EUGENIZATION.

Medhi writes, “The exercises you struggle with are the exercises you need to do.”

Truer words never spoken.

If you’re like most people, you tend to gravitate towards and perform exercises that “feel good” to you.  If you’re a guy, for example, you may enjoy performing barbell bench press or dumbbell biceps curls.  If you’re female, your preference may be more machine-based; say, hip abduction or hip extension.  Likely, every single foray into the gym involves a set or two of your favs.

Whatever the case may be, it’s a truism that you tend to avoid things you’re bad at in favor of things you’re good at.  But all you’re doing is creating weak points.

An example: You squat, for years; however, you avoid using full range of motion and instead choose to stop slightly above a 90 degree bend in your knees (not quite thighs to parallel).  Over time, your hamstring and hip flexor strength will begin to lag behind your quad and glute strength, since the hamstrings and hip flexors are not meaningfully engaged until you squat below parallel.  This can increase your chances of injury (via hamstring pulls, etc.).

Of course, if you do sufficient hamstring work, it’s not an issue.

But back to the point - it’s one thing to avoid exercises that you aren’t biomechanically suited for (e.g., if you’re long-legged or have arthritic knees, don’t squat).  But don’t avoid exercises simply because you don’t like them or don’t do them well.  Chances are you don’t do them well because you are weak in that particular muscle group or function (and in that case, you need to do them to avoid growing even more feeble).

So do those rotator cuff exercises, even if  they’re boring and you hate them.  Work your posterior chain (upper and lower); you know you need to.  Do what you hate and it just might make you a better athlete (and a better looking athlete, to boot).