Must-Read: A Tip for Weight-Lifting

We remember our first time ever in a weight room. It was freshman year of high school and we were getting our pump on — although we never called it that — while getting prepared for football season. (Spoilers: We didn’t do too well.) But what was so amazing about stepping into that weight room for the first time, what still sticks with us today, is just how foreign and dangerous-seeming the whole thing seemed. It was almost like a medieval dungeon of some sort with the various straps and metals and lifts and grunts and strong dudes all roaming around. And, really, that kind of fits, seeing that those weight rooms are dangerous places. They’re not places for kids with no experience to mess around in. Fact is, you can get hurt pretty terribly in the weight room if you don’t know what you’re doing.

So today we’re heading over to Men’s Health where they have a special tip that you need to know about lifting weight:

Lifters who pressed weight overhead?doing moves such as the overhand-grip shoulder press?were at greater risk of shoulder instability than men who kept weight below their head, as with a lateral raise.

?You need to have really great strength, mobility, and stability to safely lift overhead, and most people don?t,? says Mike Reinold, P.T., C.S.C.S., a Boston-based athletic trainer.

So keep that little factoid in mind, folks. Don’t lift overheard when you’re in the weight room. It’s just not safe, and if there’s one terrible way to get hurt, it’s in the weight room.