Form Is Critical:5 Common Exercises That Carry a High Risk of Injury

August 15, 2021

by Cathe Friedrich

Strength training, with weights or your body weight, is the best way to improve your fitness level and physique. Plus, consistent strength training will help you avoid the muscle loss that occurs with age and leads to frailty, balance issues, and an increased risk of falling. Plus, having more muscle on your frame is beneficial for weight control and metabolic health. Concerned about osteoporosis? Lifting weights also encourages bone-producing cells called osteoblasts to lay down new bone tissue.

Despite the benefits of strength training, it also carries a risk of injury, especially when you first start and haven’t mastered good weight training form. Learn how to do the exercises right from day one and focus from start to finish. It is estimated that 88% of all injuries occur during the first minute of exercise, so if you are not properly warming up before you begin lifting and getting your mind focused on the task at hand, you could be setting yourself up for an injury.

Some of the most common causes of strength-training injuries are:

Using improper form
Not warming up properly
Using improper equipment
Working with a weight that’s too heavy
Not mastering the exercise before adding weights
Being inattentive during the exercise
Rushing through a workout

It’s also important to pick the right exercises and workouts. Some exercises have a higher injury risk. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do them, you should take extra care and learn how to do them properly. Let’s look at some of these higher-risk ones. You should also avoid high-risk exercises if you have orthopedic issues.

Sit-ups

Sit-ups are popular for building abs, but they’ve lost some favor lately. Why? You also put stress on your lower back and spine when you do this exercise. Plus, you’re working your hip flexors more than your abdominal muscles. Sit-ups can tighten your hip flexors and may cause or worsen lower back pain. Since you aren’t only working the muscles you’re trying to work and it’s extra stress on your spine, you may be better off doing safer exercises to work your abs, such as planks. Then progress to more advanced variations of planks to build strong abs. Many compound exercises that work other muscle groups, like deadlifts and squats, also indirectly work your abs and core if you do them correctly.

Box Jumps

Box jumps are a type of plyometric movement that coaches use to help athletes increase power and increase their vertical jump height. They’re also popular among people who strength train. Although box jumps can boost your lower body’s ability to generate power and increase your vertical jump height, it’s an exercise that places strain on your knees.

If you do them often or with poor form, you could end up with a bad case of patellar tendonitis. Plus, you place added stress on your joints that can come back to haunt you later as osteoarthritis. Box jumps are high-impact and aren’t a good choice if you have a history of a knee injury or knee arthritis. If you do them, practice until you can land lightly on the top of the box. Never jump down off the box. Instead, step off to reduce the impact on your knees.

Military Press Behind the Head

Pressing upward from behind your neck is a risky movement. To do it safely you need a strong core, healthy shoulders, and good shoulder mobility. If you lack these characteristics or use improper form, you’ll place excessive stress on the rotator cuff muscles that stabilize your shoulder. If you tear a rotator cuff muscle, it can take 6 months or longer to heal.

People do this exercise too aggressively, which is another problem. They grab the bar and pull it down quickly and forcefully. Using too much momentum makes the exercise riskier and reduces the benefits too. Instead, work your shoulders and upper back with overhead presses. With overhead presses, the bar is out in front of you, which is a safer position for your shoulders and is less likely to injure your upper back or shoulders.

Upright Row

Upright rows can irritate shoulders for some people if they don’t do it right. Upright rows also work the anterior shoulder more than the medial or posterior shoulder regions and these are the areas that need more work. Are there safer options? You can do lateral raises and bent-over lateral raises and get similar results with a higher margin of safety. By doing so, you’ll strengthen your shoulder’s lateral and posterior regions with less risk of injury.

Any Exercise with Weights That You Haven’t Mastered without Weights

Any exercise is risky if you use sloppy form or haven’t mastered the form. Learn proper technique using light weights or no weights. That’s the best way to learn the proper form and not build bad habits. It’s hard to unlearn a bad habit, and one downside to poor form is a higher risk of injury. The bottom line is you can get injured doing any exercise if you use a heavy weight too soon. Start light or without weights and build from there. Don’t try to rush the process by working with weights too quickly.

The Bottom Line

The best way to train is safely, so you avoid injury. If you do these five exercises, use a warm-up properly, use good form, and don’t do them every time you train. For most exercises, there is a safer substitute, as mentioned. Consider doing those instead.

References:

Harvard Health Publishing. “Want a stronger core? Skip the sit-ups”

“Rotator cuff injury – Symptoms and causes – Mayo Clinic.” 30 Apr. 2020, mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/rotator-cuff-injury/symptoms-causes/syc-20350225.

“Patellar Tendonitis (Jumper’s Knee) | Johns Hopkins Medicine.” hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/patellar-tendonitis-jumpers-knee.

“To Flex or Not to Flex? Is There a Relationship Between ….” 29 Feb. 2020, .jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.2020.9218.

“Resistance training is medicine: effects of strength ….” pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22777332/.

“Avoid These 3 Mistakes for Better, Safer Box Jumps | STACK.” 14 Apr. 2014, www.stack.com/a/box-jump-mistakes/.