Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Wide grip behind-the-neck pullups


Overhead presses, behind-the-neck overhead presses, and wide grip behind-the-neck pullups are exercises the "fitness experts" frequently warn are dangerous and make us more prone to injuries.

If the us is us with poor shoulder flexibility, then I agree. But if the us is us with good shoulder flexibility, then they are challenging and great exercises to periodically include in our training.

I seldom perform traditional overhead presses, although I do a lot of other overhead exercises. Because I do a lot of shoulder flexibility drills, my shoulders feel great and normally I have no problem with overhead exercises. I do not perform behind-the-neck overhead presses but would have no problems if I did.

With my current training, I seldom perform pullups or chinups. Last Friday, however, I decided to do a set of wide grip behind-the-neck pullups, after reading several posts on a fitness discussion forum stating it was a dangerous exercise and thus should be avoided.

Here's me banging out 10 reps:

Watching the video, I see that my bottom range of motion could have been better, as well as my form. My strength endurance is not what it use to be, and I felt like a weak middle-age man that day, so the 10 reps was a maximum effort.

It’s my opinion that there are no bad or dangerous exercises, but only people with bad judgment and poor flexibility using bad form to perform exercises unsafely.

It's an exercise I don't perform that often but in my opinion, there's nothing dangerous about wide grip behind-the-neck pullups.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

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