I remember one day in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers weight room a few years ago watching Head Strength Coach Mark Asanovich training one of our offensive linemen. We had been made aware, by the athletic training staff, that this lineman had strained his right shoulder in the last game; he was cleared to lift, as long as nothing he did increased his shoulder pain.

While doing a trap exercise, the lineman grimaced as performed a repetition. He was obviously in pain. In between reps, Mark asked him if his shoulder was hurting; he admitted that it was.

Pro football players are trained to “play through pain”, and the great ones that I have met possess incredible mental toughness.

This lineman was no exception. He proceeded to attempt another rep, which brought the grimace back to his face.

“STOP!” Mark said. The player complied.

Then came the teachable moment-Mark told the player:

“Move on to the next exercise. This stuff is supposed to help you, not hurt you”.

There are times when all of us who work out hard, and are highly motivated to achieve great results, could benefit from that same teachable moment.

Sometimes the teachable moment is available only in retrospect, after something bad has already happened. A friend of mine recently told me about an NBA basketball player breaking his wrist after losing his balance while performing dumbbell bench presses on a swiss ball.

You may have also heard about the college football player who had a barbell crush his throat when he lost his grip on it while bench pressing. He underwent 7 hours of surgery, and fortunately is going to be okay.

Sometimes orthopedic problems resulting from poor training habits are long-term in nature, not becoming apparent until years later. Mike Mentzer told a friend of mine in 1993 that his lower back was “still f***ked up” from performing partial squats 1000 pounds 15 years earlier.

Weight training should not be a dangerous activity, if a few simple guidelines are followed, such as: controlled rep speed, proper focus without distraction, a safe training environment, and selecting orthopedically friendly exercises.

By orthopedically friendly, I mean exercises that do not put undo strain on your joints, bones or connective tissues.

A few orthopedically friendly choices I would recommend include: dumbbell or machine shoulder presses using a parallel grip, instead of behind-the-neck shoulder presses; close-grip, underhand pulldowns and chin-ups vs. the behind-the-neck variety; 1 arm dumbbell rows, cable rows or machine rows in place of bent-over barbell rows; and the controversial one-leg presses vs. squats.

I know squats are considered the “King of Exercises” by many people, and I don’t discount the fact that they are a productive exercise in terms of building lower body and overall size and strength-but they also put a tremendous amount of strain on your spine, not to mention your shoulders, knees and wrists. These affronts to your joints can be avoided, or at least minimized, by switching to a decent leg press machine.

I’m just saying, there’s no law that says you HAVE to squat, despite what some people would have you believe. You can get fantastic results on the leg press-the key is the level of intensity you use, not the modality.

Of course, if you don’t have access to a leg press machine, you can’t make that choice, so just make sure to use impeccable form, and keep the reps fairly high.

In the end, every individual needs to utilize the powers of reason and logic to make their own training decisions. Carefully consider your exercises choices-not only in terms of productivity, but also potential long-term adverse effects. Lots of things work-the key is a high level of intensity.

Don’t put yourself in harm’s way unnecessarily. Just like that Buccaneer lineman, you’ve got a lot of seasons left in your body. Strive for a long, productive, and healthy training career-when you get old like me, you’ll be glad you did.

Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts on exercise selection.

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