Are there any dangerous exercises?

Stop fearing the use of your back.

I'll just cut right to the chase with the biggest fear for most people: Lower back injuries. No, using your back will not instantly herniate a disk, it will not break your spine, and you're not going to pull a muscle. The low back is just like any other muscle group. Are you terrified of pulling a bicep tendon every time you pick up a coffee cup? No.. Unless you have some especially formidable coffee cups. The truth is, most people just have a weak back, and have always been taught to avoid using it. Somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy!

That’s like gluing your arm to your side, never moving your shoulder around. And then being surprised you pulled a muscle in your shoulder when you finally do move it.

Grains of truth

It’s really all about simply training within the abilities of a bodypart and not exceeding what it can handle. That’s when injuries happen. So no, certain positions aren’t inherently super dangerous on their own, but it is true that many positions we can enter in the gym or sport are undertrained and less resilient than others. The good news is that abilities and tolerance can be trained and made better! Just like how your muscles grow, your joints and tendons adapt as well, mind you, slower. Yes, this even extends to awkward and stigmatized positions, like super deep knee flexion, or spinal flexion (rounded back).

Pain is our body's way of telling us we're exceeding its current abilities, and injury is an extension of that. So yes, maybe right now a deep squat with knees over your toes hurts, but that doesn't always have to be the case. You can build stronger knees just like you've built stronger quads.

What I am NOT saying

I'm not saying you should go out and start rounding your back when you deadlift or squat, and letting yourself rush into more compromised positions. That's like diving into the deep end when you've only ever dipped your toes in the water. What I AM saying however is that we can train these compromised positions to become more resilient, and that no exercises are inherently super dangerous, as long as they're progressed intelligently. I mean sure, maybe if you stand one-legged on a bosu ball balancing a kettlebell on your head on the roof of your house.. Yeah, that’s pretty dangerous. I'm not sure if you can progress your way into doing that safely.

What does this look like in practice?

Starting within your current abilities and slowly progressing into more difficult things. Hey, that sounds kind of like exactly what we do in the gym to grow our muscles! What a coincidence..

Here's a great example on how I progressed my way out of knee pain:
I noticed when squatting that my right knee tended to ache quite a lot, even causing me to omit a third squat attempt at a meet. Every day, I started doing deep bodyweight squats, as deep as I could go without pain. This then progressed into deep bodyweight lunges up the stairs once I noticed my tolerance becoming higher. Then, heel elevated goblet squats. Pretty soon after that, my squats felt great! This took a few weeks, but everyone is different.

I could have just said "I guess deep squats are bad for my knees", and then avoided it. But instead I became more resilient and more capable, which should be the entire point of the gym.

Great resources on this topic:

• Dr. Seth Albersworth
  Seth is an expert on injury recovery and lifter resilience. I highly recommend you follow his content!
  

• Ben Patrick (Knees Over Toes Guy)
  Ben is another champion of building strong tendons and ligaments, his programs are great and so is his info.
  

Jamal Browner deadlifting 904lbs (And using his back)