By now, we’ve covered the basics on creating your exercise program, from your warm up and your exercise options to your actual workout structure — just knowing these things will give you an advantage in transforming your fitness. Now, it’s time to learn how to do the exercises correctly; doing so will help you progress faster, prevent injuries, and get the most out of your program.
Why You Should Sweat The Technique
If you do an exercise correctly, you will lift to the best of your abilities.
If you don’t, however, you’ll always fall short: you might only back squat 250lb, when you really could squat 300lb.
Imagine what it would be like to increase your lift by 50lbs in just one or two sessions, all from just fixing wasted movements and energy leaks from crappy positions. (For advanced lifers, a 50lb increase could take months, if not years!)
If you do an exercise right, you’ll develop the right muscles. You’ll also strengthen yourself through the right range-of-motions (the degree of movement in a joint). Continuing with the previous example, that could be the diffrence between a squat to parallel and a quarter squat, where you only lower a few inches and come back up. Because there’s less range-of-motion (ROM), you can lift more with a quarter squat. But doing a full squat will target a larger ROM at the ankles, knees, and hips, strengthen more muscles, and create more balance in your legs.
Also, good exercise technique prevents injuries. When you squat, for example, do your knees move in the correct direction or do they collapse inward? When you bench, do your elbows flare out or do they stay tucked near your body? When you deadlift, do you have a neutral spine or a rounded back? When you do a chinup, do your shoulders stay back or do they roll forward like a squirrel eating an acorn?
Those factors will not only help you lift more weight, but it’ll reduce training injuries. And believe me, when you start using heavier weight, you need to be able to rely on your technique and know that you’re doing it right — if not, you could seriously hurt yourself. (Been there, done that.) Better yet, great technique also helps you reduce injuries while playing sports because it trains you to properly move and position your body.
The Wrong Way To Peep Your Technique
At my gym, we cover almost every inch of our walls with mirrors. Chances are, if you also use a commercial gym, you see the same thing I do. (I never understood why they do that — maybe to make the facilities look bigger?) Unfortunately, that makes it really tempting to use them when lifting.
Do NOT rely on mirrors to check your technique.
- Relying on mirrors prevents you from learning the feel of each lift.
Some people use a mirror to see if they squat correctly, but they will never learn the feeling of correct positioning — there’s a big difference, for example, between seeing and feeling when you squat below parallel. Also, if you look straight into a mirror, it’ll only show you one plane, unless you use a mirror to your side.
(Which leads me to my next point…)
- Using mirrors can be dangerous.
Turning your neck to see a mirror at your side can compromise your safety. I like my neck, and I don’t want to injure it by cranking it to the side while pulling heavy weight. It can also detract from your stability and tightness when lifting.
- Mirrors can be distracting. With so many sights and moving objects, they sometimes break your concentration. The optimal view when lifting is some type of blank wall or open area.
Honestly, I think most mirrors were installed in commercial gyms to build the ego, not the body — standing in front of full-length mirrors and doing bicep curls makes a reflective surface almost pointless. Plus, it sucks when you want to do medicine ball work and you can’t find empty space on a wall. (Hell, I’m afraid to lean too hard against a mirror and crack it.)
Olympic weightlifters perform on a stage facing a live audience. They also train for several hours a day, six days a week, without mirrors.
The Right Way to Check Your Technique
Bring a camera to the gym and record yourself.
Simple, right?
In fact, with today’s technology, there’s almost no excuse not to do it — most everyone can videotape themselves with their smartphones and immediately upload it to the internet.
But no one does it.
At my gym, the only people who record themselves doing an exercise are the trainers. (Hint hint.) And it doesn’t need to be a complex video: just ask a workout partner to record you from the front and side while doing an exercise. That’ll teach you more about your technique than any mirror ever can. Better still, you can spend time later analyzing the video and reviewing the good and bad.
Don’t be embarrassed to ask someone to record you, by the way — you might even get compliments.
This also helps you take a more proactive approach to your training. Golfers and baseball players have long analyzed their technique through video. There’s nothing new here.
I just encourage you to copy success.
Quick Story
In Sydney, I worked out in a dusty, derro-ass “gym” that was in the corner of the second floor of a dilapidated boxing gym. Basically, it had a few mismatched dumbbells, an adjustable bench, a power rack with missing screws, and a lot of spiderwebs. (So unless you went to prison, please don’t complain to me about your gym.)
There were no mirrors — instead, the power rack faced a broken window overlooking the alley outside. It took a week to get used to, but it was for the better — without a mirror, I could only rely on my senses to control the weight, which helped me improve my technique.
And every few workouts, I jerry-rigged a tripod and videotaped myself doing squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, etc. Then I’d spend a few minutes reviewing my lifts and making adjustments for the next workout.
Perfect technique doesn’t happen overnight. But with dedication and practice, you can see tremendous improvements in your form.
Send Me The Video
If you have any questions or concerns about your technqiue, film yourself and upload it on Youtube. Then, send me the video.
I would be more than happy to critique it.
In the next article of this series, I’ll discuss the some of the key tenants of athleticism: strength, speed, and power. I’ll also breakdown what they are, the differences, and how to develop each one. I’m confident it will help you fine-tune your strength training program.
Throughout this seres, I’m sure you’ll have a lot of questions, so be sure to ask using the comment section of this post. Feel free to reach out to me via Facebook and Twitter to get your question answered. See you soon!
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