What's wrong with mainstream fitness?
What you've been doing for years may be hurting you
For the last few years, I’ve been exploring how the exercises that we've been told to do, negatively impact the way that we actually move. In truth, it seems to me that the majority of what we think we need to do to move well, is actually hurting us, or at least has the potential to negatively change how we move. If you compare how the body moves naturally, then you can start to see how the majority of the exercises we've grown up with are counter to the way the body is meant to move.
If you haven't read it already, go back and view my second article where I break down how I view the fundamentals of normal human movement and the biomechanical principles at play. That forms the backbone of the comparisons I'll be making for many of the exercises here and is critical to fully understand where I’m coming from.
I'll also add that I'm not saying that the exercises and modalities that I'll discuss in this article are all negative, people can yield benefits from them. What I will point out is that these and many other exercises are making you move your body in a way that is counter to the natural biomechanics. You may well be fine with those tradeoffs, but I’m not and I hope you can learn something.
Why is this a problem?
One word, compensations.
The human body and the central nervous system is incredibly adaptable.
When we continually put our bodies in positions, our bodies will adapt, and literally start to reshape itself to the same positions. One of the worst examples is how many people we see today with forward head posture from extended periods of sitting and using digital devices. You don’t typically see this in young children, which tells me it’s not a natural position for us to be in, it’s our bodies adapting to its environment. Watch this short video of a Maasai tribe and you don’t see the same prevalence of poor posture.
Can weightlifting & strength training negatively impact how we move?
I've thought about this a lot and here is the logical process that I've gone through to come to my own conclusions, guided by many of the thought leaders in the space that I’ll introduce in my next article.
First, let's take a look at two video examples of my kids when they are running.
No, I won’t claim that this is an example of perfect running form, but it is two kids running freely without thinking about their technique or without having any compensations due to exercises from the mainstream fitness industry.
There are many points that I could pull out of this but to keep things simple what I see is:
Fluidity and freedom of movement that seems relaxed yet controlled, with a spine (and head) that sways from side to side and has ample rotation to facilitate the movement.
Now let's contrast this with two videos from people where weightlifting has featured heavily in the way that they developed their bodies.
Again, there are many things I could pull from these videos, but I'll just focus on how rigid and stiff the torso and spine seems to be. To me, this does not look fluid or natural.
Now let's contrast this with two of the greatest runners of all time. First, we have a video of Usain Bolt and then a video of Eliud Kipchoge.
Looking at these videos what I can see is that torso is not overly rigid, there is plenty of side to side movement, the head moves side to side and to me, it looks natural and fluid. Everything is optimized for forward momentum.
I know I'm comparing two very extreme ends of the spectrum here. You have two people that have literally dedicated their life to run and then you have several other people that have committed a large part of their time to lift weight in order to improve their aesthetic appearance.
Yes, Usain Bolt definitely did strength training and also if we take someone like Tyreek Hill who also definitely does strength straining we can easily say, well, if those guys do strength training/weightlifting how much of a problem is it?
I have a few thoughts here:
People like Tyreek Hill will have a large amount of running during their training week, which may offset the negative impacts of traditional lifting on biomechanics
I do not know how much “traditional” lifting Tyreek Hill does. I have read that NFL athletes don’t do much in the way of slower lifts like squats, deadlifts etc and favour more explosive lifts. They may not have the same impacts.
I think there is a spectrum, where depending on how you do your strength training, how much you do, how much you run and will change how it impacts your biomechanics. Watch videos of running events from CrossFit games and you’ll see a mix of spinal rigidity and some people with more fluid looking movements.
That being said, I think the point remains, it is very clear the way you train your body can negatively impact the way that it moves, if we are not careful with the approach we use.
The big thing I want you to take away from this article is asking yourself the question “How does this exercise relate to the way that the body moves naturally in real life and what are the compensations my body could pick up from using this exercise?” which is an incredibly valuable lesson I’ve learned from One Of A Kind Fitness.
Also, at the end of this article I'll share a few video clips of myself running to set out a baseline for where my movement is right now.
Critiquing mainstream fitness exercises
For the sake of simplicity, what I've decided to do as I look through some traditional and common exercises, is focus in on these key areas of biomechanics:
1. Internal rotation of the femur
2. Shoulder and scapular positioning
3. Spinal movement inclusive of hyperextension in the lower back
4. Angle between the femur and the torso during movement
As we go through this, I will touch on why some of these are critical to human movement, but I really encourage you to go back and read my second article to understand the process that I have gone through to come to some of these conclusions.
Also, please keep in mind that I'm not saying we should never train our bodies to improve strength through resistance training, quite the opposite, there is an alternative way to train the body that will not only fix your compensations, but will also improve your biomechanics and performance. More of that to come in a later article.
In terms of the exercises that I’ll look at today, it will be the following:
1. Traditional squats
2. Kettlebell swings and deadlifts
3. Pull-ups
4. Bench presses, dips and push-ups
5. Bracing the core
6. Some yoga poses
Wherever possible I'll even dig out some videos from my old Instagram channel to show where I was completely off the mark.
Traditional squats
Let's take a look at this video from one of the leading protonates of squatting.
What I can see in this video is strong external rotation of the femur (twisting knees out), pulling the shoulders down and back, squeezing together the scapulas and even though they're making an attempt to keep the ribs stacked over the hips, that position requires heavy activation of the spinal erectors, which typically causes hyper extension in the lower back. They are also bracing the core to stabilize the spine, more on that later.
Now feel free to disagree with me, but there is almost nothing that I see in this movement that is akin to the biomechanics that we use in natural human movement, walking, running or jumping. Yes, there are alternative versions of squatting such as goblet, squats, or just bodyweight squats take away some of the problems, but they still tend to have external rotation of the femur, quite often the toes pointing out and still tend to cause a lot of hyper extension in the lower back.
Our bodies simply do not move like this when we move naturally.
Kettlebell swings and deadlifts
I've put these two exercises together as they tend to be very similar in both the objectives of the exercises and the compensations that they can cause.
I'll also say that I was a heavy user of kettlebell swings and a huge proponent for probably a decade and it was one of the biggest things I needed to let go of.
Here is a short video that has over 12 million views telling people how to deadlift.
I'm sure you can pick up on these points by yourself already but again, I'm seeing knees driving out which requires external rotation of the femurs, been told to pull the shoulders down and back, plus the other thing that I'll talk about more in just a second is driving the hips forward at the top of the movement.
Now let's take a look at me video of me from about 6 years ago with an 80 kg kettlebell swing. Many of the critiques apply here, but also note how far I'm driving my hips forward at the end of the movement by squeezing my glutes with the added bonus of my head coming really far forward, which isn't great either.
Why is forward hip drive such a problem?
Let's take a look at one more video of Mr Bolt.
If you watch Usain Bolt second leg, what you will notice is at the point of maximum impact, the angle of the femur in relation to the torso is less than 180°.
This next video shows 3 time vertical jump world record holder, Chris Spell:
At the point of maximum force production the angle between the femur and the torso is again less than 180°. Does the angle go beyond 180° as they move forward?
Yes, but it's not a loaded position. Maximum tension and stability is occurring when the angle is less than 180°. So when we look at both the deadlifts and the kettlebell swing where we squeeze in glutes maximally and drive the hip forward we are going beyond that 180° angle to find stability. So, it is not akin to natural human movement.
Can you imagine walking by driving your hips forward past that 180° angle for every step you take, it would look like a comedy walk out of a kids cartoon!!
Pull-ups
Ah! The mighty pull-up, the king of all bodyweight exercises. Of all the strength exercises I've done over the last 25 years, this is one I've probably done more than anything else. So for me, it was one of the hardest exercises to let go of.
The way I leared to do the pull-up, is quite well described in this next video and I think it's very typical of the way people perform pull-ups. Predominantly characterized by pulling the shoulders down and back, almost like squeezing in a pencil between your shoulder blades, and then pulling your chest to the bar, which is often accompanied by hyper extension in the lower back.
Now let's take a look at another three examples. We have someone carrying an Atlas stone, a rock climber And someone climbing a rope. What I see and I'd like you to pay attention to in these videos, rather than the shoulders being pulled down and back and the chest thrust forward, there is more of a motion where as the person pulls the shoulder drives up and forward. It's less obvious with the climbing, but it's very distinct with the person carrying the Atlas stone. I'd also say the differences here versus some of the other exercises isn’t as distinct, but to my eyes, there is a definite difference with how we see the shoulder move naturally during pulling movements versus how we tend to train with the pull-up.
Bench press, dips and push-ups
Even though these are three distinct exercises, I'll couple them together for the purpose of this article, because they tend to have very similar patterns as it relates to shoulder and shoulder blades.
For me as this video shows, the bench press is the worst of all three because not only does it typically mean people pulling their shoulders down and back and squeezing their shoulder blades together, but also having an excessive hyper extension in the lower back. With with dips and push-ups, you don't really see the hyper extension as much, but you do typically see the shoulder blades being pulled down and back.
Other laying flat on your back and pushing something off you, where I’ve only ever heard one crazy account of a surf trip in Mexico where someone needed to do this to replace and engine, I can think on zero, literally zero, real world application for these biomechanics.
We can contrast that with the throwing motion, how babies arms and shoulders position themselves when they are crawling, but even better I want you to try something as a quick experiment.
Stand with one leg in front of you in front of a wall, then take the opposite arm and press it against the wall like you're trying to push the wall away or almost like you're trying to throw a big overhand punch. Now staying in a static position press forward through the arm like you're trying to push the wall over. What you should notice is that the shoulder comes up and forward the elbow rotates out slightly and the scapula actually comes up and away from the spine.
This in my mind, is a natural pushing position with the upper body. You can also see similar things when people are doing sled pushes using both arms. What's not happening in any of these examples, is the shoulder blade or the shoulder being pulled down and back and the chest being puffed out.
Bracing the core
There are many exercises where we've been taught to brace the core. The squat is a really good example although, I want to focus on two exercises that are more specifically focused on holding a very tight core. Below you're going to see two old videos of mine where I'm engaged in heavily bracing the core. First, you'll see a plank video and then second you'll see a Turkish get up video. I was a huge proponent of these exercises and have even been quoted in a podcast interview, if I was to pick only one exercise to do for the rest of my life, it would've been the Turkish get up.
Now, if we refer back to some of the video clips that I showed at the start of the article, bracing and clamping down your core is not what we see in optimal movement in running. You can even try another movement experiment yourself. Do this slowly, but pretend you're throwing an object, but while you do that, squeeze your core as tight as possible. Then relax and do the same thing. Two very different experiences and I can only imagine the damage that would be done if an MLB pitcher braced their core as hard as they could when throwing. Bracing the core just causes too much limitation in the movement of the spine and the torso.
So am I saying that stability through the spine in the torso is not important?
No, absolutely not. But the way I've now been taught to create stability is very different to clamping down on the core. More of that to come in later articles.
Yoga
Yoga is a little trickier to pull apart. Yes, I am an advocate of being mobile. Although what I have found over the last 2 years and there are many people with similar stories, is that by adjusting my strength to align with natural biomechanics, introducing more walking and not doing yoga, I’m more mobile that when I did yoga reguarly.
It seems really unnatural to me that we should spend a bunch of time doing exercises and strength training, putting ourselves into positions that are not natural to our biomechanics and then do something like yoga, again taking ourselves outside of natural body positions as a form of correction. This now makes very little sense to me.
Let's take just a handful of examples.
In the lunge or other similar positions, you are extending the angle of the femur well passed 180° versus the torso, then on top of that, you load the position by driving weight through the hip and driving the knee or the foot into the floor. I can't think of a single example in non-specialized natural human movement where we actively load the leg and the hips at this angle while we move.
Then with the pigeon pose, this is 100% external rotation of the femur that is very akin to driving the knees out when doing a squat. Again, I can't think of a single example when we need to load the body this way in non-specialized natural human movement.
Lastly, the cobra pose where we hyperextend the lower back and anchor the hips to the floor is a position that we rarely see in almost no non-contrived position of the body.
I'm speaking here as someone who has spent many, many hours using these poses and others in the name of improving mobility. But what you're really doing with these exercises is taking the body past the point where it would typically find stability during normal movement and teaching the body to find stability in positions that we otherwise wouldn't encounter. You could even go as far to say that these are promoting hyper mobility.
Yes, these poses will improve mobility, but at what cost. Speaking of my own personal journey, and I have heard of others that have experienced the same, starting to train the body in the way that it is meant to move, has solved far more mobility issues for me than yoga ever did and has taken me out the cycle of train, feel tight, stretch, train feel, tight stretch.
How is my running form?
As promised here are two clips of me running. The first where I’m wearing white is a flat out sprint from August 2023. The second video is a sprint of about 85% intensity, August 2024.
No Usain Bolt here, but I felt it was fair to share videos of my own running and my journey trying to improve. These aren’t the best comparison clips, but I think I’ve developed much more movement in my spine and head over the 12 month gap, but I still feel I’m a little rigid with my arms. More to work on!
Conclusion
So in conclusion, I hope I've shed more light on how many of the exercises I've done for decades are actually counter to the way the body moves naturally. Yes, some of these exercises can be adapted and yes, I still do strength training. What I want to open your mind to, is starting to question the way we train our bodies and how those exercises translate or do not translate, to the way that we see the body moving naturally.
I promise you if you take the time to think about it and really observe what's going on, it will change the way you think about training your body forever.
As always, I would welcome any comments, opinions, objections, and different observations to what I've shared today. I'd love to debate this with people to get to the fundamental truth of human movement.