The 5 WORST Exercises for Ages 50+ (AVOID!)

In this episode, Farnham’s leading over-50’s physiotherapist, Will Harlow, reveals 5 of the worst exercises for people over 50 that have the potential to cause pain and injury!

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If you’re age 50 plus and you love to exercise there are five exercises that you need to be very very careful of in this video I’m going to show you what they are and why you should probably avoid them if you don’t know who I am my

Name is will harow I’m the over 50s specialist physio here at HT physio INF farum and today I’m going to be revealing five of the worst exercises for people over 50 now before I go any further there’s no exercise really that’s a bad exercise usually it’s people’s technique that causes them to

Be injured but that being said there are five exercises that I’ve pinpointed that are really not that good usually for people over 50 they have a high risk of injury a low payoff and to be honest I think they should just be canned for anyone over the age of 50 so I’m going

To explain to you what they are we’re going to talk about why we should avoid them so the first exercise that I see people do over 50 that I think should be avoided is the upright row now I’m going to use a walking stick to demonstrate so

I haven’t got a barbell here but we see people do this in the gym and basically you stand holding a bar like this with both um uh Knuckles facing forward and you row up like this and this is an exercise which is good for strengthening your shoulders it does also give you

Some bicep strength as well but the problem with this exercise is this position here okay so if you think about what’s happening with my shoulder right now I’m flexed and I’m internally rotated now this position here is the exact position we use in the clinic to try and provoke a rotator cuff problem

To check if that is a problem someone has we call this the Hawkins and Kennedy’s position okay this is a a test we use to see if someone’s got impingement of the rotator cuff so every time you’re coming up like this what you’re doing is you’re stressing the

Rotator cuff and it’s especially the case if you’ve got weight on either side of the bar and and it’s too much weight you’re holding it in a very very vulnerable position and probably aggravating the rotator cuff so if you’re over 50 obviously the rotator cuffs usually not in as good a POS a

Situation as someone who’s in their 20s for example so I just wouldn’t run the risk of stressing it too much there are far better shoulder exercises you can do if you want stronger shoulders to avoid the upright row cuz it will save your shoulders the next exercise that people

Over 50 should almost certainly avoid is back extensions now a back extension looks something like this you lie on your front you have your hands out the way and you come up like this with or without your legs some people do it just like this and some people use their legs

As well now I hate this exercise for most people over 50 the reason I don’t like it is because it involves extension of the lumber spine which for people in the 50 plus category can aggravate back problems the other reason I don’t like like it is because people go crazy with

It and they do loads of repetitions and each time they’re doing it they’re probably not using the muscles they wanted to use they’re using their paraspinal muscles which can get tight quite easily this can be a cause of uh issues that uh cause spasm of the lower

Back that happens quite a lot if you have any arthritis in your lower back being in this kind of extended position really not a good idea so this exercise is not too bad for people who are under the age of 50 g but for people in their 50s 607s I

Almost always avoid it so avoid back extensions note that this is different to the Cobra which I don’t mind for many people over 50 and the reason I don’t mind this is because it’s not using the back muscles it’s using your arm muscles and it’s a Mobility exercise rather than

A strengthening exercise which people can do too much of too quickly and cause a back problem now the next exercise that I don’t really like for people over the age of 50 is the Crunch and the crunch is an ABS exercise it works the abdominals at the front of the of the

Tummy and the crunch looks something like this so you sit or you lie on your back and then you’re trying to do like the first part of a situp basically and again same reason I don’t particularly like this exercise for people over 50 is

People tend to go crazy at it so they do quick movements like this and every time you’re doing that it’s involving rapid flexion of the Lumar spine and the thoracic spine as well and why is that a problem well it’s a problem because that kind of forward flexed movement a it can

Cause stress on the discs if people do it too quickly B it can trigger a muscle spasm there and see the rectus abdominis the sixpack muscle if you like is actually not that important for lower back health so if people think they’re doing this to build a stronger core fair

Enough but it’s actually not that good of a core exercise it will get your six-pack muscles a bit stronger but not the ones that protect the spine so it has not much value and preventing back pain and might actually cause it so avoid the crunch if you’re over 50

Because there’s much better exercises you can do the next exercise to avoid if you’re over 50 is the behind the neck press and this is a shoulder exercise that I see people do quite often in the gym and basically it looks like this so we’re going to pretend this is a barbell

It starts behind the head like this or behind the neck and then you press it up overhead and then you bring it back down like this again I do not like this exercise for over 50s for several reasons the first reason I don’t like this exercise is because to do this

Exercise correctly you have to have lots and lots of lateral rotation so the arm has to rotate quite far back so if you have any arthritis whatsoever you probably are going to lose lose some lateral rotation so if you can’t rotate back as far your arms are here and look

What that does to my posture and my neck I can’t get it back to the right position because it’s pushing me forward so if you lose lateral rotation then you try and press that is a horrible position to be in especially if you’ve got weight over your head you’re going

To stress your neck you’re going to stress your thoracic spine your midback and you’re certainly going to stress your shoulders so that’s one reason why I don’t like it the second reason I don’t like is cuz if your technique’s not perfect if you come down too quickly

Bang you’re going to hit yourself on the back of the neck or on the tops of the shoulders and I’ve seen people do this trust me it’s not pretty so do not do this exercise to show you from the side you probably do it standing but I’m

Going to show you it sitting it’s like this overhead and if you get it wrong you’re going to cause impact right there now a better alternative is to do a in front of the neck press or a military press which again is not suitable for everyone but it’s better than the behind

The neck press for most people so we have the bar in front there’s not as much lateral rotation needed we’re going to go up overhead and then back down making sure that we stay clear of our nose at the front like that so that is a much better alternative avoid the behind

The neck press if you want something a little bit more creative for your shoulders there’s lots of better Alternatives that is definitely one to avoid and then the fifth and final exercise that I’m going to give you is one to do of the neck but before I show

You which exercise to avoid 88% of people who watch these videos have not yet subscribed to the channel if that’s you just scroll down hit subscribe it’s totally free and then you’ll be the first to hear about our videos when they come out and it really does help the

Channel so thank you if you do that so the fifth and final exercise is called neck rolls and this exercise is one that people do in a warm-up generally for an exercise class or similar and it looks like this so roll their neck NE round like this and then they roll back so

It’s not a strengthening exercise it’s a range of motion exercise sometimes people do this so they’re rolling underneath and it seems to be common place in warm-ups and cool Downs After classes now I do not like this exercise especially for over 50s for a number of reasons the first reason is obvious if

You were to do this movement just have a feel and have a listen to what you can hear so when I do this I can hear clicking cracking crunching in my neck it’s not because I’ve got an unhealthy neck it’s just because I’m trying to combine three or four different

Movements all at once and that’s putting the facet joints in my neck into funny positions now I don’t know about you but I know that necks are very intricate and I don’t particularly want my neck in funny positions for too long because it makes it quite sore and stiff so when

You’re combining all of these movements together you’re almost grinding the facet joints uh and that is not going to be good especially for people with neck pain and I’ve had people come into the clinic who caused problems in their neck because they were doing this exercise CU

They thought it was going to be a good thing so try and avoid it there are much better things you can do the neck has six pure movements you’ve got flexion extension you’ve got side flexion to the left and the right and then you’ve got rotation to the left and the right

You’re much better just doing those pure movements rather than trying to combine them together and doing neck rolls and possibly injuring your neck anyway that’s all I’ve got for you today I hope that’s been useful those are five exercises that most over 50s should avoid if you’ve enjoyed this video do

Leave me a comment below subscribe to the channel and feel free to pick up a copy of my book it’s called thriving Beyond 50 and you can find it on Amazon using the link below it’s got loads of better exercises for you to do inside anyway thanks for watching I appreciate

Your time and I’ll speak to you on the next video