6 Moves Wasting Your Precious Gym Time
When you hit the gym, chances are, you want to get the absolute best results from every minute you spend in there, correct? If you’re like most people, that would be a resounding yes.
But yet, many people make the unfortunate mistake of doing certain exercises that really just don’t have that high of a payoff. In the end, this means lagging results.
Fortunately, we are going to set the record straight here today. Below are six moves that are really just wasting your time in the gym. I’ll go over why these are time wasters and which moves you can do to start maximizing your results.
Make the swap and you’ll never look back.
Hip Adductors/Abductors
If there’s one exercise that would be listed as the most awkward and entertaining to watch in the gym, this one might just be it. You sit in the machines and either press your legs apart or push them in together.
In doing so, you think it’s going to work your inner and outer thighs beautifully. While you may start to feel the burn after so many reps, it really isn’t taxing these muscles all that significant. Add to this that your pattern of movement is not very applicable to real life activities (think about it, how often on a daily basis are you doing a movement like this?).
There are simply better options out there.
Smart Swap:
To hit both the inner as well as the outer thigh’s, a better plan is to simply get down and squat. This will not only work those muscles, but your quads and hamstrings as well.
Front Crunches
Moving along, next we have front crunches. You’ll constantly see people making their way to the ab mats and performing front crunch after front crunch. Is this a wise move?
Not really. The problem here is that you simply don’t have that great of a range of movement with this exercise, which then leads to less muscle activation than you ideally should be getting.
Smart Swap:
Instead, focus on decline crunches or crunches on an exercise ball. This will significantly boost your range of motion, allowing you to see much better muscle strengthening benefits.
Here are some other great ab moves worth trying.
Standing Leg Raises
You strap an ankle wrap to your leg, stand a few feet from the cable stack and proceed to move your leg out to the side or back, depending on what angle you want to hit your muscles from. This is a great butt and hip builder, right?
Wrong. The problem here is not only are you not using enough weight to really create a change in the body, but you’re also putting excessive amounts of stress on the knee and ankle joints as well.
Smart Swap:
Once again, squats or deadlifts are your far better option. These multi-muscle exercises allow you to lift a maximum amount of weight and will ensure that every rep you perform is fully challenging your body.
Plus, when performed properly, you actually have less of an injury risk than all these leg raises you are attempting to do.
Glute Kickbacks
Which brings us to the next exercise you may want to consider tossing out of your program: glute kickbacks. You can do this in any exercise machine you like or alternatively, perform it using the cable station as well.
While you will get some glute strengthening benefits from this, there’s just no denying the fact that you can’t lift a heavy load and the range of motion you get doing this movement isn’t all that great.
Smart Swap:
The fact remains that superior options to really shape your backside are lunges, squats, split squats, or hack squats.
With so many better options out there, why not try one of those instead? Glute kickbacks are a good substitute if you happen to be injured and can’t perform these compound exercises, but the rest of the time, choose a smarter exercise instead.
Machine Tricep Press Downs
If you want to build bigger arms, it’s important that you are focusing on working your triceps as often as possible. This muscle is actually the one that makes up for most of the total mass volume in the arm, thus the larger it is, the larger your arms are going to appear. Some people think that having big biceps is key, but really, it’s the tricep muscle that is going not be the focal point.
This said, one tricep exercise you’ll want to avoid using is the machine tricep press down. This machine has you seated in position and then extending the arms through the range of motion until they are fully extended.
While this movement pattern is similar to other tricep extensions you might do, the problem with it is that it locks you into position and the range of movement may not be fully natural for your own body.
This could then lead to excess stress development on the elbow and shoulder joints, putting you at risk for injury.
Smart Swap:
A better solution is to learn how to just perform the exercise out of the machine with a cable weight stack. Using a high cable pulley system, attach a rope and perform your press downs from there.
Or, flip over and do overhead tricep extensions instead with that same rope. This will work your muscle in a very similar movement pattern to what you just did, ensuring you see optimal results.
Also remember that you can really hit your triceps best by doing compound movements like bench press or shoulder press, both of which, while working the chest and shoulders as the primary movement, also target the triceps as well.
Smith Machine Squats
Finally, the last exercise that’s wasting your time in the gym is smith machine squats. You may think that these are a good time investment since they’re squats, after all, and that is what you constantly read youmust be doing.
The problem here is that this machine also locks you into a particular pattern of movement that may not be right for you and may do more harm than good. Not only will it decrease the chances that you see results, but it may set you up for an injury.
Smart Swap:
Learn to free squat using a barbell and a squat rack and you’ll be thankful you did. It’s the single best investment you can make in your workout program.
So take a good look at your protocol. Are any of these exercises in place? If so, it might be time to reconsider these moves and do something else instead.
Here are a few more bonus exercises that you'll want to consider removing from your program if you have them in there.
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