Probably every gym goer has been in this situation. You realise one day that the exercise you have been doing for a long time is actually not so good for you. I for one, remember that when I first started to regularly go to the gym, some 10 years ago, I would lock out my knees whenever I was doing leg presses and I would rest like this between sets. I cringe now, thinking about it but then I didn't know that I could hurt myself doing this. As a trainer now, I try to continuously evolve, improve and learn. The thing is, in courses and universities they don't really go over every existing exercise to tell you if it's good or bad. That's why we trainers have to rely on our own critical thinking, exercise physiology knowledge and do our own research. The list below is by no means exhaustive, there are surely many other exercises which could potentially cause injury, but today we will focus on these. Final words, before we start: This is my point of view and I understand that there are a lot of different opinions in the fitness industry. I like what Andrew Huberman says in one of his podcasts. It's something along the lines of "We say what we know, we say what we don't know, and we are always happy to return to the conversation at a future point."
1. Upright Row
The shoulder joint is the most mobile in the human body. And this means it is pretty easy to injure. The humerus (our arm bone) has a prominent part called "greater tuberosity".
When we elevate and internally rotate our arm (imagine, you are lifting your arm up and pointing your thumb down) this part get's pushed right into the joint and rubs against many important structures, such as the ligaments keeping the joint together and the bicep tendon.
This can lead to some bad outcomes such an impingement and bicep tendonitis. Instead you can try side shoulder raises with resistance band or dumbbells.
2. Hip Abductor
When you go up to this piece of machinery in the gym, you'd see on the picture on it that it targets the glutes (and the way it is usually pictured is as if it targets Gluteus Maximus, your biggest glute muscle). A quick Google search will tell you that it works the Gluteus Medius and Gluteus Minimus. If you sit down and try it, you would feel the burn somewhere there, around the hips. Then it would come as a surprise when I tell you that this machine does not in fact target any of these muscles. Spreading your knees apart sideways is done by your glutes when you are standing up. But with this machine you do it seated. While the glute muscles might help a little, hip abduction in seated position targets a very small deeply located muscle called piriformis.
It is not designed to do work with heavy weights. It can very easily get aggravated and because it sits next to the sciatic nerve, it can also give you sciatic pain. You might get away with using light weights and higher rep range here, but most people sit on this machine to build their glutes. And to build glutes you need heavy resistance. There are so many other exercises that can actually help you build muscle in the glutes. Think squats, deadlifts, Bulgarian split squats, hip thrusts, kettlebell swings, sled push and so on.
3. Behind the Neck Lat Pulldown
This is not a very functional movement. In real life, when you have to pull something down, you would bring it in front of you, not behind your head. I always say that whatever our goal may be, we should aim to use mostly functional movements in our workouts.
This exercise, aside from lacking real life applicability, puts your neck in compromised position, which can lead to an injury. It also reinforces bad posture by literally teaching you to stick your head forward. It brings absolutely no benefit over the traditional lat pulldown where you pull the bar down in front of you.
4. Behind the Neck Overhead Press
For similar reasons I personally wouldn't recommend behind the neck overhead presses either. Besides reinforcing bad posture and increasing the risk of neck injury, it is really difficult from mobility point of view to lift something heavy behind your head. One could argue that we also keep the bar behind the head when we squat.
While that is true, during squats the bar doesn't move away and back to our neck and we are not operating with our arms behind our heads. In squats we simply use our arms to balance the bar, which shouldn't really rest on our necks but a bit lower, on the trapezius muscle and the back of our shoulders. 5. Anything on Smith Machine The smith machine might seem somewhat convenient but I wouldn't recommend it. People often point out that if you are doing squats here, you are not really using your stabilising muscles as the bar moves in a predefined path. While this is true, it isn't necessarily bad. We are not using our stabilising muscles in a leg press either.
In the smith machine, you wouldn't know if your feet are in the wrong place since you don't really have to balance the bar on your shoulders. If you are a beginner in the gym, this could reinforce improper form which is basically asking for injury.
Another exercise which puts you at risk of injury here is the bench press. If you were to bench press the correct way you would have the bar moving from up above your shoulders to down above your chest, and that is not a straight line up and down. Bench-pressing in the smith machine limits your movement and is surely putting your rotator cuff in compromised position. Even with the ones which are tilted, it is "one size fits all" kind of machine. Free-weight bench press is better.
Well.. almost anything
I often use the smith machine with clients who want to learn to do push-ups. It is convenient because you can begin with the bar as high as needed and progress your way down to the floor. It can be used for body rows and modified chin-ups as well.
That is all for today, I hope you found this post helpful. Remember to exercise with care!