A Question of Proper Form When you are in the gym and you walk between machines, or maybe on your way in or out of the gym, you tend to notice what other people are doing.  I certainly notice their bad habits and that’s what has prompted me to write this. Wearing a lifting belt all the time I see this quite a bit in the gym, someone wearing a weightlifting belt all the time.  You don’t need to do this.  I would certainly suggest using one on any particularly heavy exercises you do where the abdominals or lower back may be called into play to support you, such as the squat or the dead-lift.  The belt is for your abs to push against and to help support your lower back.  You should work on developing these areas with varying ab exercises and exercises that target the lower back (such as hyper-extensions) Not concentrating on what you’re doing I see this quite a bit in the gym, maybe the female fitness instructor is taking someone through their paces and the guys on some of the machines are watching her and not what they’re doing.   Consequently they are doing half reps because they aren’t concentrating on the exercise.  You do need to develop the mind-muscle connection and know what your muscles are doing.  I myself do some exercises (usually ones on machines, but never ones where I am standing up) with my eyes shut, as I am concentrating on what the muscle is doing.  This allows you to tell if you are working the muscle correctly and to feel which part of the muscle is being worked.  With some exercises such as the bicep curl, doing the exercise in a controlled slow manner allows you to feel how the muscle is worked and contract it at the end of the movement.  With the bicep curl at the top of the curl try tensing your bicep as if you were showing off your bicep.  This can really help to add definition to a body part, assuming it isn’t hidden under a large layer of fat. Not using proper form When you have been attending the gym for some time, it is easy to pick up bad habits.  If your form isn’t very strict you may be calling other muscles into play to help you lift the weight, and also if your back isn’t kept straight in certain exercises you could put extra stress on this area leading to injury.  If you have ever had to attend a health and safety demonstration at work they tell you to keep your back straight and lift with the legs.  This is to help prevent injury and the principles are the same whether you are lifting a box or a weight in the gym.  I’d sooner look a bit odd than hurt myself.  If your gym has mirrors try and do your exercises in front on these to check your form and see if you are allowing your body to bend, or maybe not keeping your elbows in (particularly on triceps exercises) or maybe favoring one side of your body when you lift (which can lead to one side of your body being more developed, this happens with barbell exercises, and you can sort this by the use of dumbbells). Another idea to have someone check your form for you, maybe you could get your training partner to help or just ask a gym instructor.  This will allow you to get some pointers and will make your workouts more productive in the long run. Arching your back I see this all the time.  Someone doing bench presses or shoulder presses with too much weight ends up arching their back.  This is cheating as when you do this the weight has less far to travel and as you are bring other muscles into play to help you lift the weight.  Also you are risking a back injury and this can set you back a long way.  Keep your back flat to the bench with bench presses (or straight with shoulder presses) and if you can’t lift the weight, drop the weight down a bit.  Lifting too much weight causes your form to suffer and you won’t work the muscles as effectively.  If you want a well rounded physique, its not how much weight you lift but how you lift it that’s important, to ensure you work the muscles correctly and that you don’t injure yourself. Showing off Every gym will have someone who thinks they are the greatest thing since sliced bread.  Usually they will have large upper body development and under developed legs.  You will probably see these guys lifting more weight than they can handle and cheating to lift the weight.  They will probably be making noise as well to get people looking at them.  Don’t think that just because these guys are big that you should copy them.  Using strict form and gradually building the resistance will give better results in the long run and hopefully keep you injury free.  You also need to work all the major muscles or you will end up with an unbalanced physique. Soft spotter Training with a partner is great.  They can motivate you and push you to work harder than you might do on your own.  Having a spotter allows you to go to failure on some exercises safe in the knowledge there is someone there to help you if you need it and perhaps squeeze out one more rep than you normally would.  However if the guy is practically lifting the weight for you through your set, you are wasting your time.  If its too heavy drop the weight down a bit or your form will suffer.  At the end of the day if you can’t lift the weight, drop the weight down and gradually build up the resistance over the weeks to you hit and then surpass the weight you couldn’t lift before. Swinging the weight With any kind of curling movement (where the weight is moved in an arc) and by that I mean bicep curls, front shoulder raise, shoulder raise to the side, triceps kickbacks, leg extensions and leg curls it is all too easy to cheat, by jerking the weight to help move it.  I see this all the time and it can be easy to be cheating without realizing it.  With the bicep curl knocking the weight up with your leg, and the same with the shoulder raises.  Jerking the weight on the triceps exercises and bouncing the weight on the leg exercises.  These are bad habits to get into.  For one thing you are not exercising the muscle to the same degree as when you’re using strict form, and because you are also putting undue stress on your joints.  Look after your joints and they will thank you for it in the long run. So how do you prevent this?  One thing to do is to do some exercises that you would normally do standing up, in a seated position.  This allows you to more effectively isolate the muscle group you are working and stops you bringing other muscles into play.  For example the bicep curl.  Another way is to try doing the exercise with a cable and work on improving your technique.  I found that with the shoulder raises when performed with a cable it really showed me where I was going wrong.  I unknowingly jerked the weight to get it moving and there was a “snap” on the cable as the slack was taken up.  I then tried lifting the weight in a slow controlled manner and found the exercise to be considerably harder to perform and that it also worked my shoulders more completely. The same old same old What the point of doing 3 different exercises for a body part if they all work the same part of the muscle?   It all depends on your personal goals.  If strength is your main focus then stick to the basic multi-joint exercises such as the squat, bench press, dead lift and shoulder press.  But it you are looking to achieve a well rounded physique you need to mix it up a bit.  They doesn’t mean doing 10 different exercises for a body part, as this would result in overtraining, but you should look at making sure the muscle is being fully worked.  Take the chest for example.  Doing bench presses will build strength and mass in this area but wont give you a great set of Pecs.  Incline presses work the upper chest, flyes work the inner chest and cable crossovers work the inner or outer chest muscles depending on how you do them.  One way to keep things interesting is to have list of four exercises for a body part and do exercises 1,2 and 3 in your first workout and 2,3 and 4 in the next workout and so on and so forth.  This keeps your body guessing and will help you to grow and will stop you getting stuck at a plateau.  Your body gets used to the demands you put on it.  If you don’t believe me try doing your usual workout in the reverse order.  The exercises suddenly become a lot harder.  Try changing your workouts with the above method or maybe sticking to a workout plan for a few weeks then changing the exercises. Training when you’re ill I have been guilty of this one myself.  If you are ill don’t train!  Certainly this is true with colds and the like.  If you have an upset stomach its probably not the best idea to be doing squats.  You won’t be able to get the most out of your workouts if you feel ill.  Recurring illnesses such as colds can also be sign of overtraining or maybe a lack of vitamin C in your diet.  You may think the above are just the ranting of an angry man, but I just feel that so many people could be getting much better results from their training, and saving themselves from painful injuries if they just took a little time to really think about what they are doing in the gym. Best of luck with your goals Matthew Shaw