Bad Exercises vs Good Exercises

By Dr. Kareem F. Samhouri, CSCS, HFS
Neuro Fitness & Rehab Expert

You’re exercising to look and feel better, right?

The last thing you should have to think about is whether or not an exercise is safe. It’s really a shame, but when I walk around most commercial gym settings, I see 90% or more of the members who actually work out do things completely wrong. With just a few minor tweaks to your program, your results can be night and day, and you can avoid 99% of exercise injuries that might take place in the gym.

Here’s a realistic expectation when you follow the lessons below:

Up To 3x Faster Results,
99% Less Chance of Injury

Well, at least that’s been my experience with every person I train and rehabilitate in person at my facility… and I mean everyone. That’s why I started the world’s first Master Trainer and Master Physical Therapist certification, where we truly integrate how the body moves with rapid fat loss and strength development. The good news is that the results have all been reproducible with my staff and their clients.

It’s really neat to see the human body’s potential – are you ready to see yours?

As a side note, I think it’s important to mention that the last thing I want is for you to feel discouraged; rather, it’s important that you feel inspired to know you have eliminated the negative from your exercise program. You’ll be able to safely rely on the fact that “you’re doing it right” when you exercise. You may even be shocked by how much you’ll learn about your body’s ideal positioning and muscle recruitment strategies with exercise.

Make sure read below and find out if you’re doing any of the 7 most dangerous exercises. You’ll want to eliminate them and find a substitute, immediately. The exercises have been chosen according to the following criteria:

1. The exercise creates muscle imbalances.
2. The exercise has no functional benefit/carryover to daily living.
3. The exercise winds up the joint into an unsafe position.
4. The exercise creates pain – the symptomatic body part is listed.

# 1: Leg presses

(see image above)

There’s a common misconception in many exercise programs. People think that they should do leg presses to develop strong quads, but they are very often developing strong quads in the wrong position. Your quadriceps should be trained with co-activation (same time) of your hamstrings to avoid muscle imbalances. Also, beware of the torque placed into your knees with this exercise – it could cause serious damage.

Muscle Imbalances	Zero Functional Benefit	Winds Up Joint – Unsafe	Symptomatic Body Part(s):
Quads are generally stronger than hamstrings; this reinforces the problem.Quads and glutes should be used as a pair. In this case, they are not being used effectively.	In most cases, people aren’t coming down to a full 90 degrees of knee flexion, which is needed for getting in/out of a chair.Even in these cases your abs are so pre-contracted (active insufficiency) and low back extensors so overstretched (passive insufficiency) that it’s tough to use your quads with any abdominal or low back support.Since your abs and low back are out of the picture, this exercise loses a lot of its functionality.	When your quadriceps overpower your hamstrings in deep knee flexion, there is increased torsion placed into the meniscus, increasing the likelihood of knee injury.When your glutes do not fire while using your quads with a great level of force, there is increased risk of low back injury.The metabolic effect of this exercise is less because the number of muscles used is less than similar weight-bearing (closed-chain) exercises.	Knees and/or Low Back.Your knees may hurt from the torque/pressure created from this exercise since you are not weight-bearing, which would normally cushion the joint.Your low back may hurt because if every time your quads get strengthened you are bent at the waist, you will learn to do the same thing every time you use your muscles in daily living. Since you wouldn’t bend over while walking, you’ll naturally arch your back instead.

An imbalance between your quadriceps and hamstrings can quickly result in a number of knee issues, including patellofemoral (kneecap) and meniscus damage. Even worse, when your quads overpower your hamstrings, it’s not uncommon to develop restrictions in these muscles as your body attempts to even things out. These restrictions lead to increased pull on the top of your pelvis, tipping it forward, and placing pressure in your low spine.

This all sounds complicated, but let’s make it easy. Just stand up and lean backwards. If your hip flexors are tight, you’ll feel a stretch in the front of your thighs. It’s a good bet that we should get you training in more functional abs positions. You may already be spending too much of your day in this pre-shortened position, while sitting at a desk at work.

#2: Leg extensions

Muscle Imbalances	Zero Functional Benefit	Winds Up Joint – Unsafe	Symptomatic Body Part(s):
Quads are generally stronger than hamstrings; this reinforces the problem.Quads and glutes should be used as a pair. In this case, they are not being used effectively.Interestingly, if you are having a hard time contracting your vastus medialis oblique (VMO) in your knee, the last 15 degrees of this movement can be helpful, but careful with the torque into your knee joint.	Again, only for the last 15 degrees until your knee is totally straight, and this can often cause more damage than good.It can also be argued that this exercise may help if you are a soccer player, but power lifting has been demonstrated to improve sprinting and kicking ability much more than any variety of leg extensions.When you walk, you use your quads and hamstrings; here, it’s just quads.	This comes down to torque. Think about a long screwdriver and a short screwdriver. It’s easier to use the long one, meaning you don’t have to turn it as hard. This is a result of the force of you turning the screwdriver X the distance to the end of the screwdriver. That’s how torque is calculated.In this example, we are exercising above our knee, but the weight goes on our ankle. Think about that distance… that’s a lot of torque into our knees with a lot of weight!	Knees and/or Low Back.Torque into knees causes a lot of pressure on your knee cap and meniscus (joint line). You may feel pain in either area.Low back pain results from a lack of core support. If a weight is heavy, we tend to arch our backs to get it up. Be sure to keep your abs tight to avoid this.

#3: Machine leg curls

Muscle Imbalances	Zero Functional Benefit	Winds Up Joint – Unsafe	Symptomatic Body Part(s):
Majority of force placed through distal hamstring, rather than proximal. This results in increased pressure behind the knee.Requires change of position to recruit medial hamstrings and glutes on this exercise, which should be used as a muscle pair.	I can’t think of a moment in time where I need to perform this movement in daily life.However, if I ran hurdles, this may help, but again deadlifts and power lifts seem to improve sprint capacity at the same time and provide greater benefit.	This is a question of torque into the knee again. Also, in this case, the hamstrings tend to cramp a lot, which isn’t necessarily a good thing, or necessary at all.If you have a Baker’s Cyst behind your knee, that’s a lot of pressure. For others, it’s really pulling the posterior horn of your meniscus, while missing your proximal (closer to your butt) hamstring altogether.	Low Back, Cramps in hamstrings (back of thigh)Low back – this is if your back arches during this exercise. Make sure to keep your glutes squeezed to avoid this, but it’s best to eliminate it altogether.Hamstrings cramping – essentially, this is working the middle of your hamstring, which is prone to cramping. In reality, you want to work the top of your hamstrings instead, which won’t cramp nearly as often. Consider bridges and deadlifts instead.

#4: Biceps preacher curls

Muscle Imbalances	Zero Functional Benefit	Winds Up Joint – Unsafe	Symptomatic Body Part(s):
Forward shoulder position leads to increased stretch (passive insufficiency) on the rotator cuff and biceps tendon.Position also leads to increased pressure on the anterior and posterior capsules of the shoulder. Any pain signal or pressure will reduce the recruitment of your delts and shoulder stabilizers.Biceps are being shortened in an over-shortened position for your pecs, reinforcing a common imbalance.	This is an artificial movement, in an abnormal position. It’s only purpose is to build biceps, and there are better ways. For example:The biceps is an elbow flexor, but it’s also a supinator (meaning it turns your palm up). Preacher curls only work on elbow flexion, which means you’re missing 50% of the muscle’s action. Whoops!Evening out all of your elbow flexors has more carryover effect. See next column for more info.	This is true for your shoulders and neck. In this forward position, you are at risk for injury. Also, like many people who perform this exercise, you may be placing excessive weight into your armpit, which is where your brachial plexus is. This is the bundle of nerves that controls your arms.The elbow is only safe when balanced. You need to train your brachioradialis (hammer curls), biceps (curls), and brachialis (reverse curls) in order to hit all elbow flexors.	Shoulder, Elbow, Wrist/Hand:Shoulder: Since you are placing your shoulder into a rounded position, your rotator cuff is going to be overstretched and trying to work. Look out for a major pull on your biceps tendon or a rotator cuff tendonitis in your future. Be careful!Elbow – talk about torque! You’re crushing your elbow with the weight in your hand and your shoulder blade out of the picture to help stabilize.Wrist/Hand: When your elbow gives out, guess what takes the brunt? Be careful not to train with your wrist extended, which is the position you’ll naturally go towards with this exercise. Boo.

An imbalance between your pecs and lats/shoulderblade stabilizers results in a forward shoulder position. This leads to rotator cuff tendonitis, biceps tendonitis, and increased risk of tears. Also, this limits the amount of growth of both your pecs and lats, due to the sub-sensory pain stimulus taking place and telling your brain
that you’re out of alignment.

This all sounds complicated, but let’s make it easy. Just stand up tall and place your hands straight up into the air. Now, bend your elbow out to the side until your shoulder and elbow are both at right angles. If you already feel a stretch, your pecs are super tight. You may already be spending too much of your day in this
pre-shortened position, causing ‘active insufficiency’ to take place. This will limit your strength and fat loss gains, while also increasing your risk of injury.

#5: Smith machine squats

Muscle Imbalances	Zero Functional Benefit	Winds Up Joint – Unsafe	Symptomatic Body Part(s):
Your hamstrings are basically off in this exercise, meaning that it is totally quad dominant.Simultaneously, it’s very hard to properly recruit your glutes when the weight is not directly loading your spine. Without glute support, you are weakening your core, ultimately increasing risk of injury and slowing fat loss.	Since your hamstrings and glutes don’t really have to work here, you’re not squatting like you would in real life.	Actually, here, it’s unsafe for the opposite reason, interestingly enough. Check this out…When you squat with your arms overhead, you tend to lean forward, or your knees come forward, or both. Controlling for this is the controlling inter-related segments so they can get stronger and more mobile together. These segments need to work together to prevent injury, so squats that are not on the smith machine tend to limit you to the correct weight selection, while these squats do not.	Knees, Hips, Low Back:Knees – since this is so quad dominant, it’s only a matter of time until you start to have pain along the top or bottom of your knee cap. It’s just too much pull on that patellar tendon.Hips – You are shortening your hip flexors (bending your waist) while contracting your quads, you are teaching your hip flexor to be short. This means that it will be uncomfortable when you stand and feel tight.Low Back – constantly contracting your quads without your hamstrings builds tight hip flexors. This puts pressure on your pelvis to tip forward and makes you want to arch your back.

#6: Overhead tricep extensions with dumbbells

Muscle Imbalances	Zero Functional Benefit	Winds Up Joint – Unsafe	Symptomatic Body Part(s):
Overstretched proximal triceps in this position, causing increased tension on the triceps tendon by the elbow.Internal rotation, targeting the medial triceps head, can lead to shoulder impingement and more serious issues.	This is another movement that never happens in daily life. When are we overhead forcefully extending our elbow like this. It’s kind of silly, if you think about it.	You may be arching your back while doing this, which could cause a lot of strain and take your abs out of the picture, altogether. Bad idea!	Shoulders, Elbows, Wrists, Low Back:Shoulders – This is what’s referred to as a fully wound up position, meaning that your shoulder capsule is compressed, and so is your labrum. Any slight accidental movement can cause a tear in either.Elbows & Wrists: This is more because of the amount of torque of the weight over head. So long as you maintain good alignment you should be ok, but it’s easy to tip your wrists.Low Back – this is from arching your back, which is very difficult to avoid unless you have a ton of thoracic extension (middle back flexibility)

# 7: High pulls

Muscle Imbalances	Zero Functional Benefit	Winds Up Joint – Unsafe	Symptomatic Body Part(s):
Forward shoulder and capital extension (typical form with this exercise) leads to rotator cuff tendonitis, biceps tendonitis, upper trap pain, mid back tightness, and tight pecs.Tight pecs lead to overstretched lats and shoulder stabilizers, decreasing middle back and core support.	When do we do this, outside of pumping up a tire?And even then… are we really pulling up this high?Now that you think about it, don’t you look kind of like a slinky or something when you do this?It’s pretty silly…	Maximal internal rotation of the shoulder (elbows up, pulling high) with abduction (elbows out) is a recipe for disaster.This is especially true when done above 90 degrees of shoulder flexion or abduction (above parallel to the ground.)This can result in rotator cuff tendonitis, tears, and labral tears. Be careful!	Shoulders – Forceful internal rotation causes impingement and tears, as you just learned. It’s no wonder that your shoulders may ache after you do this exercise.A good test to see if you’re getting ready to breakdown and cause injury is to lay on a tennis ball behind your shoulder blade and roll around. If its painful, you’ll need to avoid these and get rid of those restrictions.

Bonus terrible exercise:
External rotation with a dumbbell, standing

Muscle Imbalances	Zero Functional Benefit	Winds Up Joint – Unsafe	Symptomatic Body Part(s):
Since this exercise is actually working brachioradialis against gravity (the dumbbell is weighing me down, against gravity, not side to side), it’s only adding to the muscle imbalances I may already be experiencing.	Holding a dumbbell in my hands and moving it side to side is not placing tension on the external rotators of my shoulder, just my elbow flexors. This issue is not being resolved.	The only weight being placed into the shoulder is the torque from your hand, which is holding the dumbbell, through your elbow, and up to your shoulder.So, all in all, it’s causing a very small amount of damage with no benefit.	Elbow, Wrist, Shoulder:Elbow – this is basically just torque into your elbow and nothing else.Wrist – only if you avoid keeping a neutral (straight) wrist position and the weight stretches the ligaments a bit.Shoulder – sometimes people tip their shoulders forward. This exercise does nothing, though, so don’t do it.

Here’s a Pain Relief Strategy Should Any of These Exercises Hurt You:

Shoulder: Inflammation reduction is key. Make sure to ice by placing a wet paper towel on the painful area with a thin bag of ice (not an ice pack) to allow the ice to work deeply under your skin. The water on the wet paper towel acts like a conductor to increase the effect of the ice.

Secondly, you’ll want to get the restrictions out of your rotator cuff by rolling on a tennis ball. Place the tennis ball on the ground and lay with your shoulder blade against the tennis ball. Roll slowly until you find a sensitive spot and roll over it, back and forth, for about 2 minutes or until the sensitivity goes away. These are pressure receptors that tell you the tissue is there. The only way to get rid of them is by adding pressure to release the restricted muscle tissue and fascia.

Elbow: Follow the inflammation instructions above. Additionally, consider gentle movements in the pain-free range for your elbow. Many times, gentle glides of the elbow joint take away pain related to any structure that has ‘caught’ or become impinged, in the elbow joint.

Wrist/Hand: In addition to managing inflammation, since the wrist compartment is so small and has so many bones, it’s also important to manage wrist bone, or biomechanical alignment. The best way to work on this on your own is to gently resist hand movements in all directions with your opposite hand.

For example, you would resist extension by placing your left hand against your right fingers in a flexed wrist position. Then, you would push your right hand into your left, while resisting with your left and slowly allow your right hand to win as your fingers straighten and your wrist tips back.

Then, repeat in the other direction. This does a good job, when you alternate back and forth, in re-aligning the wrist, but be sure it’s not causing any pain before you go for it, ok?

Low Back: Posterior Pelvic Tilts – lay on your back with your knees bent. Gently squeeze your cheeks together as you flatten your back into the floor. You’ll feel your belly button move towards your rib cage. Hold 10 seconds and relax. Repeat 10x.

Hips: I prefer a tennis ball here to a foam roll. The goal is to gently rock back and forth on a tennis ball as you lay on it against the floor. Place the tennis ball directly on the sore spot of your hip flexor and move side to side.

Interestingly, many times it’s a restriction on the Femoral Triangle causing an increased pull in your hip flexors. This is on the inside of your thigh and will usually be sensitive. If so, gently rock back and forth on this section with a tennis ball instead. You may just find some incredible pain relief!

Hamstrings Cramping: Lay on your back with your opposite knee bent, foot flat on the ground. Gently extend your knee on the side that’s cramping as you bring your toes towards your head. This will put a gentle stretch on your sciatic nerve and cause it to relax. You can pump your ankle from the gentle stretch position and it should relax fairly quickly. Take your time and do some stretches after you get the cramp to go away.

Knees: Foam roll on quads. Make sure to pick 2 inches and concentrate on it for 2 minutes a day. This helps avoid too much inflammation, but make continuous progress.

As you can see, not all exercises were created equally. I strongly recommend that you analyze an exercise before just going for it. I realize that you’re working hard to get great results, improve your health, and create a higher quality of life for yourself.

It saddens me to see people trying so hard and going in the wrong direction. I hope you’ll lead them with us, from now on. It’s time to get some crazy results – are you ready?

I’d like to share a very special video presentation that I put together for you. In this presentation, you’ll learn how to maximize the effect of your exercise program for both pain relief and fat loss – it’s fascinating: