5 Least Effective Exercises

All muscle-building exercises are definitely not created equal! Many of the exercises you see people doing in the gym every day, will yield very little in terms of results when it comes to muscle building. Not only that, some of the most common exercises you may see can even hurt your body and ruin your muscle growth.

Below, I’ll show you the 5 least effective exercises you are likely to see being used on a regular basis. If you want to get real results with building muscle, and developing a lean body, please avoid these least effective exercises.

5 Least Effective Exercises

1. Ab Crunch Machines. Any kind of exercise you do that involves the crunching motion, will carry a high risk of causing damage to your lower back, but the ab crunch machine carries the greatest risk. Not only that, it provides very little benefit in terms of your muscle building and fat loss results.

Crunches carried out without the machine, will at least require you to stabilize yourself and use your body to maintain good form. But using a crunch machine completely isolates your abdominal muscles, and puts much greater strain on your lower back. So you are putting your body at risk, but the exercise itself does very little benefit. Isolating a very small group of muscles, such as the abdominals, will give very little in terms of either fat burning or muscle gains. Avoid doing crunches, but definitely never use the crunch machines.

2. Smith Machine Squats. The Smith Machine, forces a weighted bar to follow a guided path to a route determined by the machine. It is also one of the most dangerous machines you are ever likely to come across in the gym.

The Smith machine puts a serious amount of strain and torque on your knee joins, and carries a great risk of causing serious damage to the knees. Using the Smith Machine also takes away a lot of the fat burning and muscle building power of the free-weight squat. Doing normal squats uses a large range of muscle groups in your body, to stabilize and support the body when doing these exercises. The Smith machine takes away the need for these muscles to work, so greatly diminishes the effects of the exercise.

3. Hip Extension Machines. These machines aim to work out the powerful gluteul muscles, which shape and define your butt. This probably explains why these machines are so popular, but using these machines is a seriously ineffective way to work out these muscles. As with other machines previously mentioned, this machines isolates a single muscle group, robbing you of the fantastic muscle building and fat burning power, of a compound exercise.

The more muscles your body uses when carrying out an exercise, the greater the results you will see, and the shorter your workouts will have to be to achieve results.

If you want to workout the muscles in the butt, switch this machine for something like the lunge. You will see far more results.

4. Leg Abduction Machines. Unlike the machines listed above, this one isn’t really dangerous, but it is a huge waste of time and effort. The machine is supposed to target the inner and outer thighs, to build large muscles.

The real problem with this machine, is that the muscles you use is absolutely tiny. There is such little metabolic value to this machine, that you could use it for hours without ever really feeling out of breath. The inner and outer thigh muscles are designed to be used together with the other muscles in your legs, such as the quadriceps and hamstrings. Together, these muscles are extremely powerful and can more a serious amount of weight. Isolating single muscles within the legs, take away all the potential they have, and really is a waste of time.

There are so many great exercises you can do to work these muscles out, so please don’t waste your time with these machines.

5. Preacher Curls. Do you want larger, more defined biceps? Then please, please stay away from the preacher curl. The preacher curl locks your arms in place to solely focus on the biceps. The takes away all need for the other muscles in your arms and upper body to work to stabilize itself. So you are getting the least possible metabolic benefit possible for performing this motion.

There is also a much greater risk of causing damage to the shoulders, as they are locked in forward position, which is unnatural.