Stop doing these exercises immediately!

If you clicked this link looking for a list of exercises, then I am sorry to disappoint. Despite all the fearmongering and clickbait articles, there is no such thing as an inherently bad exercise, only exercises not suited to you as an individual. That’s it; the extent of this post. If you have the time and interest, read on to hear why. Otherwise, that’s all you need to know.

The top 10 exercises to avoid

The Top 10 Exercises to Avoid

That’s a bad exercise, and you're dumb for doing it:

Have you ever been told that you should never do a certain exercise because it is ‘bad’ or ‘dangerous’ for you? Personally, I used to believe that some exercises should just never be done. I remember when I was 15; one of my first times in a gym, a trainer told me to never do a lat pulldown behind my head because it was bad for my shoulders. Or how about never bending your back in a deadlift or not squatting because it’s bad for your knees?

Might have even made you feel silly?

Nevermind, philosophically and theoretically, there is no such thing as a "bad" movement; there are only movements that are not advised to certain people based on their ability to manage load in that pattern or the previous exposure they have to those movements. This is why as I get on in my training years, I find it vital to not frame exercises as inherently good or bad but rather get people to understand the importance of mindfulness during movement and take ownership of what their bodies are telling them as they navigate those meat sacks through space.

A very strong friend and colleague of mine who has the ability and desire to barbell snatch.

A perfect and personal example I can give you of this would be a few months ago when I started to mess around with some barbell snatches. Very light loads and just learning the form. However, I just do not have the shoulder mobility to manage that particular trajectory of the bar at those speeds. Within a few weeks, I was getting little pinches in my shoulder. I decided to cut the snatches out, and the pain disappeared. Does this mean snatches are a bad exercise? Absolutely not. Are they appropriate for my unique shoulder mechanics at that particular time? Absolutely not. I could get similar benefits with exercises that didn’t tax me as much, and as barbell snatches are not something I particularly care about, I was objective enough to pull them from the program.

A very strong friend and colleague of mine has the ability and desire to barbell snatch.

The moral: stay mindful of what your body is telling you. Pain, discomfort, or a sense of awkwardness will just be the kind of communication from your body requesting a change.

Ironically, that exercise I was told never to do 15 years ago may very well have been the exercise that would have allowed my shoulders to snatch now. Ten years ago, when my shoulders resembled the site of a meteor impact, the behind-the-head lat pulldown would have wrecked even more havoc. Fifteen years ago it may well have been exactly the kind of scapular control exercise I craved to counteract all that bench pressing I was doing.

Hold on a minute; if exercises don’t matter, then arguably why does form even matter?

It would be easy to think this is what I am saying. Oh, just move around a little; it doesn’t matter what you're doing as long as you're doing something. I really don’t believe this. I actually believe there is a lot of exercise that people would be better off doing nothing. There are certainly modalities or variables. Exercise selection is important, and your current movement quality, your joint's capacity or range of motion, your goals, your training age, and previous movement exposure should all be taken into account when deciding on which exercise to incorporate.

With regards to form, it is something I have spent a lot of time thinking about. In my early training days, I used to be a form Nazi. ‘HEIL NEUTRAL SPINE’! Something started to nag me, a little voice, “this isn’t it”. So for every reaction we have a reaction, generally an over one. I went to the other end of the spectrum. Oh, let's all just be free, wild, and run around the field naked because, screw it. That didn’t feel right either; in fact, it felt a lot less right than the form Nazi version, especially when I witnessed a nasty exercise-related injury in one of my classes during this period.

I struggled with why I relied on form so much. It bugged me because it really challenged my understanding of exercise and movement. For now, though, I believe in three main reasons for the importance of form.

Biomechanical Prerequisites (Actual ability):

As mentioned above, the exercises themselves can never be bad; only contraindicated for the individual. We can use form as a method of assessment as to that exercise’s suitability for that client. An example of this would be a basic pattern like a goblet squat. The person is consistently rounding their back and collapsing through the feet despite extensive cueing and education as to the movement pattern we are looking for. This would suggest the client is missing the biomechanical necessities to do this exercise with control. Therefore, it is not for them. We would find a modification, maybe squatting to a box or elevating the heels. Let the movement meet the person rather than forcing the person into a movement. Form can be a great tool in guiding us here.

Consciousness:

The act of driving a car is not in itself dangerous. However, car accidents cause an awful lot of death. An awful lot of that death is caused by the distraction of the driver. That’s what makes driving dangerous, lack of mindfulness, focus, connection. Just plain old distraction. The same concept makes an exercise dangerous. Not focused on a Turkish get-up? Pretty tangible results from that. Not focused on a 2x4 plank walk, tangible results there too. Once you lose balance on a 2-inch plank, the other you smash your face into the floor with a ball of steel. Not taking the slack out of your soft tissue while lifting something from the floor, consistently achieving end range of an overhead press through your lumbar rather than through full shoulder flexion? Results of those are not as tangible. Therefore, we can use form checks to help bring awareness to these movement patterns. Perhaps you are consciously loading your lumbar during the press to build resiliency in extension. That would be an example of conscious, mindful movement through an exercise. However, if that lumbar extension is unconscious, then that’s the problem. Let’s use form to build our movement awareness. Don’t text and drive.

Training Outcomes:

This one is probably the most obvious. Many times I will see people deadlifting with more of a knee dominance. This may be the strategy that works best for them to get the most weight off the floor. Their movement is conscious, controlled, and purposeful. No problems; they are not going to hurt themselves. However, what if the desired training outcome is not for them to lift the most amount of weight off the floor as possible? Instead, it is for them to develop a stronger posterior chain or build the awareness of how to get back into their hips and hinge from them. If that’s the case, the knee-dominant lift from the floor will not give us those results, so we will use form as a method of ensuring we are working in line with our desired goals.

Ok, makes sense. I guess. So what do I do with this info:

Easy, continue on in your journey of bodily mastery, move mindfully and intentionally, and try to bring that practice to other aspects of your life. Feel free to try any exercises you want but pay attention to the reaction your body is giving you. It will communicate if that exercise or form is for you.

If you would like a little guidance with this, please don’t hesitate to ask. At Hanuman Health Club, we are passionate about movement empowerment for our clients. Our goal is to educate our members in how to progressively and mindfully load movement patterns based on the unique sensory feedback they receive within their own bodies. Our trainers are an element of that feedback loop; their job is educators with the goal of increasing your movement intelligence. They do not limit or disenfranchise movement.

The fearmongering and exercise virtue signaling come from a good place, people just trying to help, but its delivery is clouded in humans' insistent need to see things as black or white.

So let’s just all try to love each other and maybe foster a sense of curiosity, empowerment, and exploration in our bodies, our movements, and our lives. Not one of restriction, fear, and one-upmanship.

Peace, y’all.