Exercises are like guns.  Lying on a table, a gun is not dangerous at all until the user picks it up. Certain exercises are the same way. They look cool and advanced until the user starts to perform them.  With that being said, there are some obvious exercises that I’ve eliminated from my own personal program and some of my clients. Let’s see, the obvious shoulder busters: behind-the-neck lat pull-downs, behind-the-neck presses, and upright rows.  Believe it or not, some people can get away with performing these aforementioned exercises all their lives without injury or pain. The structure of the shoulder joint (acrominum process and rotator cuff health) helps determine that.  However, I am willing to wager a good chunk to tell you that most of us fall outside of this model.

However, the exercises I have eliminated out of my program and what I’m suggesting don’t necessarily present a direct or obvious danger to you if used sparingly. But then again, both does sugar and second-hand smoke.

You’re probably wondering: “Which exercises should I not do, John?” Well, I have eliminated certain exercises because frankly, I have found them conducive to over-training or generally wasting time. We typically relate over-training to the frequency of a particular exercise used in a program. For instance, we think that if one performs too many bench presses or too many curls that it leads to shoulder or elbow problems. For example, a painter can paint a wall with a brush, then go into another home and place wallpaper up, and then go home and fix a door frame. He then experiences shoulder pain. What activity is to blame for this acute sign of chronic things to come? Is it the brush, wallpaper, or door frame?

The culprit is the excessive 180° forward flexion with excessive 180° abduction and excessive 90° external rotation with otherwise unhealthy rotator cuff function and scapula weakness.  The use of external loads only adds the underscore under “excessive”.

My goal with this article is to have you realize that it is not necessarily the exercise, but the movement that poses a risk to overtraining or program monotony.  The exercises I have chosen to eliminate may be different than the ones you would choose.  It depends on the total content of each personalized exercise program. However, the ones I have chosen are generally common movements that you find in everyday exercise programs. To make exercise programs more effective for myself and my clients, I need to eliminate the “fillers”, and concentrate on the key ingredients.

Calf Raises

I know what you are already thinking. How can you grow great diamond-shaped baby cows if you eliminate the one exercise that targets them? From a performance perspective, if you are using compound exercises like squats and lunges—you are hitting the calves efficiently.  The aforementioned exercises are more bang-for-your-buck exercises that will help burn more fat, gain strength, and increase performance—so why wouldn’t they be in an exercise program? We hear that the lunge and squat are best at leg development, but those exercises do not exclude the lower leg musculature. The calf muscle is made up of the gastrocnemius and the soleus. Both muscles perform plantar flexion (propulsion), but the gastroc is affected by knee position. When performing the standing calf raise, it is important to stabilize the chosen knee position and avoid excessive knee extension.  The exercise becomes “iffy” because initiating plantar flexion is often achieved through a bouncing action at the end of the eccentric portion. These excessive motions should be avoided, in particular, to cut down on overtraining the Achilles tendon. Although this tendon is designed to withstand maximum loads and function, it is still subject to injury and wear, especially when isolated under extreme loads.  My preference? I rarely perform any isolated calf work. Unless the goal is muscle growth (hypertrophy/competition), I leave my explosive jump shrugs or power cleans to add bulk to my lower leg and single leg work to integrate the lower body with the rest of the kinetic chain. I chuckle when my clients comment at how their calves have grown when we integrated single leg work into their program. The CNS stimulation alone increases muscle firing and gets those claves involved.  I also recommend plyometric drills for advanced trainees to target total leg development. Again, these explosive and power exercises should not be “in addition” to target the calves. The Achilles tendon can rupture from such force if the tensile properties are inadequate. Therefore, limit the amount of total work performed that overstresses excessive plantar-flexion under loads.  For those of you not interested in performing these power movements, stick with split squats, lunges, step-ups and single leg reaches.

Front Raises

I honestly don’t know what people want to achieve with this exercise.  The anterior deltoids are a small portion of the muscle group that is involved in virtually all sagital plane pressing movements. Horizontal adduction (flexion) is involved with such exercises as the bench press (flat/incline/decline), shoulder press, and with varying degrees: flyes, cross-overs, and lateral raises. The anterior deltoid also works as a stabilizer during most isolated arm work. With all these movements involving this small muscle, what is the intention of isolating it with front raises? Better “tie-ins”? I think not. It is a classic “toning” exercise popularized in group classes and utilizes brightly-colored dumbbells that offer nothing to the user except 8 minutes of wasted time and excessive forward flexion with possible risk of subacromial impingement. Most people that perform this exercise perform it beyond 90 degrees of shoulder flexion. This is not entirely dangerous for you, but if you possess a Type 2 (less risky) or Type 3 (more risky) acromium process, you may be eligible for some shoulder pain.  The impingement begins with lack of scapula strength and lack of glenohumeral stability by the rotator cuff muscle group. Once these two factors are present, those individuals with Type 3 acromiums, may heighten their risk of impingement with continued use of excessive loaded forward flexion, or close-pack positions, or overly trained muscles.  Now, the only way to go balls to the wall with front raises and such without injury is to know what kind type of acromium process you have. For a measly $3500, you can get x-rayed at your local hospital and end the speculation once and for all.

Barbell Shrugs

Okay…I like shrugs, more specifically dumbbell shrugs, for the trapezius. However, I include them as an auxiliary exercise every now and then. I prefer dead lifts, rows, and scapula movements (resistive retraction, Y, T, W, Ls, and face-pulls) to isolated trap work. The funny thing is the traps are singled out because we can see them standing in front of a mirror. The thing that many people forget, including some personal trainers, is that the trapezius muscle is rather large and is mostly located in the back. 

The trapezius is a fan-shaped muscle that attaches on the spine from the base of the skull to T-12. Various portions are responsible for elevation, retraction, and depression based on the fiber direction and direction of resistance. Many gym-goers tend to perform “circle” shrugs because of the stretch they feel makes them assume they are recruiting more of the muscle. Huh? “Circle” shrugs involve un-resisted retraction and assisted depression and are virtually a waste of time.