It's Time!

Shape up with tried and true exercises.

By Scott Salberg

Listen closely. Can you hear it? It's your little intuition-minded, partially motivated subconscious telling you that this is YOUR time. This is the year to do it.  It's time to get back to the gym, set the alarm early to do morning cardio and stop the late-night ice cream binges.  

The question is, how? It's been quite a while since you were in there pumping the iron (old school reference there), and now there are all these newfangled contraptions with moving arms, levers and pins. The seats move, the handles move in and out, the weight stack has so many gears it looks like a 10-speed, and there are devices that look more like a bench with stirrups in the ob/gyn office than workout equipment.

When in doubt, go with the familiar, right? Just break out that old high school football coach's plan and burst into free weight alley to transform your physique, eh?  Well ... wrong!

This month we're going to discuss exercises that used to be the norm and have caused some of the worst injuries over the years. Some of the best exercises are done wrong, and some simple adjustments can alleviate the risk of injury. I'm going to go over a few that you should heed if you think these are the only ways to build your body. You can either take these little hints to the training bank or cease to do them altogether. Either way, my goal is to keep you all healthy to live to train another day.

Squats:  This exercise is unbelievable to completely reshape your lower end (yes, that lower end, but everything else below the waist as well). This exercise depends on the calves being flexible enough to allow the weight to stay on the heels without rolling the weight inward or forward to the toes. It also depends on the hamstrings being flexible enough to allow the body to come down to a parallel position without tucking the butt under, thereby causing undue stress on the lower back. I'd like to make two key points about this exercise that are commonly done wrong.
 
1) The weight must remain primarily on the heels. If you do this exercise and find yourself rolling forward onto your toes on the way down, you are more than likely not sitting back correctly onto your haunches while driving your heels down into the floor. Result: A knee injury -- acute one day -- or chronic pain over time. This one ties indirectly into the next big mistake, failing to ensure that...

2) The knees do not extend over the toes upon lowering. The first joints to move upon the descent SHOULD be the hips. If you 'knee' the weight down, you will most certainly begin your descent while staying completely vertical, thereby ensuring your knees go over your hips and the weight is pressed back up from the toes, all sure ways to place unnecessary stress on the patellar tendon.

Stretching and taking a wider stance are two of the ways you can follow both of these tips.

Bench Press: When done correctly, this exercise can greatly benefit the front deltoids, the pectorals and the triceps, but I don't often see it done correctly. The accurate way to perform this exercise involves NO bouncing off the chest. Switching to dumbbells is a far smarter way to develop the chest muscles while ensuring you don't rip your pec muscles. For whatever reason, the barbell version of the push-up remains king of all upper body exercises.  Performing the exercise with the barbell is THE leading cause of torn pectoral muscles and injured shoulders (for more reasons then I can expound upon here).

The manner in which this exercise is taught in high school gyms around the country is incorrect, in that while looking down at the outline of the exercise, it should not resemble a cross.  The elbows should slightly tuck under at the bottom of the exercise and not stay out like chicken wings 90? from the body. If you have ever felt a twinge in your shoulder, an ache on your outer chest or general pain after performing this exercise, I urge you to seek out a qualified strength specialist (power lifters are great at explaining the do's/don'ts of this exercise) to make the small adjustments that keep you healthy for a lifetime of lifting.

Shoulder press: I'm going to outline this very simply even for people who have ironclad shoulders and ligaments of steel. DO NOT DO BEHIND THE NECK PRESSES -- EVER! There. Don't think you're the exception, because there will come a day when you get a nagging shoulder pain that just doesn't go away.  Unless you're a gymnast and so flexible you resemble rubber man, or unless your neck is somehow sticking out of the front of your chest, I feel safe in saying that the body is just not designed to apply itself against great resistance from that angle (behind the neck). You can safely build your shoulders with dumbbell presses, machine presses and anything else that doesn't jerk your arm that far behind your body while under stress.

Please be aware that pushing yourself to the limit should involve muscle soreness but not joint pain.  Following these tips should lower your chances of injury and ensure that you are able to be fit and healthy for years to come.

I appreciate the feedback I've been getting via all the e-mails. Brutally honest in fitness and health,

Scott L. Salberg

Scott Salberg has been a personal trainer, a bodybuilding contest prep advisor, a retail salesman in the nutrition industry and a sports supplement distributor. He is the Country Life, Irontek and Biochem representative for Central and South Texas. Contact him at positivescott@hotmail.com.