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5 Popular Exercises Your Personal Trainer No Longer Recommends

Popular Exercises to Stop Doing

Trends come and go with virtually everything in life, including popular exercises.  That said, while fashion may change to reflect shifting aesthetic preferences, the components of a workout tend to evolve based on the progress we’re making in understanding the human body. As a result, this means that there are certain moves, equipment types, or entire styles of workout that were once the hottest thing in the fitness world, but that your personal trainer would really rather you didn’t do anymore.

Popular Exercises Your Personal Trainer Won’t Recommend

To get the most out of every minute, make sure you’re doing moves that work and to avoid injury, good personal trainers will keep on top of the latest research in workouts and kinesiology. As a result, you’ll notice that moves that were once very popular exercises will no longer be included in your recommended workouts. In fact, there are some types of exercise that your personal trainer will recommend against.

The following are some moves that were once highly popular exercises but that your trainer will no longer recommend to you if they are worth their salt.

1 – Crunches

If you just breathed a sigh of relief, you’re not alone. Those crunches were torture to do but remained highly popular exercises for decades. Just like the sit-ups that came before them, they just don’t get much in terms of results on their own. Variations of crunches, however, can be highly powerful, particularly when compared to the traditional version.

2 – Leg Presses

Before you give your personal trainer a hard time for including leg presses in a complete lifting routine, it’s important to recognize that these do still have a place in a great workout, when done strategically.  Leg presses can be included in a complete routine for lifting.  However, there are far better exercises to do for better results. These should be included only as a complement to others, since leg presses are easy to do. It usually results in very little – if any – development, but it can complement better moves like goblet squats while holding a single dumbbell, for instance.

3 – Dumbbell Side Bends

It’s hard to go to a gym in which someone isn’t doing this move. These remain highly popular exercises. If you want your middle to be thicker, then certainly, keep doing this workout. However, if your ultimate goal is not to make your obliques thicker and waistline wider, then your trainer will want you to stop doing this lower back stressing move.

4 – Broomstick Twists

This looks like it would be a good move, so it’s easy to see why it became one of the popular exercises at the gym. However, it doesn’t offer any resistance, so it wears out the back and might burn a handful of calories but provides little other benefits.

5 – Seated Hip Abductors

Many people do this because adductor machines make the moves essentially foolproof. However, as much as they are popular exercises, they can easily be replaced by far superior exercises that are functional and use your lower body instead of isolating muscles.