Alachua Personal Trainer Reveals 4 Worst Exercises and 21st Century Upgrades

In the past, I’ve shared my top exercises for rapid fat loss and muscle gain to generate maximum results in minimal time. Today, we'll focus on four of the WORST exercises you can perform. These machine exercises have far greater risk than reward.
By: Nathan Trenteseaux
 
May 10, 2011 - PRLog -- Nathan Trenteseaux is a local Alachua personal trainer, fitness coach and fitness business owner. Today, he slams four common exercises that will get you hurt while providing 21st Century upgrades you can make now.

"One of the biggest concerns we fitness professionals have are sheer volume of machine exercises that make up the typical workout for the average gym-goer," said Trenteseaux. "Machine exercises limit you to a fixed range of motion and do not appropriately prepare your body for everyday 'functional' movement in multiple planes of movement."

Trenteseaux explains, "This might sound counterintuitive to many of us who have been misinformed that machine exercises are safer to perform because of a smaller learning curve and the relative ease in which you can adjust resistance for your current fitness level."

Trenteseaux continues, "The claim that machine exercises are safer than using free weight or body-weight exercises is absolutely absurd. Machine exercises do not force you to engage the key stabilizer muscles surrounding your joints that are heavily responsible for keeping them strong and stable. In reality, machine exercises are setting you up for muscle imbalances and short- and long-term injuries that will slow your results to a grinding halt. Plus, by not engaging as many muscles, machine exercises limit fat burning and lean muscle growth potential."

Trenteseaux shares four common exercises he wouldn't be caught dead doing, and they all involve overpriced, bulky machines that fill the floors of the typical health club:

1.) ABS MACHINE
Research proves that crunches and sit-ups promote excessive flexion of the lumbar spine and cause neck and back pain. What's worse than crunches or sit-ups? Doing a similar movement with added weight in a machine that only trains your body in an unnatural front to back motion in a seated position!

Abs machines, just like crunches and sit-ups, make you feel your abdominal muscles, but there are far better ways to accomplish this without the high risk of short- and long-term injury to your spine.

Remember, the true function of your core is stabilization, both static and dynamic. Our core must be able to maintain a neutral, straight-line position from the hips to the shoulders in all three planes of movement (front to back, side to side, and rotational) no matter what the external stimulus may be.

21st Century Training Upgrade:
For rock hard, athletic abs, focus on pillar stabilization exercises like front, side, and back pillars/planks and anti-rotational core work.

2.) BACK MACHINE
Many people already use too much "back" on most movements because of tight hips and weak glutes. Thus, I prefer to focus more on hip extension movements that strengthen your butt rather than continually overloading the spinal erectors. Plus, performing corrective stretching for the hip flexors, the hip rotators, and the hamstrings opens up your hips and alleviates excessive spinal flexion and compressions - which is exactly what many people need.

Also, just like the abs machine, this exercise trains your body in one plane of movement in a fixed path, and, as a result, it doesn't work your key stabilizer muscles. People are much better suited to performing exercises that strengthen their gluteal muscles in addition to stretching the hip muscles which are commonly tight and restricted.

21st Century Training Upgrade:
For a strong, stable back, focus on deadlift and hip extensions variations while simultaneously focusing on the corrective stretching and self-massage of the hip flexors, hip rotators and hamstrings.

3.) LEG EXTENSION MACHINE
Here's the bottom line with this exercise - it will wreak havoc on your knees! The excessive compression on your patella caused by this exercise will put you on the fast track to patellar tendonitis in the short run and knee surgeries and arthritis in the long run.

21st Century Training Upgrade:
For strong, stable knees, focus on both knee-dominant (lunge, step-up, and single-leg squat variations) AND hip-dominant single-leg exercises (single-leg hip extension, deadlift, and good morning variations) to prevent strength imbalances between limbs and to prevent strength imbalances between your front and back thighs and your inner and outer thighs.

4.) ELLIPTICAL MACHINE
This machine truly only has use for people that are significantly overweight and de-conditioned. If you are really, really overweight and haven't exercised in several years, then I think an elliptical has some use. But, other than that, I think it's relatively useless. Yes, it's a low-impact alternative to running on a treadmill. However, there is very little range of motion during the movement, and it doesn't burn nearly as many calories as the machine claims it does.

If you are within 10-20 pounds of your ideal body weight, you are better suited to performing high-intensity interval training. Furthermore, the elliptical is not a good machine to perform intervals because it promotes excessive hyperextension of the knee. This can easily result in injury at high levels of speed and resistance.

21st Century Training Upgrade:
For optimal results during your cardio training, you must focus on interval training. High-intensity interval training burns nine (9) times more body fat than traditional cardiovascular exercise (e.g. aerobics) and also results in greater improvements in overall conditioning than long, slow, boring cardio. If you are overweight, de-conditioned, or have joint issues, the best place to start an interval training program is on a spin bike, or better yet, an Airdyne bike. The Airdyne bike has both upper and lower body attachments to make it more of a total-body conditioning experience. If you need to rock your intervals equipment-free at home or on the road, use body-weight based exercises like sprinting, jumping jacks, stationary running, split jumps, etc.

Get off the machines and focus on functional movements using free weights, resistance bands, medicine balls, kettlebells, the TRX Suspension Trainer, etc. You'll ramp up your fat-burning and muscle-building pursuits, and, more importantly, you won't end up hunchbacked in a wheel chair by the time you turn 50!

Underground Fitness Revolution is a revolutionary 21st century fitness facility featuring 1,273 square feet of open space and padded flooring utilizing only cutting-edge, bootcamp-style fitness equipment like kettlebells, dumbbells, resistance bands, TRX Suspension Trainers, medicine balls, battling ropes, Valslides, sandbags, sleds and more. These training tools allow for killer 30-minute express metabolic workouts that combine the muscle-building benefits of strength training with the fat-burning benefits of cardiovascular exercise to allow clients to get the biggest bang-for-their-fitness-buck.

Nathan Trenteseaux, B.S., YFS1, USC1, YNS, TRX-STC is the owner and fitness coach for a local Alachua group personal training fitness facility that features high-intensity bootcamp-style workouts. Underground Fitness Revolution specializes in 30-minute EXPRESS metabolic workouts for busy men and women. To book Nathan to speak at your local Alachua company, club, or organization, please contact him by phone at 352.682.3310 or by email at nate@UndergroundFitnessRevolution.com. For more information, please visit www.UndergroundFitnessRevolution.com.

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Underground Fitness Revolution specializes in 30-minute EXPRESS metabolic workouts for busy men and women designed to get you in the best shape of your life regardless of your current fitness level.
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Source:Nathan Trenteseaux
Email:***@undergroundfitnessrevolution.com Email Verified
Zip:32615
Tags:Alachua Personal Trainer, Fitness Coach, Boot Camp, Fitness, Worst Exercises, Injury, Core, Abs, Machines, Gym, Health
Industry:Fitness, Health
Location:Alachua - Florida - United States
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