The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

#RealTalk 

I get frequently asked these two questions.

Is this (Fill in the Blank) exercise bad for you?

or 

Is this (Fill in the Blank) exercise safe?

They are totally reasonable and valid questions for someone to ask. Here is the deal.

Everyday fitness professionals put out videos, blogs, and articles stating if you perform movement "x" you are going to get injured or experience pain. This generates tons of clicks and views to their website/content, but it is misleading.To pick out an exercise and discuss the safety of it independent of knowing the functional capacity/ability of the person performing said exercise is impossible. 

Is heavy squatting a dangerous exercise? Is running? Sit-Ups? Olympic Snatches? Muscle-Ups? Dips? Bent-Press? Behind the Neck Press? Back-Bridges? Not if the person has acquired the proper flexibility, technique, and base strength etc... needed to perform it. BUT, the exercise itself is not, in and of itself, ‘unsafe’ or ‘bad for you’. 

There are NO "bad" movements, just ones which you lack the prerequisites to perform. What we DO have to remember is there are exercises they give us lots in return and have many benefits and some which give us very little in return and have minimal to no benefits.