Stability - Injury prevention

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Is there less risk of injury if you do stability exercises?

Stability exercises could be:

  • Weighted Plank
  • Single-Leg Dumbbell RDL
  • Curl-Up
  • Side Plank
  • Bird-Dog
2

These are all perfectly fine exercises to include in a varied training program, but we don’t have good evidence or reasoning to claim that they are “special” exercises that prevent injury more effectively than other general exercises, assuming appropriate dosing.

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3

I just need to make sure I understand it correctly :slight_smile:

If you do regular barbell exercises, you might get enough stability training from them.

Stability exercises might therefore be a waste of time. But more research is needed to know for sure?

4

What exactly defines and differentiates a “regular barbell exercise”?

What exactly defines and differentiates a “stability exercise”?

I am not suggesting that any particular exercise (or set of exercises you might label as “stability” exercises) are a waste of time. For example, there is value in exercise variation in itself. But I think you would agree that a free standing barbell squat requires (and thus challenges) “stability”.

There are no “special” exercises – this even includes barbell movements. They all have specific demands (which is how they generate their specific adaptations), which may be more or less useful for a person in the context of their broader training program & goals.

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