When I was a teenager, you couldn’t escape Boys II Men on the radio.
For those of you too young for any of this, Boys II Men were a vocally-driven R&B group, the radio was a thing that played music when you were in your car or bedroom while you contemplated how unfair life was and the “II” was pronounced “two”.
Nearly every B2M song started with the guy with the deepest voice in the group doing a spoken monologue about how he realized the error of his ways and wished his girlfriend would come back to him.
This same gentleman was always accompanied by a decorative walking stick. I am remiss to call it a "cane" because 1) it was heavily lacquered with a silver ornamental top and 2) he didn’t seem to have any type of walking impediment that would facilitate the use of a cane.
I don’t know what constitutes the band’s biggest hit because every year of the 90s they seemed to come up with one song that stayed on top of the charts for approximately 18 weeks.
This is why you couldn’t avoid them. They were absolute hit makers.
But for our purposes here - and so I don’t have to fall down a Google rabbit hole where I will most certainly find someone debating why Jodeci is truly the best 90’s R&B band - I’m going to say “End Of The Road” is their greatest song.
I think there’s a solid chance I’m correct.
“End of The Road” follows one of the classic tropes of songwriting - a lament about how a relationship, time in your life or even life itself has come to an end.
It’s one of those songs that makes you put your arms around your friends and sing your heart out at the end of the prom or pour one out for your homie who has passed.
Do people still pour one out? Do people still use the term “homie”? Jesus, I’ve gotten old.
A few weeks ago I told you about the most frequent question I get asked.
(For those very, very few of you who don’t have every word I write memorized, it was “how do you continue to come up with something to write?”)
As a fitness professional, I also get asked about honest-to-goodness fitness on occasion. But most of these questions are click-baity and redundant. Certain to be a blurb on the cover of Shape magazine or find its way into the subject-line of your favorite weekly blog (wink).
And the one I dislike the most is “what is your least favorite exercise?”
I’m not a fan of this query because 1) it’s played out 2) it’s not particularly interesting and 3) it’s got the least gratifying answer of all time.
And that answer is, it depends.
What might be a great exercise choice for one person might be terrible for another. Or what might be a perfect selection in one phase of training might make zero sense in another. How well one can perform the exercise might dictate whether I like it or hate it.
But, hey, I’m nothing if not a man of the people. I like to give the audience what they want. To not address the question would be like Taylor Swift not playing “Shake It Off” or Springsteen refusing to put “Born To Run” in the set list. Sure, it’s obvious. No doubt you are tired of playing it. But, guess what, I didn’t buy a new outfit and spend $800 on tickets to not shake my hips to my favorite song.
I’m talking to you, Taylor.
So, with all the requisite caveats in place, here are the exercises I never really program because I don’t like them. It actually wasn’t that easy to come up with this list because I tend to use the same exercises so often and just arrange them in different ways. But, don’t worry. I went deep into the crevasses of my brain to come up with some answers. You’re welcome.
Number one with a bullet is Battling Ropes.
For those of you who don’t know the term, “battling ropes” it’s just the fancy name for that long, thick rope that’s anchored at a point on the floor that you grab with both hands and shake, wave and shimmy in an effort to….well, I don’t know what you are really supposed to get out of it.
Are they a conditioning tool? Maybe, but there are way better ways to get your heart rate up.
Are they an upper body strengthener? With no eccentric component I don’t see them as an effective muscle builder.
Are they sports specific? I don’t really know any recognized sport that utilizes anything even remotely similar to battling ropes. And that is for good reason as there is no way to measure or manage how “well” you are doing them. I guess you can increase the duration but you can’t add weight or complexity or really much of anything to them.
Which leaves me with, people do them because they like it. Which is not a terrible reason. Unless you are a coach trying to create effective programming.
Number two is, surprisingly enough, Single Leg Romanian Deadlifts (or RDLs as the cool kids call them).
Now I am a big fan of single leg work and I love RDLs. But the typical combination of the two, where only one foot is planted on the floor and the other is sent in the air behind you and you tip forward like one of those toy chickens on a stick that dips its beak in the water is not my fave.
The problems with this movement are a) it becomes more of a balance challenge than a strength movement because tipping over while you are on one leg is hard b) most people cannot keep their hips closed (where they are squared to the floor) so they end up not hitting the target muscle and c) it’s painful to watch people flopping around and getting every rep wrong for the approximately 13 minutes it takes to get through a set on both sides.
I much prefer an RDL where the back leg is planted on a low box or step. It reduces 90% of the issues that people have with the “free leg” version. Yet, nobody does them this way. And I’m not sure why.
Number three (or trés for our international readers) is partials. Partials aren’t really an exercise but a category of exercises in which range of motion is limited. Rack pulls, quarter squats, board presses and the like can be really effective in certain programs. But most of us are going to want to train a full range of motion as, not only do they have the best carryover to other athletics and real-life movements, but we’ve recently come to learn that the deep stretch at the end range of motion of most exercises is where you get the majority of the muscle gaining benefits.
So, if building muscle is a priority (and it should be), you want to learn to move well with great mobility (another thing you should be striving for) and you aren’t a competitive powerlifter working on specific weaknesses in your lifts (which is a scenario where partials would actually have some application) than focusing on full range of motion is the ticket.
I’ll finish our walk down Dan’s Least Favorite Exercise Lane with an all-timer, the Sumo Deadlift High Pull.
The SDHP is a combo lift which was a CrossFit staple for many years. But even they’ve walked away from it given that so many things about it suck.
First off, you have a sumo deadlift which, it could be argued, is a partial in and of itself given the limited range of motion.
Add to that the fact you are then performing a high pull with your hands fairly close to each other. Unfortunately, this is the best way to put your shoulder in an impinged position.
And, finally, if you are to perform a combo lift, you want the two lifts to effectively use the same weight. A biceps curl to shoulder press is a good example. You can find one set of dumbbells that are appropriate for both lifts.
But a deadlift is typically an exercise you can do with your heaviest weights. And a high pull is a light weight exercise. So, essentially, you are getting nothing out of the deadlift. You’d be much better off doing high pulls. Or, even better, choose an entirely different exercises that doesn’t fuck up your shoulders.
And, with that, for both your sake and mine, I hope we’ve come to the “end of the road” on this over-asked and not so interesting question.
Bet you didn’t know how I was gonna bring this all back around to Boys II Men, did you?
Honestly, that makes two of us.