Personal Training 15b: contraindicted exercises

This post is part of an ongoing series about my learning process as I train to become a personal trainer.  In this post, I’m considering various exercises that some people consider to be contraindicted (i.e. a bad idea).  If you have time to read the whole thing, I’d be interested to hear how different my approach is from yours…    

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My course notes

My course notes explain that the following exercises are contraindicted for the reasons listed:

• Good morning – because of the shear forces placed on the spine
• Stiff-legged deadlift - because of the shear forces placed on the spine 
• Full squat – because at angles of less than 90 degrees, this places strain on the cruciate ligaments of the knee
• Lying leg raises – because of the risk of pulling the lumbar spine into extension during the movement

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Why I disagree with the course notes

I disagree with my course notes in the following respects:

• Good morning – I think that when most people contraindict the good morning, they are doing so because they don’t know how to perform one properly.  They seem to think that it involves bending over forwards.  And if you want to contraindict the “bending over forwards with a barbell on the back of your neck exercise”, I’d agree.  But that’s not a good morning. A good morning is an amazing tool for building strong hamstrings and involves pushing the hips back and hinging at the hip joint.  This is a beautiful example with some real weight on the bar.

• Stiff-legged deadlift – just for clarity, a stiff-legged deadlift is not exactly the same as a Romanian deadlift (RDL), although there are many similarities and many people use the term interchangeably, which I dislike.  I guess you could call an RDL a semi-stiff-legged deadlift.  However, speaking to people on my course, they do seem to equate the two, which leads them to contraindict the RDL.  I could live with contraindicting the stiff-legged deadlift because I think it is hard to perform correctly.  On the other hand, the RDL is another amazing tool for building strong hamstrings.  For me, a properly-executed RDL should look like a good morning but with the bar in a different place.  I really struggled to find an RDL video with proper weight that I liked.  Here is one being done by a bodybuilder: I like the form he is using.

• Full squat – again, I could probably live without squatting much below parallel but many people seem to think that parallel is quite high.  A parallel squat feels really deep for me.  I’m not going to reinvent the wheel, as Bret Contreras has done a great job of demolishing the myth that deep squats are bad for you here (part one and part two).  Basically, a deep squat is a really athletic movement.  Here’s a great example (you’ll have to click through to YouTube because it won’t embed but it’s a great video so I wanted to list it anyway):

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Should exercises be contraindicted at all?

I have a lot of sympathy with the idea that there should be no such thing as contraindicted exercises, only contraindicted trainees.  This is a common idea that many personal trainers and strength coaches are recommending.  I like it for a couple of reasons:

• It accepts that there are individual differences between trainees
• It encourages personal trainers to take responsibility for their programming choices
• It encourages personal trainers to perform assessments before they programme

I think that these points are beneficial and should be encouraged.

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If we are going to contraindict exercises, what are the criteria?

However, if we are going to contraindict exercises, how should we approach establishing what they are?  What are the criteria?  If I look at the exercises in the course notes, then I can reverse engineer the criteria.  Looking at the list, I note that that they are all exercises that:

• Require instruction
• Require hip mobility
• Require core stability
• Put pressure on the lower back if done incorrectly

So if the exercises are performed correctly and the trainees have been properly assessed, all of the above points disappear.  So I don’t see how these criteria help us.  In other words, they are poor criteria for deciding whether an exercise should be excluded or not as they basically assume that the average personal trainer is incompetent (quiet, you at the back!)…

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Suggesting some better criteria

On the other hand, we could suggest some criteria as follows:

1. Research suggests they are damaging to most populations even when performed correctly
2. Anatomical factors suggest that they can and do cause injuries even when performed correctly

Now, these criteria could still be challenged because there will always be a minority who disagree with prevailing research and there will always be individuals who have strange anatomy.  However, if we looked for exercises that fulfilled the above criteria, we might identify the following exercises:

• Upright row – Eric Cressey has written that this is probably his only completely contraindicted exercise because it brings the shoulder joint into its most internally rotated position with each rep.  I think that you can limit the damage by using a rope-based row but basically I have given up doing these completely now and would only ever programme the rope version for someone who couldn’t do any other vertical pull at all
• Crunches – there has been a lot of controversy about crunches in the fitness industry.  Dr Stuart McGill, a prominent spinal researcher, has been definitive about the fact that they aren’t the best thing for you.  Mike Boyle has a great analogy: the spine is like a credit card.  Bend a credit card back and forth and it bounces back to start with.  But if you continue to bend that card then you’ll eventually start to see a crack.  Continue bending it back and forth and over time that crack becomes a break.  Mike says that the spine is not much different.  On the other hand, there are people who disagree and suggest that there is nothing wrong with them (e.g. Doug Brignole).  If they were an exercise that delivered amazing results then I might be swayed but given how poor most people’s core strength is who do them, I just don’t see the point.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kukmaW9CmSU

McGill on crunches: don’t do them

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 Other resources

Other great articles on this subject include:

• Clay Hyght - Clay also advises against the upright row and also adds to the list behind-the-neck presses, rounded back deadlifts, twisting sit-ups and shrugs with shoulder roll.  I am not convinced by the behind-the-neck press contraindiction because Charles Poliquin recommends them positively.  I also wouldn’t put a ban on rounded back exercises without asking permission from Louie Simmons first and I figure that if you’re still using sit-ups then you’re probably not reading my blog anyway…
• Nick Tumminello - Nick talks about not doing Scorpion twists, which are basically lumbar rotations, which I personally wouldn’t do either.  I probably wouldn’t bother telling people not to do them since most people don’t warm up anyway.  Nick also dislikes other similar exercises, none of which I had heard of but I guess some people must do them.  Interestingly, Nick doesn’t like leg cradles for stretching the piriformis.  I thought this was really fascinating so if you do check out Nick’s article, I would definitely check out page two, where this is discussed.
• Craig Ballantyne - Craig starts his list with a number of exercises that I would classify as either ineffective or bad form: the “bodybuilder bench press”, bench dips and cleans with a fixed bar.  He goes on to list crunches, side bends, sit-ups and twists because they’re useless and dangerous.  He also bans behind the neck presses for the same reasons as Clay because he’s a real conservative sort of guy.  All reasonable stuff, I would say.

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Are there any exercises that you completely disgaree with?  Or do you operate on a case-by-case basis?