subject: Attention Bodybuilders - Are you putting your joints at risk by performing dangerous exercises? [print this page] Attention Bodybuilders - Are you putting your joints at risk by performing dangerous exercises?
It's a sad truth that there is a lot of really bad advice regularly handed out to amateur or recreational muscle building enthusiasts by so called "experts" who are nothing of the sort.
This can result in a lot of frustration and disappointment but worse still, it can result in injuries, sometimes injuries that are so serious that you are forced to give up training permanently.
It can seem natural to take instruction about how to build muscle from a well built person who has seemingly achieved great results. But you cannot afford to take this advice at face value.
To start, it could be that they are genetically better suited to muscle building than you - which could mean that they have longer muscle bellies, stronger and more robust joints and stronger and better connective tissues.
This can allow them to either take liberties with bad exercise form and apparently get away with it, or worse still, perform dangerous exercise without any consequences, but which are dangerous for you to do.
A couple of things here;
First, there will come a time when the abuse of exercise technique or doing dangerous exercises will come back to haunt these people as they get older. That's their lookout.
Second, if you follow this poor advice then you too will become an injury waiting to happen, which is your lookout.
So how do you know if an exercise is safe for you to do or not?
The simple answer is through education and experience. The education comes from discovering which exercises are dangerous ones, and then avoiding them.
The unfortunate thing is that although we're all basically similar (2 arms, 2 legs and so on), we're also all basically different in many ways as regards genetics, body structure, history of injuries and so on.
That means that I may be able to do a particular movement and make muscle gains from it, but it may not work for you, or vice versa.
That's where experience comes in.
That means I can warn you off some exercises that are known to be dangerous, but there may be exercises that are usually safe that may be dangerous for you. You need to understand your own body and know what is possible, what isn't and what will hurt you - that's all that matters.
There's another dimension to this - exercise technique. It could be that you get injured doing a certain exercise - but that may be because your exercise technique was at fault.
Therefore, you need to understand what good exercise technique is, and use it when you do your workouts. I strongly suggest that you get access to a good weight training technique book, and refer back to it constantly.
The person who knows the best about your body is you. If you do an exercise and you get joint pain, then you should not do that exercise ever again, assuming that you're exercise technique is all it should be.
If your technique is correct, and you still get hurt doing an exercise, then drop that exercise now, and for good! Lastly, do not ever take advice from another amateur bodybuilder, however well meaning he or she might be, at face value!
