to zigzag or not to zigzag

[Scott Stevenson]

I am actually slowly filtering out all these exercises that either don't work for me or cause pain when gets heavy.
The problem in many cases is an exercise/machine feels great at 1st but then as you progress on with it over time it maybe doesn't feel as good or starts causing tendon flair ups. By the time your feeling this it's usually too late and your stuck with a nagging injury for a while.

Have you been there before dude? Where an exercise starts off all good and ends up with eventual sets feeling like your on a knifes edge with it? Lol where risk to benefit ratio is blown outta proportion? Especially for the needs of bodybuilding. I'm very guilty of this, but now I'm a little older and definitely had a few minor set backs I feel I'm smarter with my training. If something twangs/pops or grinds I now discontinue haha.

Matt

Hey Matt,

Yeah, I've been there a few times...

https://www.elitefts.com/education/train...on-warrior

I had to try 5 exercises on a Muscle Round day just a couple weeks ago to find the right one.

Any by the right one, I mean one where I feel like I can just friggin' go to town on it, full force, without nagging thoughts in the back of my mind.

I'd sort of disagree with your generalization in the first paragraph above. I think if you're paying close attention when warming up, that you can indeed figure out that an exercise is becoming problematic before it's too late. (I've been doing this for decades now... LOL I've been training for over 30yr, and pretty much always been a knucklehead in the gym...)

You might try this - SAFELY. (The below is a kind of diagnostic, not a war-up.)

When you go to a new exercise (one that you suspect might be an issue), or a the start of our workout, don't do anything special to warm-up as far as stretching, walking on the treadmill, etc. Just go in an do an UNLOADED (or as close to that as you can) version of the movement and see where it hurts (and watch how you accommodate to try to do the movement.)

If it were a day you'd be squatting, just go into the gym, head to the squat rack and squat down (not even with a bar on your back) and see how that feels. Can you imagine your back being tight, your knees hurting, etc?...

Those would give you some indication of trouble spots to pay attention to, before, during and after doing that exercise.

If it were a pressing movement, you could use an unloaded bar and do the above. NOTHING heavy or crazy - just the movement itself to see where the niggles are.

-S