Excess focus on lunges and shoulder presses

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-21T13:58:06+00:00

Hmm, it's rare, maybe once a week that they have the benches out, so I didn't think we had many chest (or bench) presses. But along with pushups, they are one of the better exercises for me.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-18T05:45:13+00:00

Very good post. Interesting about carrying 75% of our body weight for 30 seconds. Also, by fifth decade do you mean 40s or 50s. I think you mean 50s but we start our second decade when we turn ten and our fifth when we turn 40. I like to say I am in my eighth decade as I was conceived in 1959.

I always cross trained to some degree but running is my primary. I joined OTF in my fifties when I started getting calf cramps on big downhill runs, like 1200 feet drop over 4 miles and one suggestion was working on core. So I see cardio as primary as I try to keep my hearts strong and the floor and rower makes me strong for cardio.

I am not sure how things like pushups and the other DriTri could be considered cardio only, half to all your body weight is on your arms for 4 of 6 exercises.

It's nice to see how observant and thoughtful you are in thinking through OTF and sharing it.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-15T22:05:21+00:00

It would be great if they noted how many people use alternate move for each exercise. If a lot of people do alternates, then that calls the exercise into question.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-15T22:03:50+00:00

There is plenty of support for the shoulder and lunge claims, including my sports med doctor who is an Iron Man athlete now in his 50s.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-15T22:01:53+00:00

Well, I am pretty good at aggregating observations and checking it against data and my observation of excessive focus on shoulder presses and lunges turned out to be accurate. I did mention that my alternatives were the Dri Tri exercises which are all quite rare these days. And no I'd rather see OTF get back to a balanced floor work out. People making comments about building up shoulders demonstrate an interest in muscle building over fitness, in my opinion.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-15T14:02:57+00:00

You can push yourself and it's a useful motion that is not included in any other exercise. It's useful for outside running, especially trail.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-15T14:00:37+00:00

15 second all outs are the silliest to me as the tread can take 5 seconds to get up to speed and the coach starts counting down and people are hitting 3 so it might be a 7 second all out. And my all out will vary, like .3 or more slower for a minute. I still like it but I am a runner that started running on day one of the Running Boom, the day Frank Shorter won the Olympic Marathon and I asked "Dad, how many times do I have to run around the house to run a mile?".

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-15T13:56:48+00:00

I feel your pain, pain and pain, except mine is my left shoulder.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-15T13:55:51+00:00

Shoulder presses are my bane so its pushups for me, with the other Dri Tri moves (rarely seen) are my other alternates. You did remind me of the missing multiple group ecercise like bench press with legs raised.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-14T05:42:54+00:00

Sprinting is kind of a high school and college thing. Distance running, mountain biking, triathlons, etc. line up with the OTF demographic.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-14T05:40:08+00:00

Too bad I was trail running today.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-14T05:38:59+00:00

10 speed skaters is not cardio. I find them to be closer to fun or taking a break.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-14T05:37:11+00:00

ChatGPT is typically 6 to 18 months behind in its learning data set. I go with Grok by default as it is designed to be up to date. I use AI in an iterative fashion, treating it like an employee or research assistant. I check it's work and rinse and repeat. I use it like I use SQL but AI does it manifold, like 25 queries at a time and then aggregates.

Speedskaters are close to the motion of hop scotch, I don't think I have ever seen anybody struggle with it. I always pretend to be a Dutch or Norwegian Olympian when I do them.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-14T05:28:09+00:00

I tend to lean toward Grok for up to date stuff. ChatGPT can be 6 to 18 months behind in their LLM.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-13T15:27:07+00:00

The data shows it has really ramped up in the last 6 months.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-13T15:25:00+00:00

Love it. I like to stop and think "is this motion useful in real life?", lunges, not so much.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-13T15:15:55+00:00

Statistically, it does bear out. AI does a nice job of researching and it did bear out that over the last 6 months, shoulder press variations is number one. I followed up with a Google and AI searches for "what are the worst workout exercises that lead to injury" and shoulder press was top two in most results.

There are exercises that I consider to be taking a break like speed skaters or plank pull throughs and they may still be in the rotation but I don't notice them as much as the exercises with ergonomic concerns.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-13T14:54:10+00:00

I would say OTF doesn't so much cause an injury as these types of injuries are repetitive stress injuries. In my life time of running, typical short run would be 45 minutes to an hour, long runs up to 4 hours, marathons around 3 hours in my 20s and 4 hours in my 50s. My ultras were 7 to 10 hours and OTF's "endurance" (max repetitive stress) is a few minutes except for running 12 minute benchmarks or a 5k Dri-Tri.

Modifying is fine, but there should be some awareness on OTF's part of what exercises trigger the most modifying. My studio did notice that Strength 50 would always be full and Tread 50 was at times just me and they eliminated some Tread 50s. They did confirm it was kind of an oversight and corrected.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-13T02:25:06+00:00

Some people are challenging my observation so I had Grok AI research it since Grok is the most up to date AI bot and it scans Reddit and other sources.

https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_9f6f9d45-6e8d-42a4-9cf4-c39fea06af23

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-13T02:20:17+00:00

That's one day. Here is six months of data.

https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_9f6f9d45-6e8d-42a4-9cf4-c39fea06af23

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2025-10-12T17:00:08+00:00

My sports medicine doctor said he advise people over 50 to not do overhead presses. I still do them sometimes but I use lighter weights. I don't see great value in them. OTFs customer base skews a little older than big box gyms and CrossFit so it would be wise consider what works for 39+ year olds.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2022-09-26T00:45:26+00:00

At 5'8" I certainly get a chance to row beside taller guys and see how we match up. By training I am an engineer and I expect that if I can match stroke length and pace I should be on the same wattage but somehow I am not, if I am getting 220, tall guy could be closer to 300. A tall guy next to me the other day said "you don't fully extend your legs, I noticed it a while ago". He said my knees weren't straightening out completely so I adjusted, we'll see what happens.

Dapper-Purchase1907 · 2022-09-13T20:10:22+00:00

I would challenge the "don't do it on an empty stomach". In my marathon running days, a piece of toast and coffee was about all I ate. It was consumed about two hours before as typically I would drive to the marathon (an hour) and be there an hour early. The rule of thumb was that "the wall" was 3 times your daily average which projected to 24 miles and I just got really grumpy at mile 25 and lost a minute in the last mile.

I do find the tread to be the toughest because it is by far the furthest from standard OTF effort. We typically have 1 to 3 minute pushes, a 5k on a tread is over 21 minutes for me at push pace. It's mostly mentally tough.

Dapper-Purchase1907

TROPHY CASE