Exercises To Avoid

Do you exercise regularly? Yes! Good! Have you ever thought about the exercises you must avoid!

Physical activity is extremely important, we all know that but do you know that not every exercise is effective in helping you build muscles or reduce fat!

There are some exercises that actually do more harm than good but still manage to be some of the most popular ones.

Let us see which are those 7 popular exercises which we need to avoid.

1) Situps and crunches

These old-school exercises are everywhere. Right from PT classes to military training, you will find these two exercises all around the globe. However, do you know that these are not good for you? We tell you why….

Your body’s core is made to help you stay stable and brace yourself from twisting and bending but with sit-ups and crunches you are actually placing your body into wrong positions. Pulling the neck forward, rounding your shoulders and flexing your spine can put a lot of stress on your lower back.

2) Smith machine exercises

You need to avoid all the exercises on the Smith machine except the inverted row. Using the Smith machine puts your body in unnatural positions that are not like how you move in real life.

You can activate more muscles by doing free-weight squats and free-weight bench presses instead. They are more beneficial and helpful in building strong muscles.

3) Seated twist machine

The vertebrae of the spine at the lower back can twist only up to 13 degrees in both directions. To give you a better idea of that, it is less than one hour on a clock. If you have used the seated twist machine, you would know how it makes you move more than the ideal range of motion. So, please stay away from the seated twist machine.

4) Supermans

These are done in gyms and physical therapy centres to strengthen the lower back. However, the reality is that the supermans put a lot of load on your spine and can put you in trouble.

5) Back extension

When you use the back extension machine, it tries to strengthen the lower back by flexing and extending it repeatedly. This means trouble for you. What is worse is that some people hold a weight plate too. This increases the stress on the spine even more.

6) Upright row

It is a popular exercise but is the worst one for your shoulders as it affects the shoulder joints. The upright row makes you rotate your shoulders and pull heavy weight when you are in a poor position. This can cause a lot of trouble.

If you want strong and wide shoulders, you need to go in for dumbbell overhead press instead as they target the upper body without any unwanted stress on your shoulder joint.

7) Behind-the-neck pull down or behind-the-neck press

You must avoid doing upper body exercise that involves pulling or pushing from behind the neck as it puts a lot of strain on your shoulders. It is best to avoid such exercises.

Instead try doing lat pull-down, chin-ups and pull-ups towards the collar bones.

Hope you know the seven exercises to avoid!

You may also like reading-

• 6 Exercises To Beat Anxiety
• 5 Simple Exercises To Burn More Calories
• Aerobic Exercise Can Reverse Ageing – How?
• 7 Exercises To Lose Weight Without Spending Money!