KANSAS CITY, Missouri ― Maybe the biggest barrier to working out is time. Barrier, challenge, excuse?

So fitness trainers hate to see anyone frittering away precious workout periods or filling them with less-than-effective exercises. Actually, it makes them crazy.

We asked a few trainers to point out things they see in the workout world that they really wish they didn’t.

Perhaps a different exercise would be a better use of time. Or a certain exercise ultimately yields more injury and pain than progress. You might be surprised by their picks.

But first, let’s address the flagrant waste of workout time, and the chief culprit here is ― you guessed it ― the cellphone.

“It drives me bananas,” says John Benz, co-owner of CrossFit on 18th in Kansas City, Missouri. “If you can talk on the phone or text, your workout isn’t intense enough.”

Instead of crunches, planks

Corey Scott knows why people do crunches, those truncated sit-ups meant to target abdominal muscles. They want a “six-pack,” a washboard stomach, that shrink-wrapped look.

“We all have the same musculature,” says Scott, owner of Corey Scott Personal Training Studios in Prairie Village, Kansas. “It’s just that we have to reduce down to it. The six-pack starts in the kitchen. Or better yet, the grocery store.”

If your goal is to strengthen your “core,” which means the torso muscles, including stomach, back and hips, your impulse is right on, Scott says. But crunches aren’t good for that, either.

A simple and effective core exercise is the plank, Scott says. It involves a host of abdominal, back and stabilizer muscles.

Lie on the floor face down and raise your body, “balancing” on your forearms and toes. Hold for 20 seconds or more, lower your body to the floor and repeat several times. Be sure to keep your rear from poking up or sagging.

For a more advanced plank, place your forearms on an exercise or stability ball.

Interval training

Cynthia Kernodle gives certain people credit ― at least they’re not sitting at home on the couch ― but still it’s disturbing: “I see the same people on a piece of cardio equipment like an elliptical machine or stationary bike, doing the same thing every time, at the same level.

Several problems: The body gets accustomed to long stretches of routine exercise, and fitness doesn’t improve; you increase your risk for repetitive motion injuries; and workouts lack mental focus. They’re boring.

Two solutions, says Kernodle, owner of Choices Personal Training:

If you perform your cardio at the gym, spend shorter amounts of time on each of several machines: elliptical, treadmill, bike.

And switch to interval training, which means alternating periods of high-intensity and low-intensity exercise. The latter are also called rest intervals (but that doesn’t mean to stop).

Intensity is pushing yourself hard to maximum effort, which is a different level for different people. Think of sprinting, running as hard as you can, followed by jogging. Or increase the slope or resistance on a cardio machine for a time, then lower it.

Pull ups

No matter how toned or bulky you’d like your biceps to be, John Benz has a message for the bicep-curl fans among us: “Way too much time is dedicated to that tiny muscle.”

Benz realizes that the bicep curl, lifting a hand-held weight by bending the elbow, is a hallowed weight-training maneuver. But the time would be better spent doing pull-ups, he says.

Gripping a bar and lifting your body weight will give you great biceps plus recruit an array of muscles in the back and elsewhere. It’s also more aerobic and will improve your grip, forearms and shoulder stability.

Can’t do one? Ask a friend to grasp your ankles with both hands and provide just as much support as is needed for you to lift your body and get your head above the bar, Benz says. Or, at first, stand on a chair or stool and approximate a free-hanging pull-up.

And if you’re too old school to completely abandon bicep curls?

“Less than 3 minutes,” Benz says. Hit them fast, intensely, and move on.”

By now you’re picking up on a general theme here: For fitness and function, choose exercises that work large and multiple muscle groups rather than those that attempt to target specific muscles.

Alternating leg exercises

Our legs contain the body’s biggest muscles. They’re heavy. That’s one reason leg-hold exercises can cause injury, Kernodle says.

For leg holds, people lie on their backs and with their legs straight, raise them to a right angle with the floor, then lower them to about 10 inches from the ground, hovering there as long as possible.

Anyone with chronic lower back pain shouldn’t do leg holds, Kernodle says. Others risk injury unless they maintain perfect form, with the full spine against the floor.

Here are a couple of alternatives: Lying on the floor face up, bend the right leg at the knee and keep the right foot on the floor. Extend the left leg and raise it off the floor, hold for several seconds, and return the left leg to the floor. Make sure you don’t push your right foot against the floor, which recruits the right hamstring rather than the abdominals. Then switch legs.

Now, lying face up, arms at your sides, position your legs as though sitting in a chair, thighs at a right angle to the ground and knees bent. Lower one leg to the ground and return to the starting position. Do the same with the other leg.

If you find yourself arching your back, place your hands, face down to the floor, under your rear.

Scaptions

Pushing heavy weights above the head is a staple of gym work, but be wary of injury, Scott says. Especially as people age, such weight training can damage shoulder joints and tendons. A common term is “shoulder impingement syndrome.”

Try scaptions as an alternative, he says.

With light to moderate weights in each hand, place your arms about even with your front pockets. Now raise the weights to just below shoulder height, then lower them. Your arms are angled rather than straight at your sides or straight in front.

By Edward M.Eveld

(McClatchy Newspapers)

(MCT Information Services)