I really do appreciate you saying that, my man!
I don’t like know-it-all people, those who act very authoritative, and those who don’t consider other perspectives. So, if I were to come of that way, I’d be failing myself and you!
I encourage people to think for themselves. And, I admire those who actually do.
It’s such an honor to hear that one of my articles brought you here. And, that my work still continues to resonate with you.
I greatly appreciate your continued support, and I hope I can continue to earn your respect with my future works.
It’s a real bummer to hear about your injury. I hope you have recovered or are recovering well with minimal residual impact on your training.
This is the first incidence I’ve heard of such injury with the angle leg press, but I can see how it can happen when 1) your feet are up high on the platform and 2) you’re going very deep. In that, as you go deep into a squat or leg press, your adductors become primary hip extensors. Thus, they may have been taken into slight overstretch at the bottom. Much like happens when ou go too low during a Dumbbell pec fly.
In short, end range joint positions and semitones heavy loads are a dangerous combo.
I wish you much success in your recovery and training!
To be completely frank, I often dislike when coaches come to comment on the threads about articles they have posted. Largely because, said coaches tend to be condescending dicks whenever anyone offers an opinion that remotely differs from the article. I like what you had to say, but the way you respond to questioning attitudes and contrary opinions really won my respect as a coach. Need more folks like you In the industry who are smart enough to make an informed opinion, while humble enough to still listen to other thoughts. Much respect.
This is probably not a fair question (and you’re certainly free to ignore without hurting my feelings), because I’m asking a sweeping generality, but what’s your knee jerk when folks tweak their adductors? Do you spend more time in deep positions to strengthen them or cut the depth a little higher to avoid the insulting portion?
I blame mixed grip deadlifts for a lot of my crooked injuries and refuse at this point to ever use it. I honestly feel so much stronger with double overhand. Maybe it will just take you a bit more practice like you said for you to actually feel stronger that way. It is weird at first for sure, but I feel like I have a much more even pull now.
I guess it could be that I am using a women’s bar too LOL. Quite skinny, but maybe I also have tiny hands so I am just rambling at this point :)…
Keep trying! I think you can learn to love it!
I’m sure you’re 100% correct. Just as I was getting to the point of being about to switch to double overhand with straps, I started falling in love with the trap bar and never looked back. If my progress ever starts to slow with it though I know I’ve got a lot of novelty stimulus to gain from going back to the conventional for a few months and I’ll be doing all of that pulling with double overhand.
Not just that, but pretty much any other sport! There’s a culture of non-lifters that say things like “there’s no need to lift that heavy weight, you’ll get injured”, but you are quite a few shades more likely to get injured playing something like football or rugby. I love the element of it being just you and the iron. If you get injured it’s likely your own fault no matter how experienced or trivial the injury may be. There’s always something to learn from each niggle… In a lot of other sports you have to deal with the impossible to measure contribution of other people’s mistakes as well as your own fallibility.
This is why I bought up the trap bar example. You could coach the trap bar deadlift to a room of a dozen people at the same time. To correctly coach the deadlift takes much more nuance and an individualized approach for it to become “safe”. Your rationale is completely legit. I’ve mentioned lots of times here that I work out in a leisure center gym that’s attached to a school so I see a LOT of kids doing stupid things. One rep maxing squats on a smith machine with no technique whatsoever is one of those things. The content of the article is valuable information, I just wanted to make the point that when done correctly and for the right reasons, 99.9% of lifts can be and are safe.
I really do appreciate you taking the time to say that, my man.
I too share that same frustration when coaches act dogmatic or condescending.
Plus, I’d be highly concerned if people agree with me on everything. Heck, I don’t even agree with my self on things i did/said earlier in my career.
If someone came to train with me while saying they strained their groin, I’d avoid deep squat positions under load for multiple weeks to allow healing.
How many weeks we do that would be based on the severity (grade) of their strain.
Once I feel we have waited enough weeks to allow healing, I’d gradually reintegrate some deeper range squats/leg presses using bodyweight and lighter loads.
Specifically, I’d start with deep squats using bodyweight for 1 set for like 10 to 20 reps depending on one’s strength level.
The reason I’d only do one exercise for one set without added load is because, if the following day or two they feel what we did creates discomfort, I’ll know exactly what it was from. Whereas, if we did two sets, or used added load, or did multiple exercises and they had some pain afterward, I wouldn’t know if it was from 1) one of the two exercises, or 2) because we added load when we should’ve used bodyweight, or 3) because we did too many sets.
Hence, I always start with a less is more approach and very gradually add in an extra set, or a little more load for the same amount of sets.
Once again, I’m grateful for your kind words, and I admire your attention to detail.
I hope you decide to write some articles of your own, as I’m confident you have a lot more great info to share with the rest of us.
The picture of the tire filp is not the way to flip a tire, that’s asking for a bicep tear and I’ve the tire curl take guys to the ER.
I’ve flipped way big tires compared to my size many a times, I even owned a 700# tire that injured a big,big, strongman (because he curled it) and NEVER got an injury.
You need get the body touching that tire, shoulders and chest and grip it, not curl it, using the upper body to brace it, use leg drive to flip it. I used to rest it on the leg and push it over on the ones I couldn’t explode in one motion.
Any HEAVY deadlifting is risky (mixed grip or not) if you look at the skeletal structure you know that HEAVY deads are not friendly on disks. We will all say they are safe and make us stronger while the disks pinch our nerves, usually we learn how to rehab these issues.
I’m a big fan of the dead lift and think everyone should do them, just not too heavy for you which is relative. Same can be said for HEAVY squats.
One risky one that wasn’t mentioned was neck bridging, I’ve done these for years and never got hurt, but after understanding what’s in the neck and what bridging is, it looks risky. I’ve stopped doing bridging and use harnesses, and neck curls instead, works the same muscles.
Really appreciate your kind words mate 
Also, totally understand given this context… High box jumps are 100% stupid for most “general” lifters
Heh, i’m far too early in my learning for any of that. I echo everyones elses kind words though and will seek to absorb some of your other content. It’s always nice to get conversing with top coaches.
I think i’ll start with your recent Strength Zone Training book!
ATG squats are a movement that sounds like such a great idea but can cause problems if technique isn’t perfect and the lifter has flexibility challenges.
The biggest problem common to all these exercises is that they require the lifter’s form to be great and the weight being moved to be appropriate for the strength and general physiological health of the person in question. In most cases, the problems come when either one of those factors isn’t right.
They are what I would consider “high risk” and not what most people in the gym should be including in their workouts. The other factor is an instinct toward “ego lifting” that too many of us engage in. We chase the poundage to satisfy ego and don’t remember to go by feel and be more modest in adding weight the way our bodies are telling us to.
Harvard law 2001 did a study regarding “compensatory affect” and the seatbelt claim you just made. They found conclusively that implementing mandatory seat belt laws did NOT result in more accidents or recklessness. Seatbelt laws have reduced fatalities.
Should it be the law? Ask an insurance agent.
“Strong opinions with no information” needs information to ensure said opinions are based in reality.
Stay safe.
Glad to see you made an account just to argue with me.
Links to the source?
IMHO to consider whether an exercise is inherently dangerous we need to consider three factors:
From these points I think it then becomes easier to decide if something is dangerous or not. Using data that shows whether a particular exercise has a higher injury outcome is a great wayd way to test the safeness of an exercise, but we also have to consider those other factors I mentioned above as well. For example flying in a plane is a very safe way to travel, but if the pilot doesn’t know what they are doing then it quickly becomes unsafe.
As others have pointed out, any exercise can be dangerous if done incorrectly (technique, loading, etc), but does that necessarily make the exercise itself dangerous? Likewise, an exercise could be safe for one individual and not safe for another due to structural issues such as with the depth of the hip socket in deep squats. Does that necessarily make the squat dangerous? So while it’s possible to make some generalizations about which exercises are dangerous, at the end of the day we have to consider the biomechanics of a particular lifter performing a particular exercise.
One other thing I would add into the mix is whether the benefits of an exercise outweigh the negatives. Again a mixed grip DL would fir, as would a leg extension. I would even go so far as to say that any exercise/activity performed to high/extreme levels on a regular basis would need to be considered simply due to the high cumulative amount of stress placed on the body. It’s something to think about anyways.
Instead of getting upset about Dddare’s dismissal of your seatbelt point you could consider the basis for your point in the first place. What source of data did you base your claim on?
One I wasn’t able to dig up again. Had I been able to locate it, it would have been linked… some studies are buried under mountains of other studies that use similar keywords, and apparently there’s a million websites dedicated to telling you how important it is to wear a seatbelt (because everyone goes online to learn about that, obviously).
Had it during an economics course correlating the increase of traffic accidents after seat belt implementation.
Not upset, just find it funny the lengths people will go to argue with someone about something unrelated to the topic at hand. For example: I am the only person you’ve replied to in your nearly 8 year old account. I find this funny.
To go back to the topic and article, I think the logic funnel has to start with context/ an assumption about the trainee.
For instance, @Nick_Tumminello framed his trainee as a general population client looking to add some muscle and lose some fat. From there he can draw some risk/ benefit profiles that say this person maybe doesn’t know how to jump and land and really doesn’t need to hit their top heights each session.
@j4gga2 had a different opinion on box jumps, but it’s because his hypothetical trainee is an athlete looking to enhance performance - that potential benefit became larger and the risk smaller.
I completely agree with the anthropometry points, and actually think that’s very underrated in training, but that’s pretty individual and hard to sum in an article like this.
Likewise, we can always say “load and form-dependent;” I think the value of an article and discussion like this is highlighting where we’re more likely to screw these up and/ or see less benefit from the movement (for our goals) in the first place. I didn’t agree with @Andrewgen_Receptors that a smith squat “fails” this test, but we were both coming from the same point so I get it.
I alternated my mixed grip every rep (or set if doing singles) when I competed fully knowing the risk of biceps injury and occasionally getting a flair in bicep tendinitis from using the same arm to supinate. It kept me from serious injuries but sometimes its just luck.
It’s hard to out think that subtle physiology on max effort lifts where the body wants to flex the bicep to strengthen the grip.
It made me sad I didn’t keep up the conditioning of my thumbs for hook gripping like I did when I competed in Olympic lifting 
.