Focus on the Form — Not the weight!
It’s no secret that I am a big believer that lifting heavy weights is extremely important for absolutely everyone. There is, however, a huge asterisk when I say that—lifting heavy *while maintaining proper form* is extremely important! In a world where everyone wants to post their meals, outfits, and even lifts on social media, I see a lot of people lift super heavy but with horrible form. It’s one thing if you’re a powerlifter and at a competition where you have to do whatever you can to get that weight up for one rep, but for the average Joe, or especially athletes, it’s not about how much weight you move but rather how well you move and how fast you move it.
The first and probably the most obvious reason that we want to maintain proper form throughout a lift is to prevent injury. When coaches teach how to do a lift, it’s not to tell you the easiest way to move the weight, it is to coach you on how to move the weight without hurting yourself. So when we say, “keep a strong core on your squat and don’t let your back round”, it’s because if your back starts to round it will create more sheer force on the spine and over time it can be dangerous. We want to keep your spine stacked to prevent prolapse or herniated discs. That’s just one example of how you can hurt yourself while lifting. Weightlifting can be a very dangerous activity if not supervised or coached to be done correctly.
Have you ever done a lift and when you finish you think you’re not feeling it where you’re supposed to? This is super common with rows or deadlifts. With rows, you see a lot of people just bending their arms to pull the weight towards them, rather than retracting their shoulders back and down as you pull and squeeze with your back and shoulders. With deadlifts, you see people make the lift a back exercise by only using their upper body to make the lift rather than the legs. This is even more common when going for heavier weight, you see people’s back round and slowly straighten out to “complete” the lift. While this is extremely dangerous and bad for spinal health, this is also using the wrong muscles! When completing a lift correctly you should be using specific muscles in order to get stronger and more explosive in specific areas. If you lose your form, you’re not going to be strengthening the correct muscles and you’re putting yourself in a position where you can get injured. This is not helping you get stronger!
The best way to get stronger while keeping good form is to be patient! Master a movement with just body weight, gradually progress to light/moderate weight and then start adding more reps before you add more weight. With every movement we want to make sure we are contracting or using the right muscles so we need to create that mind to muscle connection. Know where you are supposed to feel it and think about using that specific muscle or muscle group. When I’m teaching a movement for the first time, I will tell the person where they should feel it. After the lift, I still ask this same question—especially if the form looks off or I just want to make them notice what muscles they’re using to reinforce the mind to muscle connection. Also, we need to make sure we are taking the right amount of rest between efforts. There to go right back into a lift after you gave your max effort. Your body needs to recover so you can attack that weight with good form and get stronger! Mistakes come from fatigue in just about everything we do, and a mistake while lifting weights could be very costly.
At the end of the day, unless you’re a competitive powerlifter, it’s not about how much weight you lift, it’s about lifting the weight well—using the best form possible. We want to keep a very good range of motion and to move the weight faster with more explosiveness. Sacrificing form to lift heavy weight is a recipe for disaster and I beg everyone that is reading this to take a step back and ask yourself, “am I lifting to inflate my ego, or am I lifting to feel better, get stronger and more powerful?”
- Coach Tom