Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1730: The Eight Most Overrated Exercises

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin reveal eight exercises that should not be your first choice when higher value exercises are available. How every exercise has its value if applied PROPERLY. (2:17) The Eight Most Overrated Exercises. #1 – Burpees. (4:38) #2 – Hip abduction/adduction machine. (7:48) #3 – Planks. (11:51) #4 – Leg extension. (15:21) #5 – Peck deck. (20:31) #6 – Combo exercises. (22:33) #7 – Donkey kickbacks. (29:20) #8 – Tricep kickbacks. (32:36) Honorable mentions. (34:43) Related Links/Products Mentioned January Promotion (#1): NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS SPECIAL BUNDLE OFFERS January Promotion (#2): MAPS Anabolic 50% off **Code “JANUARY50” at checkout** Visit Chili Sleep for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Mind Pump #1315: The 8 Best Exercises You Are Not Doing Activate Your Glutes with Tube Walking – Mind Pump TV How to do a PROPER Plank – Mind Pump TV Sissy Squat - The forgotten quad building exercise of the pros – Mind Pump TV Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, please only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pup, right? In today's episode, we talk about the most overrated exercises you could do for your body, so don't do these exercises unless you have a specific reason to do them. Apply them properly and they're okay, but for the most part, people don't do them right,

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fluffy nice one it's always controversial here at Mind Pump Adam. No, you know what? I want to, we did an episode a while ago about the most underrated exercise. Right, so exercises that a lot of people weren't doing that were super valuable and provided an incredible benefit. Let's talk about overrated exercises. Exercises that are valued way more than they should be. Now, I do want to be clear,

pretty much every exercise that is in existence that's used has some value if applied appropriately. So I don't want it overrated, doesn't mean zero value. So there's the caveat. You said that and we're still will get somebody who gets butt hurt. Of course.

You're gonna say something, I know we're all gonna give an exercise. What time stamp that was, it was sad. Yeah, you've already heard some trainer for you. Well, some, some, some, there's gonna be some exercises that some trainers just could, because you know what,

there's, okay, we have a, a good portion, I don't know what percentage, but a good portion of our listener base are trainers and their clients, right? So we've, we've impacted trainers. I'm gonna send it to their clients. Yeah, they just said, they just said, the client's gonna already be a fan and listening.

And they'll be like, hey, they're routine that we just did yesterday had four of the five exercises in my pumps. It was the most original. Don't do that if you're a client. So just to save the trainers ass and the potential that they have. Yeah, because the truth is, I mean, of all these exercises

have applications. And some of them are in some of our programs. And I've used some of these, even when I knew what I was doing, because they have applications. But the exercise that we listed are overrated, because they're used for uses well beyond what they're valuable for. And they're thrown in often. They're overused.

I think that's just, I think that's the term. Every, like you said, every exercise has some value. And there is an application for damn near everything that is out there, but there are, and I think the list that we put together, a bunch of exercises that you see all the time in the gym, and they should be the exercises that you rarely see. That plain and simple.

Or see when they're used specifically in a particular way. Versus getting thrown at the exercises that you rarely see. Which is that that that plan is. Or see when they're used specifically in a particular way versus getting thrown at the general population all the time. Well, if we had to have like some kind of rating system, right? For exercises, like we would put these at the bottom, the least valuable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so here's the first one.

And this is burpees. Burpees became overrated, like over the last 15 years, I would say. I mean, before that, when you saw burpees was when your P.E. coach would punish you and so they make you do a bunch of these things. Right, we used to call them like lumbarities or up downs. Yes, exactly. But burpees became this like, this ingredient

that you could throw into any workout to make them hard. This is how they started becoming you. Yeah, and I think it goes hand in hand with like boot camps and outdoor fitness classes and like the group setting was just a way to exhaust everybody and make them feel like, oh my god, this was like a crazy workout. Which by the way, this is the purpose, the sole purpose of why Joe Ducena puts them in his Spartan race shit. It's the heart. It's the big, hardest book. And he's, I mean, he's a big guy around doing things that are hard for the sake of them

being hard. Right. So in that setting, it makes sense. Yeah. So if you're going to, I mean, for conditioning purposes, for specific applications in the right programming, I think they're totally valuable. But I see trainers just using these as a way to make the workout harder because they're like, oh, I got to make this harder.

Oh, yeah. Purpose. And they throw them in and big people are doing it. Another reason why I think they're very overrated though is because they're done poorly. Yes. When I look at the list of things that we're about to go over right now with all these overrated exercises, this has to be the one that is abused the most and done the most poorly. There's one other one that's up here that you've addressed before on a YouTube episode we did.

But for sure, burpees are done so sloppy. And it can be dangerous and just bad patterns for someone to just be going up and down like that. Flop on the ground and just sort of, yeah, make their way up. Yeah, it's just not, what are you teaching yourself? Like you're just teaching yourself bad habits. And I think that this is one of those exercises

that kind of, it just goes into that category of fatigue where it's almost encouraged to do it to the point where you could barely even like perform a career. Oh yeah, how many times have you seen middle-aged, deconditioned, adults doing burpees? And the burpees are literally hit the deck. And the way you hit the deck is you squat down on your toes, bend over, kick your legs back,

jump back into position. Jump back into position. Jump back into position. And then don't just stand up, stand up and jump, and then do it again. The whole thing is a bunch of danger in risk, and very little value. And for the trainers that are, you know, maybe you're creating,

maybe you are for the day doing something that is, you know, like a hit style or you're trying to get the heart rate elevated, that's your intention. There's other ways that you can do this. Like there's other, I mean, jumping jacks are better than this, you know, and you could do something like that. You could do really slow tempo squats or just body weight, Turkish get ups,

and watch the heart rate increase from doing movements like that, or lunges. There's movements that you can do to elevate the heart rate, to exhaust somebody without I think fatiguing them to the level where their form is gonna sacrifice this bad just to get them exhausted, right? So other stuff we can do.

100%. All right, the next one, which has been overrated for decades, has been overrated as long as I've been working out and working in gyms. And also makes awkward eye contacts. Yeah, every time I go in that. But I don't think gyms should remove them. They should keep you from shooting out.

It's the, we used jokingly call them the good girl bad girl machine. Yeah. Otherwise known as hip adduction abduction. This is the seeded machine where you open your legs or you press them together. Now, it's popular because it works in area that women typically want to sculpt, shape, and get leaner. So the thought process is if I train that area, that's where the body fat's gonna come off of. It doesn't work that way.

Your body doesn't spot, reduce. So training that doesn't do that. That's the main reason, I would say, because there is value to it actually, especially, and I would say even more for guys. Totally. Because they just don't, there's not a lot of movement throughout the day where they're focused on adduction abduction

Well the reason why because there's there's value in the movement. Yes, right that movement pattern that you're alluding to right now But you can get that with a band around the knees walking to walking. Yeah, and it you're gonna It's gonna give you better benefit like more functionality, which is what you're looking for. Right, right? Combining it, because here's somebody who has their knees that collapse in when they squat, this is an exercise that you would teach them, right? You would use, but I would not use the machine.

I would go use a tube walk to simulate that, which their feet are planted on the ground, just like a squat is, it's gonna transfer over and benefit them more than doing that exercise. So for the few places that someone can make the case that this machine has some value, it's like, well, okay, yeah, it does, but I could also list something better than just.

There's some better functional movements you can have. Absolutely, because what the machine aims to do really is kind of hypertrophy the specific muscles in this very controlled setting where you're on a track and you're not stabilizing and balancing or doing anything else. And the reality is the small muscle, both the muscles that add up to an abductor small. I mean, I don't know, I don't think bodybuilders need to really focus on making these grow at all.

And if they did, I think it would be kind of a waste of time. They grow better by doing other exercises. From a correctional exercise purpose, there's value in training, adduction and adduction. But what you said, Adam, is 100% correct. If I'm trying to correct a movement pattern and I'm trying to work adduction, it's gonna be in the setting of a work on the movement.

Yes, it's gonna be in the setting of a walking, you know, a tube walking or while you're squatting or, you know, when I hear, I lunges or caustic squats or. Yeah, one of my favorite ways to strengthen adduction, which is more rare than having to train abduction, but adduction is bringing the knees together, as I would have somebody squat with a physical ball up against the wall and squeeze something between the knees to create that stability intention.

I would not have them or doing single-leg stuff step stepping up to a single-leg balance where they have to stabilize the hip so you get a combination of both those in strengthening that and and and of all the people that use the hip adduction and abduction machine i would all say i'll guess but i think i'm right probably less than five percent if less if not less than 1% are people who are trying to correct an imbalance. No, it's gotten really, you're not a thigh gap. It's gotten really popular, and I don't know which

booty model, Instagram model made this famous, but it's the elevating the ass up in the air because it makes for a sexy video on Instagram that goes viral, and they feel their glute meat on fire, and they're hovering their ass off the bench, and then they're doing it. It's become extremely popular, especially in the women's bikini space.

But again, so many other movements, I can do whatever that girl is doing for that exercise, I can give you at least three to four other exercises that are far more beneficial than doing that silly exercise. But it's become famous, and I think it's become really popular because it's like makes a sexy video on Instagram.

Yeah, 100% does. All right, the next one, I clearly remember when Planck's became the core exercise in the gym. Oh my God. Like, literally, it was like overnight. Like exploded. Okay, now Planck's a stability exercise.

They train stability in the core. By the way, most people do them wrong. They have. Okay, now planks, a stability exercise. They train stability in the core. By the way, most people do them wrong. They have the strong arch on the back, and they're strengthening, really, this hip flexor stability. Usually, people need to strengthen their core stability, so I like more of a tailbone tucked or posterior pelvic tilt position.

There's a video I did a long time ago that kind of went viral over it, but I remember specifically, and I think it was a certification that taught this, but I remember trainers never did planks. There wasn't even an exercise. And then all of a sudden, it was the core exercise. And everybody did planks all the time, and they did them

for time, and how long can you go, and forget your form, as long as you keep your body off the floor, that's a plank, and this is what's going on. And what are we reinforcing here, the whole time, we're holding this With bad form. Yeah tight Hips like oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, which happened to be like one of the most common problems that you have to solve for people People that sit down at desk all day long have shortened tight

Shred flexors and then sitting in a position in a plank You're most of that is hip flexor that is holding very few people are actually using their core They're normally resting at all on their hip flexor. Yeah, I see a lot of planks with anterior pelvic tilts, strengthening the anterior pelvic tilt. You hear people complain of planking hurting their back, so it's not supposed to. You're not supposed to feel this in your low back at all when you do a plank. And the way that it's programmed into workouts

is almost always to fatigue and form out the window. Basically, how long can you hold yourself off the floor? Again, I remember when this became a thing in gyms, and I wanna say it was maybe 99 or 2000, all of a sudden everybody was doing it, and then it was like, how long can you plank for? I can do two minutes, I can do three minutes. Then there were playing competitions.

I don't know if you guys ever saw these. I'm guilty of this. I'm just, I'm guilty of this in our gym. We're in our trainer gym. This in the gym, yeah. It became very popular when I was in my early 20s, training in gyms, and just like you said, and it's too pronged here, right?

So not only did we, you know, think that we were doing some good with helping with core training, but it also became an easy, lazy way to end your training session. I mean, you go, have a client go sit in a fight. We got 15 minutes left, what are we gonna do? Yeah, go over, go over, you know, over there where you get to sit down and relax

and they're not moving anywhere, there's not a lot of coaching going on. You just hold it, let's see how long and all I do is I watch a watch for fucking five minutes. You know what I'm saying? Like, for sure, yeah, 100% guilty of that. And I think it was justified because I thought that I was helping or doing some good.

But like you said, clear indication, you brought up the low back thing. I mean, that's a clear indication that you are resting on the hip flexors, right? The hip flexors are starting to pull in that area. Those give out and then you feel that stress in the low back. If you do, if you actually do them correctly, you will feel in your core and abs,

which very few people that get down and do a plank. Can actually get into that position. Yeah, get into the position where they feel it in their abs. In fact, most people have to do it off their knees when they do it the right way. And they feel themselves really activating the core in the right way.

Now, again, does it mean that there's applications to planks? Planks are in a lot of our programs, but we program them a specific way. And most of the time, people use them just haphazardly and they're not programmed properly. And they're overrated as a core strengthening, building, exercise. They have value, but by themselves, again,

just totally overrated. All right, this next one is gonna cause a little bit of controversy. I know it. And that's the leg extension. Probably I would argue the most popular leg machine in the gym. Would you guys agree or disagree? That is a leg press, yeah.

Right, yeah. It's gotta be, right? I would actually argue with you on this one five, well maybe more than that now, eight, eight, nine, before we got together. It wasn't until you introduced Cicci Squads to me what I have argued this. Like I just thought that one of the best ways to isolate the quads has to be the leg extensions

and the biggest bang for isolating the quads, right? Obviously, leg press and squat and haxt squat worked out, but you get a lot of other things you're working in. If I just wanna work my quads, I thought leg extensions were the superior movement until I did a Sissy squat. After doing a Sissy squat and the range of motion that you can do with a Sissy squat and the how functional it is and the amount of strength that you can build from that hands

down, I don't think it comes even close. Well, for me, it was in the same thing with the Sissy Squad, but also I was just always preferred, like front squats. I always preferred to do a goblet squat or something like that with my heels elevated and be able to do something a little bit more of a compound exercise versus an isolated exercise like that. So I never really found, unless it's for a rehabilitative purpose, but most physical therapists even talked me out of using that. So I just, I never really found, you know, unless it's for like a rehabilitative

purpose, but most physical therapists even talked me out of using that. Yeah, the sheer force on the patella tendon and positioning. I could see rehab applications. I could see poor connection, which is not too common, but sometimes you see poor connection to quad, especially after an injury, where maybe it's helping you really connect in squeeze and so when you're first connecting. Imagine someone who just had like an MCL tear. Yeah, right.

Okay, that makes sense, right? Like I'm not gonna throw a barbell back squat on that person as their first exercise. They're gonna do things like leg extension. So keep that in mind as we talk about stuff like that. There are, that's a specific application for somebody that where that machine makes sense. There's a reason why it's still in the gym. Bodybuild stuff like that, that's a specific application for somebody that with that machine makes sense. There's a reason why it's still in the gym.

Bodybuilders include it because it's cheap volume, meaning it adds volume, not a lot of stress and damage. So you get the pump, so it's like one of those really called finisher exercises. So I could see that. That's commanding. But keep in mind bodybuilders, leg extensions are at the end of a you know, 20 set work out

You should you have to if you're gonna go that direction because you know you're gonna get pushback on this one By the way, of course We'll probably get out of all the ones we have on here We might get the most pushback on this one and of course and one of the arguments you're going to get is the Eastim Argument with how much are the what's the machine that lights shows the how much oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah God now you screwed me up muscle simp. much oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah the MRIs or the shows the activations yes why not no

activation yeah no what is it what you're on the right track I can't even think of the name of the machine right now that tells you how much of the mg yes thank you mg thank you so you're gonna get that because there's studies around the lake extension showing how much the quads are lit up on one of those machines. That doesn't mean strength gains, doesn't mean muscle gains, doesn't mean functional. It just talks about how much the muscle's active.

So it doesn't tell you much. Like you can, your biceps or let's say your lats, for example, you'll light them up with a straight arm pull down, but they're not gonna build as much as when you can do a pullup just from the sheer tension and load. So same thing with this exercise. It's not very functional, leg extension. Like if you add 50 pounds to your leg extension, you're not gonna see a whole lot of carryover

to anything else. No, that's a transit, well. No, but if you add 50 pounds to your Sissy squat, you'll see a lot more carryover. So it's a much more functional. Now I will say this, CC squats are hard. So you may need a band for assistance. Some people just can't do them because the hard use assisted by holding on to something.

Yes, or hold on. That's how I started. Absolutely. You know what, though, the same thing happened to me with leg extensions as what happened to me with leg curls when I talked to you guys about. So I went on this kick and it was when we all first got together when I really started deadlifting like crazy.

And along with that, I was also barbell back squatting more than I ever did, either. And I completely eliminated some of these staple exercises, leg extensions, being one of them, and leg curls being the other one. And those were both exercises that I had done for over a decade. And I'd reached to kind of like the peak of my strength

in those two areas, completely stopped doing them. All I did was barbell back squat, And I'd reached to kind of like the peak of my strength in those two areas, completely stopped doing them. All I did was, Barbell Back Squad, all I did was deadlift for those muscle groups, came back to it after, I don't know, maybe eight months to a year of training that way, and PR'd my leg extension and leg curls, without doing it at all.

So remember, I'm not training it at all, come back to it, not done it at all for eight months, and was doing more weight on both legs than in leg curls. And I have ever had in my entire life after I had stopped doing it for eight months because of how powerful deadlifting and squatting was for those muscle bands. Now would the reverse have happened? No. Not even close.

Had you avoided squats and deadlifts and dead just leg extensions and leg curls, you would have come back far weaker in those other big compound lifts. The carryover is a big thing, but again, applications in certain cases it's just overused, which makes it overrated. All right, the next one is the PEC deck. Okay, so now I know that there's value in exercises like the PEC deck, like a cable crossover or a cable fly. I think those are pretty valuable.

The PEC deck really was a poorly designed chess machine. I mean, it puts you in external rotation. Yeah, you have to be specific. You're talking about the one where your arm that would have passed, right? Yeah, I like this. I like this. Yes, that's different, right?

That's different. Where you're able to put yourself in this kind of position here where you're not externally rotated, right? At the humorous, that's the upper arm. PECDEC with the arm up here, and you don't see them as often anymore, I think because people like this right here is not a very good feeling in the shoulder.

And they still exist. In fact, I would... Well, that's a serious stress on the shoulder. I remember as a trainer, and I would do it because the bodybuilders did it, but I remember always thinking, like, I don't like the way this feels. I had a trainer come up to me and say,

put your hands on the pads. I would do this. I would let the pads. I don't want that to later. Yeah, I would let the pads rest in between the crook of my arms and I would do that. No, I actually at first grabbed the pads and then later on I learned what you did.

And it was like mind blowing. Whoa, this is a totally different exercise. So the reason why the peck deck is overrated is because it's poorly designed. Now, some people can do this and have no pain, which is totally fine. But I dare you, if you like to do this kind of extra-rotated PEC deck,

try bringing your arm in a better position, see how much more connected you feel to your chest. Yeah, and like you said, there's other machines that actually do that where your arms can go out wide and it has a totally different Functional feel to it as opposed to having my arms limited to this position, which does put unnecessary It's like you know in jiu-jitsu. There's an arm. There's an arm lock called an Americana

It almost puts you in that position That's where it got me. Yeah, it's like any moment you're like oh totally well I've seen people get hurt doing that because Because it adds like a thing where you can adjust and I've seen people put it way back and then they load and then it goes, it goes a drop-in. First thing you can do. And they hurt their shoulder.

Yeah, absolutely. Alright, so this next one, by the way, I was, by the way, I just want to be clear, guilty of using all these exercises wrong when I train clients, especially in the first half of my career. But probably the most guilty of all of these things is what I'm about to talk about.

Okay, which is this was kind of embarrassing. Yeah, I was still very common in June right now. Especially with early trainers, it's like an easy way to try and hit everything. It is. It's the combo exercises. This is where you take multiple exercises and dilute them. Yeah, it's like Make them shitty

Hey, this is that that's the way to say this. This is how you take a bunch of good exercises and make them shit Yes, here was my favorite one. This is the one. I don't know I just I know where you're right. We run to curl to press. I would add to that. Lunge to curl to balance to press. Oh! I just meant to. That was my move right there. That was my move from like 20 to 26. Back lunge to step up to press. To back lunge to row.

Wow! I mean, I got crazy. Yeah, and when you combine all these different exercises, you actually start to take away the value of each of the exercises, and it just becomes an overall, I don't know, a burning calorie movement, in which case the movement doesn't really matter as much. What you really do is this, okay, we just would you say, a lunch, a balance, a curl, a press, right? There's four exercises. We've said this before. If every exercise

has a value, let's say a one to ten, one being terrible, 10 being great, and let's say those four exercises have an average of eight, or they have a, you know, ones of seven, ones of eight, ones of nine, ones of six, or whatever that, you literally just take off four points on each one of them. That's by combining them all together, and their value when standing alone, what they value you as far as what they give to you,

by combining them like that, you literally take three to four points off of all. And part of the problem is the weight that you use for five different exercises is not appropriate for half or most of them, right? So what I can lunge with while holding is not what I'm going to use to curl and not what I'm going to use to shoulder press. So when you're doing this exercise with the client, they fatigue on the curl before they fatigue on the lunge,

or is it- Just why you're gonna use five pound dumbbells. One of them is, yeah, way demanding in the rest, this like, or basically useless. Yes, and the form starts to break down on one of them, and then the client is almost encouraged, not even, you know, not even, you're not even explicitly encouraging this,

it's just implicit in kind of the movement that form isn't as important. Now, okay, some of these movements we've talked about, exceptions to the role of where we would still use it or where it has application. Do you see any application here or is there any exception to the role here where knowing what you know now today,

would you ever program that? I would combine maybe two in a movement. I wouldn't do the three or four. Like I could see like a squat to balance or a back step lunge to toe touch. If I'm really working on, you know, like hip extension and stability type of stuff. But when you start to get to three, four,

you know, you start to do the man's scientist, what's that, what is it called when people make a complicated machine to do a simple task? Oh, Roops Goldberg. Yeah, it's like you're doing the Roops Goldberg with exercises. Yeah, no, I know. Yeah, what was it, Doug? You know what it's called? Oh, that sounds right.

Sounds about right. Okay, so no, but yeah, I obviously see that in lunch matrix or I've done this with step-ups is way to program different ways of hitting multiple planes but as long as you're controlled and you're basically loaded Similar and you're not trying to add like you know curling pressing and all these things to interrupt it I think that that for me You know, I find justification there when I'm trying to kind of move in different directions.

Yeah, I told one of my last clients, right, that Christine, who I still see occasionally, that if there was a movement that I would like you to be able to continue to do forever, so she's in her mid-50s. I said, it's the step up to balance, to toe touch. Yeah. So I can see lots of value in that. And even though I know I'm not going to build tremendous strength with that, but the functionality of that movement, being capable to step up on a high step, to stabilize the

hips and then to hinge the body over and stabilize the hips in the hinge. I just think is it hits so many things that you want to keep healthy as you advance into age. So I do see like an application for that and I do see how, you know, having somebody who's an advanced age saying, hey, this is something I want you to be able to do forever for as long as you can. And I've told, that's exactly what I said.

I was, listen, if you and I move on from each other and I don't see you in a decade from now or whatnot, like if there's one thing you can remember from me, be able to do this. And just keep making sure that you can do this. I also like certain exercises where you can maintain a nice symmetric position, but also have to do work. Like so, right.

So if I'm doing, like, so if I'm getting rid of the bench and say I'm using a stability ball or just a ground to do a hip bridge and then I'm doing a press, you know, something like that where I'm including, you know, the hip bridge is the isometric hold. Or a tripod position with a row or something like that. We're using the, the, the core stability. Exactly. Like I could see that. And again, combo exercises done properly

in the right application have value, but they were almost never used that way. By the way, you know where they came from? They came from group exercise classes. That's your starting point. Yeah, it reminds me of body pump shit. That's exactly where it came from. Yeah, when you look at like the, you know,

24-hour fitness or the less mills, like body pump type classes, they're like these. That's what they did. Yeah, yeah, for conditioning. That's what they did. Yeah, for conditioning, again, so this is a little bit, it's cringey for me because I still, I'll do combo stuff for conditioning, but it's different because I feel like

that's the purpose that I'm focused on is a controlled, for instance, with kettlebells, I'll do transitionary exercises, but it just flows well between the difference. And the truth is, and this is the truth now, the more movements you combine together into one movement, the more crucial experience in programming is, because you're adding more variables, and if you know what you're doing, then you're putting together something that's

going to work really well. If you don't know what you're doing, what you're putting together something that's going to work really well. If you don't know what you're doing, what you're actually doing is taking all those x-like we said earlier, all those exercises and make them far less valuable. So that's why they're so damn overrated is because when you see them being done, it's almost never done by someone who understands how to combine those things. All right, the next one, this one we might get a little heat from. Really? Maybe because it's like in every butt building

You know whatever workout for women or whatever donkey kickbacks I'm talking about the ones on the floor with no weight or with an ankle weight and they're doing the donkey kickback now I could see value in Correcting in a balance as a As a funder as a primer. Yeah, I mean as a primer Absolutely tremendous value as a primer as an exercise, as a primer, absolutely, tremendous value as a primer, as an exercise to build muscle in the butt trash. Totally.

Absolute trash. The worst thing that if you're out there and you're at home and you're doing these things, trying to build a butt, good luck, you're digging a pool with a spoon. You feel it, but you're not really stressing or putting it in demand on it. So that's the point to make right there, is there's this misconception.

And by the way, I fell for this too, as a young trainer, is thinking that just because I feel it, the most from the exercise, I remember even telling people that, you should do the ones that you feel the most. It's like, no, and that kind of goes back to the leg extension point you're making. It's just because you feel a movement in the area

you're targeting the most, doesn't mean it's going to build the most muscle there. It's, you know, when it's valuable to feel something, when you can't feel that muscle doing anything else. Which is the priming point. Yeah, so like if you have poor connection to your glute muscles, you're like, I can't feel them when I hip thrust,

I can't feel them when I barbell squat, I can't feel them when I deadlift, then doing something like this helps you connect to the muscle, just like maybe leg extensions. Like, I can't connect to my quads and never feel them. Well, this exercise isolates it so much that you're going to feel it and it's going to help you feel it in these other more valuable exercises. But they're not used that way.

You almost never see donkey kickbacks being used that way. They're almost always used as a butt builder, in which case, the tension is too low, the reps are too high. And it's just an ineffective butt building. And I would see it all to, I mean, it's, it's up there too with like the jump lunges and all these like high intensity butt exercises that I would see it. I'd see, I'd see these core bikini competitors. That's when I saw out the most right, doing these movements. And I'm like, oh my God, you, you do this at the front of your workout and you fatigue the fuck out of your glutes. And then even if you do good movements like squatting and deadlifting later, that muscle so damn fatigued, it's not activating or working. Your other muscles

are taking you over the movement. That's probably really good for that. It's like, if you really want to fire the glutes and you want to use it as a primer, okay, do a round or two of it with, we can feel it. Yeah, just it. You're not trying to fatigue it. You're not trying to get it burning like crazy. It's like, you're just trying to activate it, get it to light up and then go do the movements, like squatting and deadlifting and good mornings and these other movements that are really going

to build the glutes. You're wasting your time doing that. Yeah, I remember reading an article, I wish I remember who wrote this and the argument you're making was made so well in this article that it completely changed how I worked out myself. I was a kid, and it was the argument,

you know, just because you feel an exercise, doesn't mean, or a muscle burns, doesn't mean it's a great muscle builder. And the example that this person used was brilliant. They said, you could extend your arms out to your sides and do shoulder circles for two minutes, and your shoulders will for two minutes, and your shoulders will be on fire,

but they're not gonna build with an overhead press. And I thought, that's so true. And that made perfect sense to me, and I changed my training up far better results after that. All right, the next one, I didn't necessarily want to put this up here. Hey! You did it.

You did it. So I'm not gonna write it down there. Just and I twisted cells are with this one of them because in a recent episode I don't know What the question was or it would sell brought up tricep kickbacks and I vividly remember the look on Justin's face Because it was probably meered the look on my face Like did that will just say tricep kickbacks for next exercise? So I I tend to like them just cuz I can get a good pump and squeeze in the muscle,

but I can see your argument as to why they're overrated. People do these in place of a close grip push up or a press or a line triceps in the barrel. I mean, I'm guilty of every female I trained from 2000 to 2005. I tried to kick backs in their workout. Every female. It was just, I know you used to do it where they were one one one knee was on the bench. The other leg was out straight. So they were trying to have to kind of balance the stabilized.

Oh, yeah, you can buy two words. I did I did I could buy two wordless exercise guilty as charged, right? So I you know, I did this time of shit and I did it for years, you know, thinking that this time of shit and I did it for years, you know, thinking that it was a great exercise. Again, when someone does a trisive kickback, they feel it, it's hard to extend it and so they feel that trisive,

but kind of like to your shoulder analogy is if, you know, just because you feel it and the trisive right there, that shit is not gonna come close to a dip or a close bit. Yeah, I could name seven exercises that are more effective. That's right. Maybe that's a good way to say this, right?

Like, we're not saying, like we've said already. It's like a rating system. It's like very, very volatile. I can name five to seven exercises better than every single thing on here. And that's a good way to put this is that that's what we mean by overrated. Not that they don't have some value

or they don't have application. It's just that if I can name seven other movements, literally anything in the name kickback in there is garbage. I'm trying to think what else is good. Unless it's a government check. Just go with that standard. Those are garbage. Give me my mic.

That money kickback is that exist? I'm trying to exercise. It's not, yeah. All right, so we have some honorable mentions. Yeah, yeah. That we're going to bring up. They make the cut, but we have some honorable mentions. Yeah, yeah. That we're gonna bring up. They make the cut, but we had to do that. They didn't make the cut,

but really that's because they're kind of general categories. They're not specific exercises. We are, or maybe we thought people wouldn't be familiar with them, just some people don't know what they own. Yeah, like, and not enough people are doing them to really talk about them, but I'll bring one up. I know you guys have your own.

For me, it's, I find this so hilarious. I think people are bored or trying to make cool videos for Instagram or They're smelling their own farts. They think there's so much smarter. This happens then they really are and that's when people use machines In ways that they're totally not designed to be used so like a good example is like Getting on the hammer-strain chest press and then doing it sideways. Like you ever see that sideways roll. Okay, so popular hilarious. Or did he make that popular? I'd never seen it until that kid did it.

Yeah, like you was doing this all day. Yeah, like what do you work your inner chest? No, you don't and it's stupid. This one, I've seen this one many times. I don't understand why you're gonna do this, but people use the leg press like a shoulder press. Oh, that was an this one many times, I don't understand why you're gonna do this, but people use the leg press, like a shoulder press. Oh, that was an interesting one when that got popped. Yeah, like they're sitting on the part where you're supposed to lay back on.

Yeah. And then the platform, they're pressing with the arm. They're pressing, there's like seven other shoulder machines in the gym, and then dumbbells and dumbbells. Yeah. I don't understand what the purpose is. I don't know, again, I think people are just like, they they're smarter yeah, then inventors of machines or something like I'm gonna So I like to admit every time that I did some of those stupid things

I definitely did stuff like this and I totally remember why I did it so as a young I did I did I wanted the attention not from like gym members But from people potentially that would buy training for yes, it was a conversation starter I love to take a because I understood biomechanics, I understood how the muscles needed to be. Oh, not better than that, Trace. And I could take, I could take like, a calf raise, okay?

I could take a calf raise machine and turn it into a shrug. He's so creative. You know what I'm saying? I could do something like that. I've seen that. I would do she like that. A calf machine like that.

And you would get the craziest looks and it would always create somebody would come over and be like, what are you doing? I'm like, oh, well, let me, let me, let me book appointment with you so I can first hack squat. Yeah. Front. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to give you a pass, dude, because you're, you're building

your business and you're using it. Right. There was a little strategy. That was very smart advertising. I didn't explain that many, a lot of sense. I did. So, that's, so I, I'm guilty of doing this, but I did have a desired outcome. The desired outcome was it was so unique or weird

or different that somebody would question it or challenge me and then I would be able to explain why I'm doing it. And then now I could pretend like I'm this really smart. I've seen people do shrugs on a preacher-choral machine. I saw a girl do hip thrust on a leg extension. That's actually become more popular. More popular, I see that. To hip thrust on a leg extension. That's actually become more popular. More popular to get underneath like a leg extension machine.

Have you seen that? And turn it into. Yeah, they take the thrust. Yeah, they have. Yeah, look, I guess, I mean creativity, I guess just means you're doing things different. So in that case, these are very creative people, but so little value.

It's hilarious. Machines, use them the way they're designed. If you want to get creative, do it with free way through. I want to make a point about those people, right? Because I've seen this, I also see that in the bikini competitor community a lot, is the person like that, it's not that big of a deal. So what, that person's in the gym for two hours.

They probably did a bunch of things for them. Yeah, jump volume, there's the mission. Yeah, whatever, you know, shock it up to them being boy. What happens, okay, in the gym space is some quiet shy lady sees that who's just getting into fitness and she sees the way that girl looks. Yeah, she looks amazing. And she's doing the stupid exercise.

Right. Instead of squatting and lifting. Right. And so then she thinks that and this is where we get this kind of. What's really annoying? Yeah, monkey see monkey do type of behavior where somebody sees a body that looks really good. They see him doing a stupid movement and then it gets legs.

It's like, oh wow, that must be. Look at her or look at him. And he's doing the sideways peck deck. I'm gonna try and do that. So I think that's where the end to that person, you know, who cares? And I know they're arguing that back, well, look at me or look how it's like,

okay, well, that's because of the two hours you spend in here doing all the other shit. I mean, mine kind of goes in line with the machine because technically it is a machine because if it's an assisted pullup, you know, it's there to assist your pullup. Oh, I know what you're saying. Not, it's for a leg press.

Oh yeah. Not to step on it and push it down, using gravity and everything else. Okay, I don't understand that. I just, and I'm waiting there to use it, you know, for its intended purpose and somebody's there doing this all day. Yeah, it's okay.

You wanna press one leg, use a leg press. You could step up on a set. Yeah, you get explain, what Justin is talking about. There's a machine, they're calling it, they're assisted pull up or a gravitron and you step up on it and you put your knees on it

It has weight and it assists you or there's a bar that you stand right or there's the other bar You stand on and it helps you to do pull ups great machine for that purpose right for if you're actually doing pull ups on it And some trends started maybe a decade ago or that's probably I saw it at least six seven years ago the first time Where somebody would get up on there and they put one leg and they push it down. Yeah. The stupidest thing ever. It's just a lunge, a step up, a leg, I mean,

there I can name 20 episodes. So many other options that you can get way more muscle activity and function out of it than whatever you're doing with that. Yeah, and even if you used enough resistance to make a difference, you would just step your body up. You would have to push it down. It makes no sense. Yeah, it would work.

But actually, you actually used enough weight. You wouldn't be able to move it down. No, you would have to step up. It's already helping you. Come on. All right, okay. So if that's yours, then I want to add one that I think the reason is that I want to see it end.

And another popular trend that you saw on Instagram, which is the the guys and girls I've seen guilty this, but mostly guys doing the the crunches hanging upside down with a friend punching. In the stomach, yeah, or the leg lifts with I thought that was just one viral video. And there are there is only one application for that is if you are a fucking fighter If you were an actual fighter Rocky did them in Rocky one and he's a fighter that's where it started So exactly where so unless you were a fighter It does not and then really the application and the adaptation you're seeking is can I take a fucking punch while I'm doing other shit

And that's what fighters have to do fighters have to have to move around, throw punches, and take a punch in their stomach. So if you were that person, then okay, you just find everybody else, you're an idiot. Getting hit in a muscle does not induce muscle hypertrophy or strength or fat loss. Literally when boxers do movement, because it's okay, it comes from old school boxing exercises with medicine balls.

Old school medicine balls were actually filled with sand, they were big and they were heavy. Now we have rubber ones and stuff like that. And boxers would get hit in the gut with them. And what they did is they trained you to breathe and had a take a punch, because there's actually a technique to being able to take a blow.

Oh wow, bracing. Yes, there's a technique to it. And that's what they're learning. There's zero other application. In fact, it will only reduce the ability for you to work your abs through full range of motion. I think it's one of those things where they're like, I wanna look cool.

I wanna look really cool. I'm telling this thing up. You know what we should do? We should go to a gym and do that for other body parts. It's like, why I do curls? Punch chest and the glutes. Yeah, it's like, oh, it's quite a game.

Oh. Can we make a video? That would be, that's the next viral video right there. New butt extra. Why would you do it, girls? Yeah, amazing. Pudge me the bicep. Oh, my.

Yeah. hilarious. So there you have it. Overrated exercises and some honorable mentions. Look, if you like our information, head over to MindPumpFree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any fitness goal. Also, you can find us on social media,

Justin is on Instagram at MindPump. Justin, Adam and I have been Shadow Band by Instagram, but if you try real hard, you can find us, and then you can find out while we're Shadow Band, you can find me at MindPump Sal and Adam at MindPump.com. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy,

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