“You’re doing a bunch of exercises that suck, we’re going to tell you why they suck and recommend much better replacements.” Blunt and brutal words from exercise scientist, Dr Isratel, in his latest YouTube video and while his delivery might be direct, he’s not wrong.
If your goal is to build muscle (hypertrophy) and get stronger, exercise selection matters. Some popular moves simply aren’t effective for maximising results, and worse, they could be holding back your progress.
Fortunately, Dr. Israetel doesn’t just call out the underperformers, he offers smarter alternatives to help you train more efficiently, so that you can see better gains.
1. The Bosu ball
Dr Istratel says the Bosu ball is the “number one worst offender”. Even though he says you can do pretty much everything on the Bosu ball – like squats, push-ups, and even lunges – he says all of these should be done off the Bosu ball. But, why?
“Because when you’re on the ball you become unstable and precisely because your body detects instability it ramps down your ability to contract the biggest, most growth prone parts of your muscles, and the ones that make you the strongest – they’re called fast twitch motor units – and they’re basically almost completely off when you’re on an unstable surface, like the bosu ball.”
So, whatever you’re doing on the Bosu ball, Dr Istratel advises doing it on the floor instead, that’s if you want to build muscle and improve your strength.
2. Kettlebell swings
Kettlebell swings are an excellent training tool – which Dr Istratel is in agreement with – however, he argues it swings (pun intended) more towards giving your lungs a run for their money more so than your muscles. “If you realise that the kettlebell swing is something you can just keep going with, but it’s very tough on the cardio situation, then kettlebell swings are a wonderful part to include in a circuit for general cardiovascular fitness.
“However, for resistance training, for growing the hamstrings, or the glutes, or the lower back, or for sport training – developing strength and power and speed – all of those things something th ekettbell swing is not biomechanically not designed to do, because most of the forces are horizontal and in real sport most limiting forces are vertical.”
For strength, power and size, he says to ditch the kettlebell and opt for deficit deadlifts, power cleans, or the mid-thigh pull instead.
3. Heavy carries
Similar to the kettlebell swing, Dr Istratel argues heavy carries most definitely can have a place in your training – they’re just not the most optimal when hypertrophy is the goal. “Do heavy dumbbells and every other kind of implemented carry build your traps? You bet. But, what they also do is fatigue the living f*ck out of you, because heavy carries put a lot of pressure on the skeleton, which gives you awesome strong bones, but also zaps the fatigue away that you could have dispersed over many more productive exercises.”
If it’s just your traps that you want to target, Dr Istratel says any kind of shrugs – dumbbell, cable or machine – will work. Alternatively, he says dynamic movements – like presses, pulls and deficit deadlifts – will deliver strength, hypertrophy and metabolic adaptation.
4. Bicycle abs
‘How to get a six-pack’ is one of the most highly searched fitness-related questions, but doing bicycle abs will never get you there. “One, it never stretches your abs a ton and two, most importantly, how do you progress on it?,” says Dr Isratel. “If you can do bicycle abs for more than a minute and 30 seconds, you’re already in really good shape, any more time added is just going to make your abs have higher endurance, it won’t make them any more jacked.”
Progressive overload and exercises that focus on ‘the stretch’ are key if you want to build bigger, stronger abs. Dr Isratel says that the decline weighted sit up “ is GOATed for ab development” or, if you’re looking for a bodyweight alternative, he recommends the V-up.
5. Turkish get-ups
Dr Istratel describes Turkish get-ups as a “parlour trick”. “Biomechanists agree it's not exactly certain what you’re testing or training in the Turkish getup, but most would say its probably the ability to keep your shoulder mobile enough to stay totally vertical and the bare modicum of leg strength and total-body coordination it requires to stand up with a miniature kettlebell in your hand.”
Instead, for leg strength and overhead stability, the deep squat and barbell overhead are Dr Istratel’s choices. Not to mention they’re far easier to progressively overload and will probably target the muscles more that you actually want to grow.
