Useless Exercises

There are thousands of exercises that have been created for every part of your body.  The Internet is flooded with these exercises on hundreds of websites and Youtube channels.  Popular fitness magazines are under pressure to come up with the new best thing every week, and that results in articles full of useless exercises that will do a lot more harm to you than good.  It’s comical what exercises are out there and also extremely misleading because the models used are always in great shape. 

When evaluating an exercise I always go by the rule of, what am I trying to accomplish right now?  If it’s strength, what exercises will allow me to lift the most amount of weight without any limiting factors?

For instance, a lunge to a curl isn’t a great strength exercise.  Your legs are much stronger than your arms, so the weight you are able to lift is limited by how strong your arms are.  It’s a very inefficient way to workout.  You are much better suited to do your lunge first with a weight that is challenging, put those weights down and then put up a lighter set to do your bicep curls with.  This produces more muscle and more muscle leads to an elevated metabolism which leads to faster weight loss and an improved body composition.

Another useless exercise is the plank and side plank.  Now, the planks have their place in people's programs when they are very new to exercise.  Once you can hold both of these various for 30 seconds to 1 minute, you need to progress them because you aren’t doing much to help your body anymore.  Try doing a body saw, weighted planks and wheel rollouts instead of a plank. For the side plank, try elevating your feet so your body is completely parallel to the ground or if you have access to a TRX, perform a TRX side plank. 

This next popular exercise should be completely avoided.  Leg pressing should never become a part of your workout.  Learn how to do movements like squats, deadlifts, rdl, split squats and step-ups instead of wasting time on this machine.  What happens when you use this machine is you start rounding your spine, and a rule of all exercises, especially when there is heavy weight involved, is to keep a very neutral spine.  Instead of working your legs when you do the leg press, you wind up destroying your back in a very harmful way. 

Always ask yourself, why am I doing this exercise? And is there a better exercise for what I am trying to accomplish? If there is a better exercise, do that instead.