Biggest Lifting Mistakes

Keep in mind that my career is taking care of injuries.  Shoulders, knees, feet, ankles.  Hips, backs, necks, heads. 

For the record, I don't have any of those acronyms that designate that I am a strength coach or a personal trainer, like my colleague Tracy Martin, who in addition to being a physical therapist and an athletic trainer is also a CSCS (Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist) and a Titleist Performance Instructor. 

But I have spent my life around athletics and have been known to frequent the gym.  I even used to own a gym, Cherokee Health & Fitness. 

And if you ever visit the Total Rehabilitation office where I see patients (Cherokee), you might find my desk interesting-it consists of a countertop between the rehab side of the facility and the fitness side.  That way, I can do my work on the rehab side but also be available for "minute" consultations with members of the fitness center.  And those happen every single day.

So forgive me for having strongly held opinions about what is good and bad about strength training and fitness.  It's just that I get to see the complete spectrum from injury thru rehab.

Among those strongly held opinions:

●Unless you are preparing for a competition, there is no place for single repetitions in anything.  No "single rep max."  That is where injuries occur.

●About that competition:  that's where a lot of injuries occur.  CrossFit (of which I am a huge advocate) has been a bit maligned because of a rather high rate of injuries.  In my opinion, those injuries are the result of the competitive nature of CrossFit.

Let me explain that a bit.  In CrossFit, you are always in a competition with yourself, with the clock, and often with those you are working out with.  That makes you work harder, which is part of the good side of CrossFit.  Formal CrossFit competitions are also huge right now.

The problem is that when you exceed your limits, your risk of injury is increased.  The key is to know your limits and stay within them.

●There isn't a lot of value to a flat bench press.   It isn't really a functional activity so its value in sports performance is negligible.  It is also the one exercise that is overemphasized more than all others.

Particularly in younger lifters, the bench press is the gold standard for their perception of how they are doing in the weight room.  "How much can you bench" is a common question among that demographic. 

Yet the overdevelopment of the front of the chest that is the inevitable result of too much emphasis on the bench press yields injuries.  Among weight lifters, it is the single biggest source of shoulder injuries that I see in the clinic.

●Be careful with full squats.  A heavily weighted squat in which you go all the way down as far as you can go is really hard on the knee. I have seen lots of torn menisci from full squats.

Let me close with a few tidbits.  It is more important for the 50+ person to participate in regular strength training than it is the 20-something.  It is extremely important for those prone to osteoporosis (mostly female) to participate in strength training.  Many of the effects of aging can be reduced by good fitness and regular visits to the gym.