While getting your body moving, your heart rate and doing any sort of activity is great for your health, there are some fitness exercises you should never do. This could be simply because they don’t strengthen your body and improve your overall health, or in some cases, they can actually put unnecessary and unnatural stress.
While some of these fitness exercises are harmless, it is best to scrap them and replace them with exercise that will be much more effective. Using your time and energy wisely will get you that much closer to your goals, so be smart about your exercise health and fitness. Being informed is this step to optimising your fitness routine.
Here is a list of some exercise that you should never do:
This old school exercise has been used by the army and no doubt we have all done this during PE when at school. However, we now know that sit-ups are not as useful for our health and bodies as we first thought.
Many experts have been vocal about this move, talking about how it puts your spine under necessary stress. Not maintaining a neutral spine, hunching your shoulders and stressing your neck too when the going gets tough, isn’t beneficial.
Instead, you can practise planks, which keeps your neck and spine in a neutral position when done right. There are plenty of variations such as side planks and walking planks too, which you do to further strengthen your core muscles once you get the hang of it. Alternatively, the US army is now introducing more spine health exercises, including deadlifts and power throws, instead of these old school moves.
While this move isn’t going to be as damaging as a sit-up, you won’t be getting many benefits from this move. While it might seem like a useful machine, it doesn’t use any of your stabilising muscles when squatting, because the bar follows a fixed path.
This means that you won’t be reaping all the benefits gained from a barbell back squat and maximising this move. Opt for non-assisted and you will see far better results, gaining strength quickly and all the benefits you gain from barbell squats will be much more transferable.
Some people love them and some people hate them, but box jumps might not be all they are cracked up to be. While it can look pretty cool and be a great fitness feat, jumping up and down onto a box might not be that great for your body. The impact as you do this can put a lot of stress on your knees and tendons.
When jumping off you have gravity, momentum and your bodyweight to content with as you hit the ground and your knees take a lot of that impact. It is worth keeping an eye on any pain that could be tendonitis or even ligament stress if you practise this exercise a lot.
This machine, or any like it, should always be approached with caution. This exercise aims to twist your torso to the side, engaging your abdominal muscles and using these to drive the movement. Twisting in this way is quite a strange move for your body and is one it wouldn’t normally do if it wasn’t for this machine.
Because of this, it puts extra stress and strain on your spine and discs by putting them in these strange positions, isn’t really beneficial. If you want more effective core exercises, medicine ball rotational throws can be great for your core stabilising muscles. Or, many other strength-based exercises that have you holding and moving weights, also engaged these areas.
We have all tried this at school and felt the thigh burn that it brings, thinking that it is doing all sorts of good. Although nowadays, fitness fanatics have found that there is actually little benefit from doing this. Because of this, replacing it with another fitness exercise is perfect if you want to step up your game.
There are plenty of thigh and glute hitting movements for you to do, including kettlebell squats. Try moving your leg and feet closer together when holding the weight up to your chest, if you want to feel the burn in your thighs.
All Crossfit enthusiasts will know this one, but in reality, it isn;t a good move for everyone’s fitness. The idea of kipping pull ups is to create memenum and get yourself above the bar, using shoulder and arm strength. However, if you can’t yet do a pull up, this isn’t going to really benefit you.
Instead, try to workout on a normal pull up and you will see much more progression. If you can’t do these yet, negative pull ups or using an assisted band, you have you well on your way to stella upper body strength.
When adding new moves into your routine, it is worth looking into how they could benefit you, but starting with these fitness exercises you should never do, is certainly a good start.
To see more physical health articles, inspirations and advice, visit the YouCanShape blog, or try our 30-day-free-trail and start your fitness journey, today.
Why is mindfulness important for a healthy lifestyle?
What must women take into account when setting a fitness goal
