Workouts to Avoid in Your 30s. As you reach your 30s you might start to notice that it is a bit more difficult to workout and your muscles end up being a bit more tired after certain exercises. This is in part because you are exiting your physical prime, but, you are still at a point in your life where you can build strength, and develop a good exercise routine you can continue to use for decades to come. However, there are some things that you are going to avoid in order to avoid injury and keep your body in good shape.
1. Sit Ups
Sit-ups aren’t great for anyone, no matter what age they are. Traditionally, when you are doing a sit-up you are rounding your back a large amount, and this is going to place your back in a stressful position. Over time this is going to put more and more stress on your lower back. This can lead to you herniating a disc in your back from the stress.
If you are looking to develop your core without risking your back, then I would recommend that you move towards planks and side planks. This will strengthen all areas of your core better than sit-ups can.
2. Heavy Deadlifts
Deadlifts can be a great exercise, but they have to be done very carefully to make sure you don’t injure yourself. If you don’t have any deadlifting experience and you are entering or in your 30s then you will want to avoid starting. Deadlifting requires perfect form along with a large amount of core, back, and hip strength. Improper deadlifting can lead to injury or lots of stress on your lumbar spine.
If you practice and know how properly do it properly, then you are still going to want to be careful. You will want to avoid doing deadlifts at the end of your workouts as muscle fatigue can lead to improper form and potential injury. You also will want to work your way up to your heaviest weight in order to make sure your muscles are prepared and able to handle the stress of the workout.
An easy alternative for deadlifts is just traditional weight lifting. You are going to want to lift weights in order to build muscles anyway, so traditional weightlifting is a great alternative to deadlifts.
3. Rows with Rotation
Rowing is a great exercise that helps your rhomboid, or back muscles. But, when rowing you need to make sure that you are keeping your form correct, meaning your core is tight and you aren’t rotating anything. Adding in additional rotation can lead to a herniated disc. If you do perform rows, take it slow and keep a proper form the whole time to limit the chance of injury.
4. Russian Twists
These are a lot like sit-ups, just twisting side to side rather than up and down. The problem that you are going to have with this exercise is the fact that you are rotating through your lumbar spine, which is meant to help keep you stable, and not meant to twist. This can easily become problematic for your back, especially since you typically are holding either a dumbbell or medicine ball to add additional weight to the workout.
The best alternatives for this sort of exercise are going to be exercises that don’t have much rotation. These include planks, side planks, pall of presses, or even suitcase carries. Anything that works your core but doesn’t require rotation will make a good substitute.
5. Overhead Presses
Overhead workouts are not bad at all, but since many people have a desk job or a situation where they develop poor posture, most people do not at the strength they need in order to perform a press overhead properly. Often people tend to have an arch in their lower back to help compensate for tightness in the upper body, which causes the lumbar spine to end up bearing the majority of the weight when performing overhead presses.
So, if you don’t have the best posture or strongest upper body, then you are likely going to have poor mechanics or form which can lead to stress on the joints. This can eventually lead to pain or serious injury.
6. Leg Presses
The biggest problem that you see with the leg press is the fact that you can just load up on weight. But, the range of motion you typically use with this machine is often too great which puts force on the lower back.
In order to prevent this, you should instead head over to the free weights and do traditional squats, it is even better if you have someone spotting you and watching for proper form. You can use the leg press, but opt for low weight, high intervals, and make sure to only go til you are at a 90-degree angle.
7. Anything Where You Have Poor Form
With almost every workout that I have covered this far, you might have noticed that the biggest issue is that most exercises are bad because they are difficult to maintain proper form. If you are performing an exercise and using the incorrect form, then you can easily be causing more harm than good for yourself. When you are working out you want to make sure that you are always using the proper form. Taking it slow and doing it properly will help you get stronger, and have you hurting less the next day.
8. Extended Workouts
You are going to want to avoid working out for too long. When you were in your 20s, you might have been able to spend hours in the gym and wake up fine, but that isn’t the case for most in their 30s. Making sure that you don’t overwork yourself is just as important as avoiding negative exercise. Typically you should limit your gym visits to under an hour will help limit the amount of soreness for the next day and prevent muscle fatigue, which typically causes injury.