 Oh boy, here we go, another fun, maybe controversial episode. We talk about the most overrated exercise exercises that people do, why they do them, and why they shouldn't do them for the most part. By the way, here's the giveaway for today's episode, right? Maps Power Lift. We're gonna give that away for free to one of you lucky viewers, but you gotta do this in order to win. You gotta leave a comment in the first 24 hours that we dropped this episode. Tell us your favorite exercise, tell us your least favorite exercises, and why, have a nice discussion, good debate. You also gotta subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If you do all those things, and we pick your comment, we'll notify you, and you'll get free access to an incredible program, Maps Power Lift, also all month long, to help people get started with their fitness or to stay consistent with their fitness, because it is January, this is when everybody gets going. We put together three workout bundles. Each one of them includes nine months of exercise programming. That means for nine months, you have everything planned out for you. Exercises, there's video demos, reps, sets, everything set up for you. Each bundle includes multiple workout programs. Here's what they are. We have a beginner bundle, an intermediate bundle, and an advanced bundle. You can find all of them at mapsjanuary.com. Also, if you just wanna try one Maps program, if you haven't tried Maps yet, and you wanna get started, see what it's all about. The flagship program is Maps Anabolic. We're making that program 50% off right now. You can find that at mapsred.com, but you gotta use the code January 50 for that discount. All right, here comes the show. All righty then. Is this one gonna be a controversial one, or is this going to be a fluffy, nice one for everyone? It's always controversial here at MinePump, Adam. No, you know what, 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, provided an incredible benefit. Let's talk about overrated exercises. Exercises that are valued way more than they should be. Now I do wanna be clear, pretty much every exercise that is in existence that's used has some value if applied appropriately. So I don't wanna, overrated doesn't mean zero value. I just wanna say that. So there's the caveat. You said that, and we still will get somebody who gets butt hurt. Of course. Because you're gonna say something. You're gonna get, I know we're all gonna give an exercise. Over time stamp that was, it was sad. Yeah, get ready to hurt some trainer. There's gonna be some exercises that some trainers just could, cause you know what, there's, okay, we have 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 impacted trainers. They're sending it to their client. Yeah, they're just, the client's gonna already be a fan and listening. And they're gonna be like, hey, the routine that we just did yesterday had four of the five exercises that MinePump said was the most overrated. Don't do that if you're a client right now. Just to save the trainer's ass and the potential that they have. Yeah, cause the truth is, I mean, of all these exercises. They all 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 in programming. I think that's just, I think that's the term. 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. Yeah. That plain and simple. Or see when they're used specifically in a particular way. Right, versus getting thrown at the general population all the time. Well, if we had to have some kind of rating system for exercises, we would put these as the least valuable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, okay, so here's the first one. And this is just burpees. Burpees became overrated like over the last 15 years, I would say. I mean, before that, when you saw burpees was when your PE coach would punish you. And so they make you do a bunch of these. Right, we used to call them like Lombardies or up-downs. Yes, exactly. But burpees became 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 Decina puts them in his Spartan race shit. It's their heart. It's the bitch in the hardest block. And 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 gonna, 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 gotta make this harder. Oh yeah, burpees and they throw them in and people are doing them. Another reason why I think they're very overrated though is because they're done poorly. Yes. Because they're always done to fatigue. When I look at the list of things that we're about to go over right now of 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. Just 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 it correctly. 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. Low back is arched. Yeah, jump back into position and then don't just stand up, stand up and jump and then do it again. Like the whole thing is a bunch of danger and risk and very little value. And for the trainers that are, 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 what I'm saying? You could do something like that. You could do really slow tempo squats or just body weight Turkish getups and watch the heart rate increase from doing movements like that or lunges. You know, like 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 going to sacrifice this bad and just for the, just to get them exhausted, right? There's other stuff we can do. 100%. All right, the next one which has been overrated for decades. It's been overrated as long as I've been working out and working in gyms. And also makes awkward eye contact. Yes. Every time I go in the gym. But I don't think gyms should remove them. They should keep the machine out. Is the, we used to jokingly call them the good girl, bad girl machine. Otherwise known as hip abduction, abduction. This is the seated machine where you open your legs or you press them together. Now it's popular because it works an area that women typically want to sculpt, shape and get leaner. And so the thought process is if I train that area that's where the body fat's going to 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 abduction, abduction. The reason why, because there's value in the movement. Yes. That movement pattern that you're alluding to right now, but you can get that with a band around the knees walking, two walking. And it's gonna give you better benefit. More functionality, which is what you're looking for when you're training this. Combining it when you, because here's somebody who has like their knees that collapse in when they squat. This is an exercise that you would teach them. 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 makes, 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 like hypertrophy these 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 adduct and abduct are 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 abduction. But what you said Adam is 100% correct. If I'm trying to correct a movement pattern and I'm trying to work abduction, it's going to be in the setting of a. Work on the movement. Yes, it's going to be in the setting of a walking, you know, a tube walking or while you're squatting or, you know, when I, here's how I. Side lunges or Cossack 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 is I would have somebody squat with a physio ball up against the wall. Yeah, pinching between their legs. And squeeze something between their knees to create that stability and tension. I would not have them. Or doing single leg stuff, stepping up to a single leg balance where they have to stabilize the hips. So you get a combination of both those and strengthening that. And of all the people that use the hip adduction and abduction machine, I would, I'll say, I'll guess, but I think I'm right. Probably less than 5%. If less, if not less than 1% are people who are trying to correct an imbalance. No, it's gotten really high 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 mead on fire, you know, 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 makes a sexy video on Instagram. 100% does. All right, the next one, I clearly remember when planks became the core exercise in the gym. Oh my God. Like it literally, it was like overnight. Exploded. 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 in the back and they're strengthening really this hip flexor stability. Usually people need to strengthen their core stability. So I like a 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 the certifications 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 gonna happen. What are we reinforcing here the whole time we're holding this with bad form? Yeah, tight hip flexors. Oh, yeah. Tight hip flexors, which happened to be like one of the most common problems that you have to solve for people. People that sit down at desks all day long, have shortened tight hip flexors, and then sitting in a position in a plank, most of that is hip flexor that is holding. Very few people are actually using their core. They're normally resting it all on their hip flexor. Yeah, I see lots 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 is 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 plank competitions. I don't know if you guys ever saw these. Oh, I'm guilty of this. I'm just, I'm guilty of this in our gym. We had trained 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 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 fire. We've got 15 minutes left, what are we gonna do? Yeah, go over, go over, you know, over there where you get to sit down or relax and they're not moving anywhere. There's not a lot of coaching going on. 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? Guilty. 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, a 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 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, it doesn't mean that there isn't 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, right? Yeah, yeah. It's gotta be, right? I would actually argue with you on this one, five, well, maybe more than that now, eight, nine, before we got together. It wasn't until you introduced Sissy Squads to me would 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 thing for isolating the quads, right? Obviously, leg press and squat and hack squat work those, but you get a lot of other things you're working. And 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 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. For me, it was in the same thing with a Sissy Squat, but also like, I was just always preferred like front squats, I always preferred like to do a Gobin Squat or something like that with my heels elevated. And be able to do something a little bit more of like a compound exercise versus an isolated exercise like that. So I just, I never really found, 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 patellar 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 quads, especially after an injury where maybe it's helping you really connect and 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 don't, I'm 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. 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 what they call finisher exercises. So, you know, I could see that. That's commanding. But keep in mind, bodybuilders, leg extensions are at the end of a, you know, 20-set workout with what's coming up. If you're gonna go that direction, because you know you're gonna get pushed back 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 pushed back on this one. Of course. And one of the arguments you're going to get is the e-stem argument with how much, what's the machine that the lights shows how much. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. God, now you screwed me. Come on. Muscles too, yeah. Yeah, yeah, the MRIs or the, that shows the activation. Yes, why am I not... Muscle activation, yeah. No, no, what is the, 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... EMG. Yes, thank you, EMG. Thank you. So you're gonna get that because there's studies around the leg 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 gives you, 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 that's not gonna, they're not gonna build as much as when you can do a pull up, 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, it doesn't translate well. 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, Sissy squats are hard. So you may need a band for assistance. Some people just can't do them because it's hard. Use assisted by holding onto something. Yes, or hold onto something. 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. 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 leg extension and leg curls than I 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 groups. Now with the reverse have happened, not even close. Had you avoided squats and deadlifts and dead just leg extensions and leg curls, you'd have come back far weaker in those other big compound lifts. 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 chest 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 with the pads, right? So I like squeeze it in. 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 humerus, that's the upper arm. Pec deck 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. But they still exist. In fact, I would- Unnecessary 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 till 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 to do what you did. And it was like mind blowing. Whoa, this is a totally different exercise. So the reason why the pec 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 external 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 stress on the shoulder. It's like, you know, in Jiu-Jitsu, there's an arm lock called an Americana. It almost puts you in that position. That's sort of God. At any moment, you're like, oh, totally. Well, I've seen people get hurt doing that, 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 and drop it. The worst thing you can do. And they hurt their shoulder, absolutely. All right, so this next one, by the way, I just wanna 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 kind of embarrassing. Yeah, I was known for this for a while. This is still very common in Jiu-Jitsu right now, especially with early trainers, it's like a 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, so like, make them shittier. Make them shittier. Hey, that's the way to say this. This is how you take a bunch of good exercises and make them shitty. Yes, here was my favorite one. This was the one, I don't know, I know where you're at. Lunge to curl to press. I would add to that. Lunge to curl to balance to press. Oh, 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, now 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. Well, what you really do is this. Okay, we just, what did you say? Lunge, balance, a curl, a press, right? Yeah. So there's four exercises. We've said this before. If every exercise has a value, let's say a one to 10, one being terrible, 10 being great, and let's say those four exercises have an average of eight, or they have ones of seven, one's an eight, one's a nine, one's a six, or like 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 of them. 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 gonna use to curl, and not what I'm gonna 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 the over it. Which is why you gotta use five pound dumbbells. One of them is, yeah, way demanding, and the rest is basically useless. Yes, and the form starts to break down on one of them, and then the client is almost encouraged, 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, the exceptions to the rule are where we would still use it or where it has application. Do you see any application here, or is there any exception to the rule 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. I could see a squat to balance or a back step lunge to toe touch if I'm really working on hip extension and stability type of stuff. But when you start to get to three, four, then you start to do the man 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? Do you know what it's called? No, that sounds right. Sounds about right, okay. So no, but yeah, I obviously see that in lunge 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 curling, pressing and all these things to interrupt it, I think that for me, I find justification there when I'm trying to 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, right? So she's in her mid fifties. I said it's the step up to balance to toe touch. Yeah, I can see lots of value in that. And even though I know I'm not gonna 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've said is, listen, if you and I move on from each other and I don't see you in a decade from now or like that, like, and there's, 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 an isometric position but also have to do work, like so. Yeah, I get what you're saying. 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 the ground to do a hip bridge and then I'm doing a press. Yeah. You know, something like that where I'm including, you know, the hip bridge is the isometric hold and then I'm doing a press. Or a tripod position with a row or something like that using the core stability. Exactly. Like I could see that. And again, combo exercises done properly in the right application have value but they almost are never used that way. By the way, you know where they came from? They came from group exercise classes. That's who started this. 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. Like it's again, so this is like a little bit, it's cringey for me because I still like 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, you know, like for instance with kettlebells, like I'll do transitionary exercises but it just flows well between the different exercises. 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 gonna work really well. If you don't know what you're doing, what you're actually doing is taking all those, like we said earlier, all those exercise 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 is this one we might get a little heat from. Really? Maybe because it's like in every butt building, 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 it in balance. Does this mean Fonda or? As a primer, I mean, 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 any 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 like, oh, 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. 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 and 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 exercise. I would see it all. I mean, it's up there too with like the jump plunges and all these like high intensity butt exercises that I would see. I'd see these competing competitors. That's when I saw it the most, right? Doing these movements. And I'm like, oh my God, 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 is 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- So you can feel it. Yeah, that's 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 about, oh, 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 be on fire, but they're not going to build like 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. Yeah, you guys, I'm not going to write that down. Justin and I twisted cells armed with this one because in a recent episode, I don't remember what the question was Sal brought up tricep kickbacks and I vividly remember the look on Justin's face because it was probably mirrored the look on my face. Like, did that fool just say tricep kickbacks for an exercise? So I tend to like them just cause 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 pushup or a press or a tricep extension. It was on the bottom of the barrel. I mean, I'm guilty of every female I trained from 2000 to 2005 had tricep kickbacks in their workout. Every female. It was just, and I used to, I used to do it where they were, one knee was on the bench and the other leg was out straight. So they were trying to have to kind of balance the stabilize. You combined two worthless exercises. I did, I combined two worthless exercises. Guilty as charged, right? So I, you know, I did this type of shit and I did it for years, you know, thinking that it was a great exercise. Again, when someone does a tricep kickback, they feel it and it's hard to extend it. And so they feel that tricep, but kind of like to your shoulder analogy is if, you know, just cause you feel it in the tricep right there, that shit is not going to come close to a dip or a close grip bench for us. I could name seven exercises that are more effective. That's right. And 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 a very bottom. I can name five to seven exercises better than every single thing. That's true. 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 that are better than that movement. Literally anything named kickback in there is garbage. Yeah, I'm trying to think what else is good. Unless it's a government kickback. Just go with that standard. Those aren't garbage. Give me my mic back. I mean, except for good money kickbacks. Does that exist? Sometimes my exercise is not, yeah. All right, so we have some honorable mentions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They didn't make the cut, but we had to talk about them. They didn't make the cut, but really that's because they're kind of general categories. They're not specific exercises. Or maybe we thought people wouldn't be familiar with them. Some people don't know what they are. Yeah, like 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, 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 they're so much smarter. 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 strength chest press and then doing it sideways. Like you ever seen that sideways chest roll? Joey Swolf. Like, okay. So popular. Hilarious. Didn't he make that popular? I've never seen it until that kid did it. Yeah, like he 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 interesting one when that got popular. Yeah, like they're sitting on the part where you're supposed to lay back on. And then the platform, they're pressing with their arms. There's like seven other shoulder machines in the gym and then dumbbells and barbells. I don't understand what the purpose is. I don't know. Again, I think people are just like, they think they're smarter than inventors of machines or something and they're like, I'm gonna press. 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- Do you want people to look at you? I did, I did. I wanted the attention, not from like gym members, but from people potentially that would buy training from. Yes. It was a conversation starter. I love to take a beat because I understood biomechanics. I understood how the muscles needed to be. Oh, and I heard that. And I could take like a calf raise, okay? I could take a calf raise machine and turn it into a shrug machine. 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. The calf machine like- You would get the craziest looks and it would always create somebody would come over and be like, what are you doing? And I'm like, oh, well, let me- You know what? Let me book appointment with you so I can explain. Reverse hack squat, like front squats. I'm gonna give you a pass, dude, because you're building your business and you're using- Right, there was a little strategy. That was very smart advertising. I could only explain that made a lot of sense. I did. So 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 trainer. I've seen people do shrugs on a preacher curl machine. I saw a girl do hip thrusts 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 hip thrusts. Yeah, they have. I mean, 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 weights. I want to make a point about those people, right? Cause I've seen this. I also see that in the beginning 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. Junk volume. There's no issues. Yeah, whatever. But what happens 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. She looks amazing. And then she's doing this stupid exercise. And now, instead of squatting and deadlipping. Right. And so then she thinks that and this is where we get this kind of that'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 going to try and do that. So I think that's where, and to that person, you know, who cares? And I know their argument back will look at me or look how it's like, okay, well that's cause of the two hours you spent in here doing all the other shit. Well, I mean, mine kind of goes in line with the machine because technically it is a machine because it's an assisted pull up, you know, it's there to assist your pull up. Oh, I know what you're gonna tell me. 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 at all. You can step up on a bench. 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 want to, you want to press one leg, use a leg press, you could step up on a step. Yeah, you gotta explain what Justin is talking about. There's a machine, they're normally called either assisted pull up or a gravatron 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 on. Right, or there's, yeah, there's a 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 press. I mean, I can name plenty of exercises. There's 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 push it down. It makes no sense. Yeah, no, it wouldn't work. If it 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 I want to see it end. And again, another popular trend that you saw on Instagram, which is the guys and girls, I've seen guilty this, but mostly guys, doing the crunches, hanging upside down with a friend punching me. In the stomach? Yeah, or the leg lifts. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I thought that was just one viral video, but no. There is only one application for that, is if you were a fucking fighter. If you were an actual fighter. Rocky did them in Rocky I, and he's a fighter. Dude, that's where it started. That's exactly where it started. 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 move around, throw punches and take a punch in their stomach. So if you were that person, then okay, just fine. 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. Breathe while 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 want to look cool. I want to look really cool. This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. 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 Justin in the glutes. Squat again. Can we make a video of this? Oh, that would be, that's the next viral video right there. Do butt exercises. Why are you doing curls? Punch me in the bicep. 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 Mind Pump Justin. Now Adam and I have been shadow banned by Instagram, but if you try real hard, you can find us and then you can find out while we're shadow banned. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal and Adam at Mind Pump Adam.