Your elbows should almost be touching your sides," and you should lower your chest all the way to the step (or the bar all the way to your chest), he notes. "Ninety-nine percent of people do these exercises wrong. For both moves, though, your form is important: "You shouldn't feel it in your shoulders," he says. What to do instead: For your triceps, try the close-grip bench press and incline pushups, suggests Frisch.
Besides the injury risk, "you'll hit those muscles so much harder doing complex exercises anyway," he explains. "You should never do 'arms' exercises," says Jeremy Frisch, C.S.C.S., owner and director of Achieve Performance Training in Clinton, Massachusetts.
Plus, they can easily go awry and wreck your elbows and shoulders, thus earning them a spot alongside the hip abduction machine and the Smith machine on this list. While not the worst moves you could do at the gym, kickbacks and overhead extensions don't work your triceps all that hard. (See also: The Bent-Over Row Is Way More Than Just a Back Exercise) But the machine's not without merit: Use the fixed bar at lower positions to perform inverted rows or as your support for incline pushups. What to do instead: Almost all the exercises you can do on the Smith machine (such as squats, bench presses, or overhead presses) are better done with barbells or dumbbells instead. This can lead to injury in the major muscles, or it may lead to weakness in the tiny muscles that protect you when you're doing movements in the real world - such as bending over to pick up a box or running in a crowded park. The fixed path of the weight "forces the joint to move in a way that it may not want to move," he adds. So you overwork and strengthen a pre-existing dysfunction," explains Brooks. If someone extends their arms in front of them, one may be longer than the other. The Smith machine - where the bar is locked into a sliding vertical plane - may be the most versatile bad-for-you piece of equipment in the gym, according to Brooks. (Also better than the hip abduction machine? Doing these effective thigh exercises instead.) To perform the adduction (pulling in) maneuver, stand with your weighted leg next to the machine, crossing it in front of your planted leg to 9 o'clock. Keeping an erect posture, lift your weighted leg out and away from your body to 3 o'clock - and, violá, you've just completed hip abduction sans machine. You can get similar benefits from exercises with a cable machine: Affix a band or the handle of a cable machine around your right ankle while you stand with the machine (or fixed point of the band) on your left. What to do instead: Skip the hip abduction machine entirely and opt for standing exercises, suggests Aaron Brooks, a biomechanics expert and owner of Perfect Postures in Auburndale, Massachusetts.
When you do a step-up or lunge, you're working them, plus all the other stuff," he adds. The muscles that the hip abduction machine works "are primarily stabilizers for when you're standing or moving around. "There's nothing remotely like these movements in life," says Tumminello.
But hip abduction and adduction machines are dangerous because your body isn't designed for those movements, says Nick Tumminello, a NCSA-certified trainer and owner of Performance University in Baltimore. Plus, using one feels incredible - you can use a lot of weight, so you feel strong and experience a serious burn. You may have heard rumors that using a hip abduction machine benefits the glutes.