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| Edited By: Pushkaraj S Shirke |Source: DNA |Updated: Apr 16, 2017, 07:45 AM IST
Gyms are full of people doing bizarre things. Some of these ‘disastrous’ workouts have seeped so far into gym legend that people have developed theories of why they are good for the body. Let’s demystify three such workouts:
Jamming your thighs in and lifting a heavy-weight lever is the worst thing you can do to your knee. The abrasive force on the joint caused due to the knee cap pressing onto the knee joint can severely damage the knee and stress the ACL (anterior cruciate ligament). Yet, it’s highly popular because you can see the muscles of the thigh contract during the exercise making people believe it will bear positive results. In truth, leg extension is best done as a warm up with light weights and 10-15 reps to get synovial fluid flowing into the knee joint and not as an exercise itself.
In a bid to create variations that causes more discomfort and therefore feel ‘hardcore’, classic workouts have been brutalised by their ‘behind the neck’ versions. Sometimes done by professional weight lifters as mobility drills, uninformed gym junkies do these as workouts itself. Forcing the shoulder joint to perform its function at high loads in a compromised position from behind the neck is the worst thing you can do to your rotator cuff, apart from chances of dislocating your shoulder damage to the cervical spine. The upright row, used to build ‘collars’ is also a disaster workout for the same reason.
There being enough proof that it is nothing but a highway to the wrist disorder known as carpal tunnel syndrome. If you want bigger forearms, use grippers, or do farmer walks, or deadlifts without straps or even clinch plates in your fingers and perform static holds. But taking a dumbbell and curling it at the wrist or curling a barbell round and round while it hangs off your wrist from a bench, is a sure way to damage your wrist joint for minimal muscular gains.
The writer is a K11 trained fitness consultant
