built to do.
Lastly, Number 5. Leg Extensions. Or, Leg Extinctions, as I like to call them. Guys,
these belong in the Iron Graveyard.
There are so many better ways. There are so many more functional ways to strengthen our
quads and legs than these guys.
So many reasons why. We have a shearing force that gets placed on our knees.
We have constant tension on our ACL Ligament. Not a good idea.
We have an imbalance of the activation between our VMO and our rectus femoris.
That's a situation that leads to patellar tendon issues almost all the time. And this
only contributes because it favors more rectus activation than VMO.
It also has no co-contraction from the hamstrings, alright. At least not as much as anything
that we do closed chain with our foot on the ground.
So, for so many reasons, guys, these should be replaced, right. We don't want to be doing
anything that causes an obvious breakdown over time.
Even, as I said, if it's not causing you a problem right now, why do you want to risk
it when you have better options?
And that's the thing, guys. We outlined the ATHLEANX Training Program.
So many ways to do things, as I feel, better than what these things are allowing us to
do.
I wouldn't just tell you to get rid of these things,and then not replace them with something
that was more
effective and certainly more beneficial on that risk-to-benefit ratio, right, low risk-high
reward. That's what it is.
And that's what I bring to my program as a Physical Therapist. And I think that's what
I bring as a Strength Coach to you guys who watch my channel all the time.
We bring another level to this. It's not just showing cool exercises to do. It's about putting
that science back in strength.
And I think that is the strength of our channel. So, guys, if you haven't already,and you want
to start training smarter and harder.
because I'm certainly going to work the hell out of ya, you gotta make sure that you head
over to ATHLEANX.COM
right now and get our 90-Day Training Program, and see what it's like to train like an athlete,
ok.
Even if you're not getting paid to be one, you need to be as functionally strong and
transferable as you can when it comes to
taking that strength and bringing it out to whatever it is that you want to do with it,
whether it's playing sports or just playing the game of life.
So, head to ATHLEANX.COM right now.
Let me know if you found this exercise helpful, I mean, this video helpful, and of course,
let me know of some of the other exercises that you've had bad experiences with and see
if we can throw them in the Iron Graveyard as well. Alright.
Thanks, guys. I'll be back here again soon with another video.