Bad Exercises and Bad Technique

Some exercises are just not worth the risk but some exercises have fundamental elements for safety and prevention of injury.

1: Benching Too Wide – Common error is not pushing through the the long axis of the radius and this causes shearing shearing  forces through the elbow joint.  Solution to this is to not have a really wide grip. The shoulder is most at risk at 90 degree abduction and wide grip bench press causes above 75 degrees abduction at the shoulder.

2: Benching Too High - Some people bench and at the end of the eccentric component, the bar is above the neck or a/c joint which puts massive pressure on the shoulder complex and takes it away from the pectorals.

3: Upright Row – One of my most hated exercises in S&C. Massively overused in athletic populations who are already upper trap dominant further creating shoulder dysfunction.

Look at the end position of this exercise, which is basically shoulder abduction coupled with internal rotation, closing up the sub-acromial space. This position is actually used by physios to test impingement (hawkins kennedy test) and so that alone should tell you its ridiculous.

This position will jam up the rotator cuff against acromium and in time create impingement, especially if you have inflammation of any of your tendons in there. To fix this go shoulder width grip and pull to the sternum instead of the neck or to 90 degrees elbow flexion.