♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(upbeat music)
- Hi, folks,
I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together, we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Brad is physical therapist.
We really kind of enjoy ourselves, sometimes,
when we're at a gym, don't we?
(both laughing)
We see lots of things that we're like,
shake our head and go,
you gotta be kidding me, so. - Right.
- That's what we're gonna discuss today.
10 exercises and lifts you should never do.
They're harmful, they're dangerous.
And we know that there's gonna be a little bit
of controversy on this
because some people disagree with us on these.
- Right, they're gonna say,
you guys don't,
you guys are not weightlifters
and you don't know what you're talking about.
And there may be some controversy that's valid,
but we are definitely gonna show you how
to keep your body healthy in the long run.
- And I disagree with that.
I've lifted weights my entire life.
Maybe I don't look like it,
but at one point,
I really looked. - Right.
- Fairly big because I.
- Strong like bull. - There we go.
But it's a risk versus reward,
isn't it, Brad? - Sure.
- I mean, if you,
so you're taking this risk
that you're gonna strengthen
to this extra little point,
maybe with squats,
and you may end up injuring your back,
and then you're not gonna be able to do anything.
- You may not injure it while you're doing it
or for those period of 10 years, whatever,
but remember Terry?
- Yeah - Yeah.
How he'd go ane lift all the time,
heavy weight he talks about. - Right.
- And he gets in his sixties
and now he's having back problems.
His retirement has really changed
because of the abuse he did to his body.
- And it may not take that long,
believe me. - Right.
- So let's start off with the first one, Brad.
This is one, this is just a common exercise
on how to lift.
But I still see people,
I mean, we used to,
they used to teach this in gym classes.
- Sure. - But you stand up
and they're telling you to do toe touches.
Well, some people do their hamstring stretch like this.
- Right.
- And some people do toe touches like this,
going down like this.
Well, there's a,
there was a study done by Knockinson.
- Okay. - And he,
and everybody in physical therapy knows of him.
- Mm-hmm.
- And what he did is he stuck a needle
inside the discs of your back. - Mm-hmm.
- And he measured how much pressure there was on it
when you were doing certain things.
Well, he found out this is one
of the ways to put an extreme amount
of stress on your back,
is when your back is rounded out like this
and you're leaning forward.
- Yeah, he's talking about in the disc itself
and the disc is,
if you get a herniated disc, it's a problem.
- Right, and if it's in the disc,
it's also in the muscles
and everything around it too.
- Right, exactly.
- So this, even though you're not lifting anything,
just by bending forward like this
is putting a heck amount
of stress on your back.
Absolutely would not recommend it.
- If you wanna stretch your hamstrings,
we've got a number of videos on how
to do it properly to eliminate the stress
on your back with it. - Right.
Do you wanna show the good mornings
with the barbell, Brad? - Sure.
- You've said you've seen this one, right?
- Yes, good mornings,
as a matter of fact,
when my daughter was in high school,
for track and for basketball,
she'd go into the weight room
and they would show,
show the, do the good mornings like this.
And what were they trying, the goal was,
was to strengthen the hamstrings, which is true.
The hamstrings are working
and they're working to get you upright
along with your back muscles.
But if you look at the mechanics,
when you get to here, particularly right here,
there's a tremendous amount of stress on L4, L5,
and S1 in the discs involved with it.
- And that's going back
to that same Knockinson study.
That position would,
especially, you're adding weight onto it.
- Exactly.
- I mean, good grief, Brad.
This is good mornings, it's good grief,
and it's also good rids to it.
You got, that's one you definitely gotta stop.
- When I was in school,
I did a study.
It was one of my research things I did
in one of my classes.
And I calculated how much force was
on the back without the weight.
Then you put the weight on there,
because of physics and the leverage.
- Oh, it's crazy.
- It's really not.
There's a lot better ways
to strengthen the back muscles
and the hamstrings than that particular type.
- Have we talked yet to the new people that are?
- Well, there are a few new people.
- Yeah. - And maybe they should
be aware of this.
- But also, have they subscribed to it? (laughs)
- That's what I mean.
Be aware of subscribing, right?
There's a button.
- If you're new to our channel, please,
yeah, there's a button over here.
Please take a second to subscribe.
We'll provide you lots of videos
on stay healthy, pain free.
And we upload every day.
- Right. - So, all right.
- What's the next one, Bob?
- Next one is a full sit up, Brad.
So this also kind of goes back
to the Knockinson idea.
You don't wanna be doing a full sit up like this.
He actually had a diagram
of a person like this in this position.
And it put a lot of stress on the back,
also in that direction. - Right.
It's true, it does work the stomach muscles.
- Yes, it does. - Quite well,
but you're paying a price for it.
- And if you wanna make it worse,
come up and twist,
and go like this.
- Or even make it worse,
is do that again and hold onto,
I see people that hold onto a plate,
25 pounds. - Oh, I've seen that too.
When I was younger, Brad,
I used to get on one of those incline boards.
- Yeah.
- And I had a big plate
and I'd lift up like this.
Oh my God, I'm so lucky I didn't blow out my back.
- Well, the thing is, again,
these injuries are not gonna happen the day you do it
or even for a few weeks or months.
This adds up over a period
of a couple years of doing this,
or even a few months.
- It could happen again at the time.
- It could, yeah. - So.
All right, the next one is one I've seen a couple times,
where people, they're on the treadmill,
and they're just leaning on it like this.
- Oh.
- They might be walking.
They might be running,
but they're just like this.
And it's just, it's promoting their bad posture.
They're breathing, your diaphragm's in a bad position.
- Right.
- Your chest is in bad position.
You can't bring in the air.
- Right, your shoulders, your neck.
- I know they're trying to,
by doing this, you're kind of reversing the origin
and insertion of the pec muscles
and it kind of helps you breathe a little bit hard.
You know, when people are tired,
what are the first thing they do?
- Sure. - They go like this.
- Right, right.
It's a natural response.
- Yeah, but it's just a terrible thing to do.
Get on that treadmill.
I mean, if you wanna,
you can hold onto the sides,
but just keep good posture while you're doing it.
- Be aware of that posture,
'cause we just talk about this all the time.
But we'll go on to the next one.
- Okay. - Believe us. (laughs)
- Stiff legged bent over rows.
Do you wanna do that one, Brad?
- So the knees are straight, okay?
And we're going like this
and up like this. - Well, and.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
Right, yeah, I'm sorry. - Yeah.
- I just saw someone doing this the other day at the gym.
She did have really good posture back here.
She was arching her back the way it should be.
So that was a good thing.
- But still, you can't do it.
- But still, it's just too much stress on the back.
- Right, again, risk versus reward.
You're gonna get some strengthening,
but you're really at a high risk
for hurting your back. - Right.
- They have machines.
I mean, I have one of these,
Brad, at home actually,
where you can lay on it
and then you can lift up like that.
I use that.
- I saw someone the other day,
she was using an incline bench to use it.
So it was supporting the weight of her chest.
And then she had two dumbbells
and she was doing this.
- Yeah, that's beautiful.
That works out just fine.
So, shoulder presses.
You might as well keep that, Brad.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
- This is the one that a lot
of people are gonna disagree with this.
- The military press? - Yeah, well,
first off, behind the head.
- Oh, right. - Without a doubt,
everybody's gonna tell you this is bad,
because you're really,
you've really got the shoulder externally rotated,
you're way at the end range of it,
and you're going back,
and it's just putting a heck
of a lot of stress on the shoulder.
- Go ahead and do it once, Bob.
You know, as therapists,
we know when you get right about in this range,
is where you're more likely
to put that impingement on the tendon.
- Right. - In here,
that superspinata's tendon. - Yes.
- And then you put weight on there, besides,
and then you add repetition,
and then it can all add up to shoulder problems.
- And I don't even agree with this one, Brad,
in the front of the head.
- It's probably a little less stress.
- It's less stress,
but these are really small muscles,
first off. - Sure.
- And you don't need to work 'em that hard,
that heavy a weights. - Right.
- You can do other ways of strengthening it
and there's still impingement this way too.
Right. - I've seen it with people.
And when you get impingement,
it's wearing on that tendon
and eventually you can get
to the point where it becomes severed.
- Right.
- And you can actually have a rotator cuff tear.
- Right. - So, I mean,
it's just not worth it.
And as you get older,
you realize these things.
- Right, yeah. - So.
- We're both in our fifties,
mid fifties. - Yeah.
- And we've learned from our mistakes.
I know there's a lot of people out here just saying,
these guys don't know
what they're talking about. - Right.
- And they're out there power lifting,
they're getting bigger muscles,
but it adds up
and it catches up with you. - Yeah.
How about stiff-legged deadlifts, Brad?
That was one was,
the one you were doing.
- Oh yeah, go ahead.
Do it, Bob. - Sure.
So now, basically,
they're lifting up from the floor, right, Brad?
And lifting up like that. - Right.
- Doing stiff legged.
Again, there's no way,
I don't care how good a form you have.
There's no way you're not putting extreme amount
of stress on the back. - Oh, yeah.
- So and not good stress.
I mean. - Right.
- Not strengthen. - That one, yeah.
That's, it's really going over the edge.
- Right.
And we did a whole video on this one, Brad.
The next one, full squats with the butt wink.
- Right.
- So you wanna talk about that, Brad?
- Sure. - Since that was your video?
- And I just saw someone.
I was working on my pull-ups
and I looked over,
and this guy,
and he was working hard.
I'd give him a lot of credit
and he was in good shape.
And he went all,
I have a hard time even doing it.
I'm not a.
- I know, I can't get all the way down, yeah.
- He was going all the way down and up,
and he had good balance with it.
And you could see,
when he got right about to here,
you could see his pelvis and everything,
that butt wink was very clear.
It's like, oh, there it winked.
And he'd come right back up, and.
- So basically, right towards the end,
the back is flexing a little bit more.
And that's where you're really putting stress on.
At this point,
you still got the back very, very straight.
But once you go down this far,
it's impossible to stop your back
from not rotating a little bit.
- Yeah, the posterior tilt.
- Yeah, the posterior tilt
and putting much more stress on the back.
- There's something called end range
and all therapists are very familiar with end range.
And we all know you do not want to exercise
and push joints into end range repetitively.
- Right.
- Unless it's therapeutic,
which that's in the clinic,
it's not in the gym.
So this is going down to end range
and your knees, your back.
And those two points are both
at risk when you do that.
- All right, Brad, if you,
I'll simulate the leg press here.
- Oh, sure. - You know,
when you're on the leg press
and you're getting up
and you're doing these.
- Right, you got the. - Oh!
- You got the plate here,
sliding on the rail. - Right.
All we're saying is don't go past 90.
If you bring it way down here,
this is really a lot
of stress on the knee. - Mm-hmm.
- You keep it right about here
and you're still gonna have good benefit,
but you're just not going that far.
- Right. - So.
- And I know the argument is we wanted
to strengthen the muscles
throughout the whole range of motion,
which is a valid argument,
but you're stressing joints at end range
and you're sacrificing.
And again, like Bob says,
you're putting yourself at risk with those.
- And the final one,
Brad, is upright rows.
So you bring the,
you bring it like this
and you're going up like this.
And again, it just really increases the possibility
of impingement at the shoulder.
- Right, right up to here.
- So I'll just very simply, I just,
it's just not a good one to do.
- Right, that's superspanatus tendon,
one of the primary tendons
that gets injured with rotator cuff,
that's the one that's at risk
with this particular technique.
- And again, you might get away with it
for quite a few years,
or you may not,
but when you're in your fifties,
you're going, please, (Brad laughing)
I wish I wouldn't have done that.
So thanks folks, thanks for watching.
- And be strong like bull.
(Bob laughing)