There are some exercises that are just a waste of your time and effort. They do not give your muscles and effective work out and at worst may actually increase the risk of injury.

So if any of these are part of your fitness routine, do yourself a favor, and cut them out:

The Lat Pull down behind the head: The lat pull down should be done while keeping the spine straight and when you do it behind the head, your head is likely leaning forward, unless you have unusually flexible shoulder joints.

This exercise increases the risk of several injuries such as a shoulder impingement, a rotor cuff tear or even injury to the cervical vertebrae.

Instead you should be pulling the lat bar down in front of your body up to the breast bone. Contracting your abs at the same time as doing this exercise makes for good form.

The Military Press behind the head: Similar to the lat pull down done behind the head, any weights or barbells that you pump up and down behind your head is an invitation to injury so avoid this shoulder move.

What is safer is to perform this exercise in front of the head and if doing it seated, make sure you sit straight even if using back support, letting your back assume its natural curve.

The Upright Row: When you are doing weights that you pull up under and towards the chin, what is sometimes called the upright row, this is not at all advisable. This is going to be a fairly awkward looking exercise as well.

What this move does is, it impinges on the shoulder thereby compressing the nerves in the shoulder area. Rather than using a barbell to do the upright row, use dumbbells to work your arms inward and outward to the sides or to the front of the body.

The Prone leg press with the knees bending too much: The leg press is an effective lower body work out that will exercise your glutes, hamstrings, and quadriceps, which involves pushing the plate back and forth with your feet placed flat on it.

It is however important for there not to be too big a range of motion here. If you bending your knees back too much this is bad for your knees as well as your back. Rule of thumb here is, don’t bend any more than 90 degrees as the knee.

Squats on the Smith Machine: Squatting with weights is certainly good for upping intensity of a squat, and it is of course possible to do squats on a Smith Machine, however this can get risky.

The reason is that the bar does not give and because it remains rigid, the body can inadvertently contort into positions that can increase the risk of injury. People often do not do this exercise using the correct form, and they put their feet far out in front of the body.

So it is better to not use a machine but rather use free weights when doing the squat, while being careful of using good form.

Bad form for Cardio Workouts: When we talk about good form, it isn’t only weights and resistance exercise we talk about. Cardio should also be performed using good form.

So it is important not to hunch over that exercycle or the treadmill, and not to grip the supports too hard. This can cause your spine, elbows and shoulders to jar and can spoil your alignment as well.
When doing cardio, make sure it isn’t so tough that you can barely do it. Maintain good posture, a natural body position and light grip and pay attention for a good and effective cardio workout.

‘Ab’ Exercise or ‘thigh’ exercise: Doing any kind of exercise or using any machine that promises ‘spot’ reduction is useless. The fact is that you cannot do anything to lose weight from a particular area of the body.

The weight has to be all over; otherwise exercising any one group of muscles will do nothing beyond tone and firm them. If fat still overlays them, the most exercised abs will still be invisible. So aim for all over weight loss by boosting metabolism and not ‘spot’ reduction.

Routinely wearing a weight belt: For those that have a medical condition or injury that indicates its use, or for those that are lifting very heavy weights, a weight belt may make sense.

However, don’t use it as a matter of course; this will cause the core muscles to not work as hard and slack off, consequently becoming weak.

Source: Health & Fitness Zone