My Top 10 WORST Exercises (Maybe Avoid These)

Summary by Krater

A fitness trainer counts down his top ten least favorite exercises for muscle and strength building, explaining the biomechanical reasons why each is suboptimal and suggesting better alternatives.

From the video

Answers: What are the worst exercises to do in the gym for muscle and strength?

• strength training exercises
• exercise biomechanics
• suboptimal gym exercises
• muscle hypertrophy techniques
• injury prevention in weightlifting

Exercises

• standing dumbbell external rotation · dumbbells
• cable external rotation · cable machine
• above the knee rack pull · barbell
• cable squat · cable machine
• barbell back squat · barbell
• hack squat · machine
• hack squat shoulder press · machine
• shoulder press machine shrug · machine
• dumbbell shoulder press · dumbbells
• landmine t-bar cheat row · barbell
• barbell curl · barbell
• dumbbell front raise · dumbbells
• dumbbell lateral raise · dumbbells
• bent-over reverse fly · dumbbells
• behind the neck pulldown · cable machine
• behind the neck press · barbell
• bosu ball bicep curl · bosu ball
• bosu ball squat · bosu ball

What it concludes

• Standing dumbbell external rotations fail to apply proper gravitational tension against the transverse plane.
• Cable squats pull trainees forward, challenging balance without effectively loading the quads or glutes.
• Squatting significantly below parallel increases injury risk and spinal rounding without providing extra muscle activation.
• Landmine t-bar cheat rows reduce range of motion and risk damaging gym equipment with excessive weight.
• Front raises are largely redundant in bodybuilding programs since pressing movements already heavily tax the front delts.