What is the one exercise one should do in the gym?
Q: If you could choose one exercise to do in the gym over all others, what would it be?
A: It would be the act of walking into the gym. That’s the most important exercise. However, all exercise — if done correctly — is good exercise, and you certainly don’t have to go to a gym.
The author of this column spends 80% of his training life outside the gym, though it does include weighted compound exercises at home.
Your question is vague. Do you have a fitness plan? Do you partake in sports? Are you a runner or do you cycle, or both? Are you injury-free or are you working through rehab or around pain? The answers to these questions, and more, would determine the types of exercise you should do, how often, and with which intensity.
We won’t ask whether you are trying to become stronger. This is 2021 and we are well past the myth that strength training makes you big and bulky and reduces mobility. Training like a plonker reduces mobility and eating poorly or taking banned substances makes you big and bulky.
Besides the obvious benefits for your weight management, lean muscle tissue, metabolism, bone density and energy levels, strength carries over to everyday life and sport, especially when muscles are trained together in functional patterns.
By now you would have gathered that we have excluded the likes of bicep curls, triceps pushdowns, pec dec, cable crossovers, leg extensions, calf raises and ab crunches.
This is not to say these exercises don’t have their place. In fact, the mirror brigade performs only these exercises.
In fairness, we perform these mirror exercises, too, but only when we’ve earned the right to “play”.
The Water Cooler’s big six, which are performed every week, are:
● Squat and lunge (and variations);
● Dead lift (and variations); bench press (or dumbbell press);
● Overhead press (with a barbell or dumbbells);
● Pull-ups;
● Rows (with a barbell or dumbbells); and
● Carries (farmer walks or overhead carries).
These are our big, functional compounds and form the strength base for our power and dynamic movements. Once these boxes are ticked, and if there’s time, we join the weekend warriors at the mirror.
The one exercise that will never be excluded, and which The Water Cooler would choose to do over all others in the gym, is the back squat. This is personal, as it was a weakness that has been turned into a strength that has had immense carry-over to other activities — sprinting, running, posture and a general sense of wellbeing.
An irritating myth, if you are injury-free and doing them properly, is that weighted squats are bad for you.
The Physio Network blog writes: “If you are injury-free, squat to a depth where you can maintain at least a mostly neutral pelvic position (that is, allow a small amount of butt-wink, but not too much)”. Watch how many people tilt their pelvises forward as they go down — this is due to poor mobility which needs to be fixed or else an injury is loading, which will be blamed on the exercise and not the trainee.
The Arthritis Foundation website states: “Squatting … helps build strength in the legs and hips, and stronger muscles mean more stable joints. But if you don’t squat correctly, it can be painful to sore knees.”
Medical News Today writes: “Many people squat regularly as part of their workout routine or during everyday tasks. Squatting correctly should not cause knee pain.”
An article in the Huffpost by renowned US trainer Mark Rippetoe called “Squats Are Safe, but You Are Probably Doing them Wrong”, writes: “The full squat is not only safe for the knees, it strengthens the muscles that operate and protect the knees so effectively that nothing else even compares to it as a basic exercise for the lower body.”
The Water Cooler’s unscientific observation is that most people reading this squat incorrectly, placing their lower back and knees at risk. The weighted back squat, when done properly, activates the calves, quads, hamstrings, adductors, hip flexors, glutes, erectors, abdominals and obliques, upper back and lats. Now that’s bang for your buck.