Weight Routines in the Gym vs. at home

[Tallgirll22T]

Working out with equipment is safer on joints than doing body weight stuff at home right? I do a lot of weighted squats and lunges, push ups and bench dips at home. knees and wrists feel awful. I only do this like 3 days a week, but there aren't many options when I work out at home. I'm thinking using the press machines, leg curl machines, etc. in the gym would be safer. I've noticed for example, that doing triceps extensions instead of bench dips doesn't hurt at all. Am I right in line of thought here?

[Boss Man]

Bodyweighted stuff should be no more problematic than using weights. The main issues people might get with bodyweighted stuff are

1. extending the knees over the toes when squatting.

2. possibly going too low on lunges.

3. pushups using the palms of the hands not with fists instead, though I find the palms option no problem.

4. side planks propping yourself up on one palm not the forearm, potentially stressing the carpal tunnel and the ulna and other nearby bones, like the scaphoid, pisiform, triquetral etc with a lot of bodyweight.

5. Doing pull-downs behind the neck, not paralell or in front of it. Pull-downs behind the neck can encourage rotator cuff damage.

There may be others I've not remembered, but that's just a few

Weights in the gym carry risk as well, so avoid pull-downs behind the neck, behind the neck presses, wrist curls, (same risks as point 4) and of course observe proper squat and lunge technique, or if squats are a bit problematic, consider side lunges for quads instead.

Machines can have their place, like the smith machine, cable row, crossover machine and pec deck, but avoid particualrly ones like the bicep, abs, adductor and chest press machines.

The main bullet points to observe, apart from the one about the neck and wrist stuff above, are to keep technique good and don't overload the weight. Once you're past the initial adjustment period to weights and can be go more intense, whenever you're doing new exercises, or ones you haven't done for a while, underestimate the weight a bit.

You can always increase a little each set if it's too light, but overestimating could be a problem, especially on things like bench press, military press, arnolds, cleans, shoulder and cuban press, tricep extensions, skullcrushers, (a.k.a head cavers / lying french tricep press). and any other exercises, where weight is moved towards or around the head and neck, as dropping the weight would be dangerous, compared to dropping some dumbells when doing curls, unless the weights land on your feet that is .

If you're getting knee issues, it maybe related to the lunges or squats, particularly squats if you're extending the knees over the toes.

If the issues persist they may not necessarily be training related, so look into things like Vit D supplements, Chondroitin, MSM, Cartazyne, (cartilage supplement), hyaluronic acid and perhaps dietry alterations, like limitation or removal of a nightshade like tomatos, owing to the solenene contant that can leach calcium out of bones, or it can be destroyed by cooking, so maybe grill tomatos instead or having them cold .

In the case of a nightshade like potatoes, the solene is 70% in the skin, 30% flesh and along with aubergine, (eggplant), can be destroyed when cooking.

[Tallgirll22T]

That is interesting what you say about the tomatoes. I don't much like them anyway, so no worry there. I have been taking MSM for years because I have always had problems with knees and it helped immensely. Unfortunately, the place I always bought them stopped selling it in capsule form. So I went somewhere else and am back to capsules. I felt better enough Friday to do a 100 rep set leg workout, so I think it is helping.
I am always worried about form, since I workout alone and I'm not an expert. I don't go very low on lunges, but maybe that is the problem? I can't ever seem to get thigh parallel to the ground. I have always done fine with plie squats and push ups before, but I recently started a circuit that incorporates single-leg squat kicks and bench dips as well. That is where I think I may be losing form and getting knee and wrist pain.

[Boss Man]

You might benefit from altering your bench dip form. Your gym might have those little U shaped pushup bars, basically something that looks like this.



If so, you could try those when you do dips off a bench.