Hey, what's up Nation? I'm Scott from muscularstrength.com today we're going to talk about five exercises that need to go away forever
But never will and some of these exercises or exercises that are just completely useless and then some of these exercises are
Variations of what you're supposed to do
but people do them a different way because either they want to lift more weight or
They've been fed a nice plate of bro science, and they just don't know better, but after today
Hopefully if you're doing any of these five exercises
You will not only know what not to do, but I will teach you the proper way to do them
Or give you an alternate exercise to help you maximize your gains in the gym
So let's get started so the first exercise. I want to talk about is
21s for biceps and I know
So many of you that are going down that comment section and be like 21 - the best exercise ever
I get a really big pump when I do them
Well a pump doesn't build muscle what a pump is is blood being forced to the area not necessarily muscle breakdown before regrowth guys
21s were originally invented for shoulders, okay?
And it wasn't doing a lateral raise you know halfway, and then like this and then all the way all right
Which is essentially what you're doing with the bicep 21s? It was invented to hit all three heads of your shoulders
That's why it's 21, so you would do seven raises like this seven raises out to the side
And then seven raises to hit the rear, deltoids, and that's what a true
21 is the 21s that gained a lot of popularity because of the pump
Was this right here you start off you do seven reps like this at the bottom, then you bring the weight up
and then you do seven reps like this and then as soon as you've done that you go all the way down and all the
Way up for seven reps and guys like I'm not sitting here saying like hey
You're dumb for doing this I used to do these all the time
But it was because I didn't know better and that's what everybody in the gym was doing so if you're currently doing this it
Doesn't do nothing for you and a lot of people will say well if you do the half reps the top that works the bicep
Peak more guys the bicep peak there's only two heads in the bicep
There's the inside head
And then there's the outside head the outside head is the peak and if you want to grow the peak you need to do exercises
That place more emphasis on the outside head, and this top range of motion like this
Doesn't do that. All right, then there's also the brachialis, which is right here, which can also help increase your peak
But that can be for another video, so if you're currently doing 21s, and you would like something more intense
That's actually gonna give you more muscle building opportunity, then I want you guys to try something. I invented called mercy
30s and they're labeled this way because they are intense and the way you
performing Mercy 30 is you start off with a wide grip and you go all the way up and
All the way down for ten repetitions
As soon as you finish those ten
you're gonna do an inside grip and you go all the way up and
All the way down, and then as soon as you finish those ten
You're gonna do a neutral grip and then go all the way up and all the way down until you complete 30 repetitions
And the reason why that works better than doing twenty ones for biceps is because on
Every single rep of your Marci 30s
You're working the entire range of motion and guys in case you didn't know
inside grip
like this
When your hands are like this you tie get more of that outside head when your hands are wide you tie get more of the?
Inside head, and then when you use a neutral grip you're targeting both heads, so there you have it. That's exercise 1
Let's move on to exercise 2 the second exercise on my list is the close grip bench press
It's not because the close grip bench press isn't a great exercise for triceps
It's just that people like to do it wrong, and I'll show you exactly what I mean
And I'm sure you've seen this in your gym hundreds of times where people will go up to the bow
And then they'll pick it up with their hands about you know 3 inches away from each other like this
and then as they do the
Repetitions you'll notice as you go down
that your wrist kind of Bend in an awkward way and when you're lifting a lot of weight what this does is it places a
Tremendous amount of pressure on your wrist it can actually start to put some pressure in your elbows as well
And I don't really know where this originated from but a lot of people seem to think that they're able to target the triceps more
When they bench this way or they think because the exercise is called a closed bench press
That they have to grab as close as humanly possible so
Guys if you're doing this exercise and your grip is like this you're doing it wrong what you need to do is
Just get a grip
That's just wide enough so that when you get to the bottom position of the movement like that
Your arms are to the sides of your torso and you're able to keep your elbows under your wrists the entire time
You're pressing the bar up and down and that's gonna not only take pressure out of your wrists
Like when you would hold it like this way, it's gonna
Take pressure out of your wrists
And it's also gonna enable you to lift much much much heavier weight without any pain
And you're gonna be able to overload your triceps even more so
Exercise to close grip bench press wrong form corrected make sure you're doing it right the third exercise is actually an exercise
I like to do in my workouts
It's really great for targeting your rear delts and your upper traps
and is they barbell upright row and the reason why this exercise gets so much hate is because
90% of the people I see doing it in the gym are doing it wrong
And they're grabbing the bar with their hands as close as possible and it's a little different than the close grip bench press
People usually grab the barbell closer with their hands on the close grip bench press because they think the name implies
Close grip the reason why you see people do upright rows like this with their hands
So close together is because the closer your hands are together the more weight. You're going to be able to lift
Unfortunately the closer your hands are together the more you're gonna have shoulder impingement
And I'm sure if any of you guys went over to a barbell right now
And you grabbed with your hands like that and you lifted it even to here
You just have to feel some pinching inside of your shoulder so not good so if you want to incorporate this exercise
Into your routine make sure you do it right and the right way is a grip
outside of shoulder width and what this is also gonna do is aside from
Alleviate the shoulder impingement issue as you bring the weight up you're gonna feel a lot more true upper trap and rear deltoid
engagement as
You do the movement now of course you have to go a little bit lighter than when you were doing your Close Grip like this
But you're actually working the muscles hotter
What a why grip
So you should be doing it that way anyways now we're moving on to the fourth exercise
And if you guys have been enjoying the video so far be sure to smash that like button
Subscribe and click that notification bell, so you never miss a new video uploaded from me so this exercise
this is actually more for the ladies so hashtag for the ladies and
The reason why I say for the ladies because you mostly see women doing this exercise in the gym
Not to say that men can't do it. It's just usually women in their gym
They're trying to find 30 different exercises to work their legs and their glutes which is fine
But an exercise like this. This is more of a case of doing something
that's better versus of this being bad because you will get activation doing this exercise and it's basically a
Glute-ham pull through with a rope and the way you perform this movement is you hold the rope like this your arms are gonna rest
On your inner thighs and you're gonna sit back as far as you can and then push through your heels and then flex your butt
Cheeks is how did you can the top of the movement and?
Repeat for reps and what's wrong with this exercise guys is a couple different things
Number one you're gonna be limited to how much weight you can lift based on how much you actually
Weigh and what I mean by that is your glutes are one of the strongest muscle groups in your body
And I guarantee you're gonna be able to eventually lift more weight than how much you weigh
So if you're a woman doing this exercise and you weigh like 110 pounds
There's no way you're gonna be able to do that entire stack without being thrown
Backwards into the machine if you lose your footing and the other problem
I have with this two guys is the way you have to hold the rope when you get to here
It's just really uncomfortable and your grip might give out eventually too depending on how strong that is so there's just a lot of
Things going on here that are taking away from what you're trying to do which is maximize that glute engagement
So you're much better off doing a barbell hip thrust or a barbell glute bridge to maximize those gains and really quick
Let's go over proper form so about that
Hip thrust is when you actually use the back of a bench to hold yourself in the air
So you're gonna take a barbell you're gonna place
it across your hips like this then you're gonna slide down and get into place and
Your upper back is gonna be the only thing that's touching the bench right here
You're gonna sit down as far as you can so your butt to the ground
And then you gonna push through your legs get to the top and then flex your butt cheeks as hot as you can at the
top of the movement and
Repeat four reps and when you do this guys
Make sure you fully extend and even almost hyper extend your hips at the top of the movement and the same thing goes for
The Bob out glute bridge, and if you're watching this and you're a dude
And you've never done a babo glute bridge before but you really want to improve your squat and your deadlift
This is an exercise that you should be doing and if you guys follow my push-pull legs program. You'll notice
That's exactly why this exercise is in that program and for the Bob out glute bridge
This is done off the floor
And all you do is push the barbell into your thighs
Extend your hips to the ceiling
Flex your butt as hot as you can
Bring the weight back down and repeat four reps and these two movements
lobato glute bridge and the barbell hip thrust are way more superior for gluten gage Minh than that ever will be and
The fifth and final exercise that needs to go away forever is the dumbbell
Tricep kickback and the actual movement itself isn't bad. It's using a dumbbell that it's bad
Let me explain when you do a dumbbell tricep kickback guys
And I mean you know a lot of these exercises like I said in the beginning I used to do this all the time
Until I knew better and the reason why this is a bad movement is because basically from here to here
There's nothing going on you
Could you can be holding 50 pounds 60 pounds granted your shoulder might get tired?
But your tricep ain't getting engaged in this range of motion
The only time that tricep is getting engaged is when you get from here to here
Then you're gonna marry your results see what I did there
so
Yeah, the alternative to that is this you can still do a tricep kickback
But if you want to make it effective you need to use a cable machine because the cable machine is going to apply
resistance to your tricep throughout the entire range of motion
We talked a lot about the stretch in the flex being really big parts of engagement with no matter what muscle group
You're training in order to see results and if you guys want to be able to take advantage of the stretch
Which is where you get the most muscle breakdown for regrowth, then you need to be able to do this on a cable machine
So that even when you're in this position
The weight pulling this way is placing a huge stretch on the triceps which is ripping and tearing that muscle tissue down
Then as you pull back you get a nice flex
There's still constant tension on the triceps as you return back to the starting position and repeat
For reps so if you're currently using dumbbells
I want you to switch the cables and you'll see a whole new world of gains when it comes to your triceps workout, so
There you guys have it five exercises that need to go away forever
But probably never will unless they watch this video if you enjoyed it guys
Please show some love by smashing that like button subscribe if you haven't already
and if there's
Exercises that you don't like that you want to let me know about make sure you post them down in that comment section below
Maybe what I'll do is
I'll do a collective of all your comments, and then I'll shout you guys out in another video
And I'll title it something like five exercises the community hates that I don't ever go away or something like that
We'll have some fun. Anyways guys. Hope you have a great week and as always more good stuff coming soon. See ya