5 of The Worst Exercises You Should Stop Doing

With an incredible amount of exercises possible for you to choose, make sure you are not doing any of these 5. Seriously, they are the worst exercises you could be doing.

If you are looking to get ripped, lean, muscular, or just lose some weight, strength training will do you wonders. While it is true that some exercise is better than nothing, there is a list of the worst exercises you should stay away from.

These are the worst exercises that you should stop doing according to Jeff Cavaliere.

Jeff Cavaliere was the head physical therapist of the New York Mets for 3 years and is now a YouTube sensation. He delivers clear information without noise on his ATHLEAN-X YouTube channel.

“As a physical therapist and professional strength coach, I have to judge the merits of an exercise on its risk-to-benefit ratio,” Cavaliere says.

That means, some exercises might give you a great stimulus for a specific muscle group, but could also put you at risk of injuries.

It is important to note that the list is not a one-size-fits-all list, because there will be some exercises that are great for bodybuilders, but for professional CrossFit athletes might be problematic. With that in mind, Cavaliere shared his arguments for why these are the 5 worst exercises you could be doing.

5 Worst Exercises

1. Flys

The flys was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s favourite exercises, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good one. The over-stretching of the muscle while doing traditional flys on the bench does not give your chest better activation.

“One bad rep, one bad overload, and cause us to have a torn pec.”

If you are looking for the adduction of the pec, you can do better with the cable crossover.

2. Behind-The-Neck Shoulder Press

The overhead press is great for your shoulders, but doing the movement with the barbell passing behind your neck can leave you susceptible to injuries.

“We’re pushing in an abnormal plane of motion when we look at the orientation of our shoulders joints,” Cavaliere explains.

Do any press up movement, just not with your shoulders hinging back and you will save yourself a trip to the doctor.

3. Upright Rows

Small tweaks can be made to the upright rows that will turn the exercise into something great for shoulder development.

According to Cavaliere, as a physical therapist, the position in which your arms are during the upright row is exactly how he would test for shoulder impingement. “We don’t want to be doing a clinical provocative test on a rep-by-rep basis.”

This is one of the worst exercises because it will cause you shoulder impingement if you don’t already have one.

Do this minor tweak to see the difference and reap its benefits.

4. Good Mornings

This exercise is not bad at all, but most people don’t have the necessary thoracic extension to do the movement properly.

If you do not have the requirements to do this exercise, you will feel the pressure on your lumbar spine, which will lead to annoying pain and possible more complications in the future.

One different exercise you can be doing instead of good mornings is the dumbbell dead rows.

5. Leg Extensions

Not only there are better exercises to strengthen the quads, but the leg extensions also come with a couple of problems by themselves.

“A shearing force that gets place on our knees, constant tension on our ACL ligament, imbalance of the activation between our VMO and our rectus femoris,” Cavaliere says. This all can lead to a patellar tendon issue, knee problems.

Pretty much any squat will be better for your knees. Try these squat variations.