Form Perfection

The most common mistake in exercising is lack of form. It's also a cause of injury, imbalances, and loss of gains. So to avoid those issues, we must come to the conclusion of perfection in exercise form.

Plenty of exercises that are done wrong can result in pain, discomfort, and imbalances. For instance, if you tend to lean to one side while doing push ups, even by just a little, there are two things that can happen. First you will see imbalances, and then because of certain alignment muscles that are being engaged, your spinal column may end up being put out of line causing neck pain, and discomfort which will also lead to limited movement because it simply hurts to go the direction that you're out of alignment.

   Your form has a lot to say when it comes to impressiveness in showing your feats of strength and body movement. You could be the strongest guy in the group that has the most power, and be able to lift the most weight, but you could also have the worst form.

   Bad form in weight training also can lead to serious injury. Mainly because weightlifting is a sensitive topic due to the fact that if you do something wrong, you're going to hurt yourself. Weights are far more sensitive in terms of injury than in calisthenics because it's a weight that doesn't belong to you, your body is learning how to balance it in a different way, and if you mess up, well there goes six weeks of gains and delicious protein shakes.

   Either way, perfected form is a necessary part of exercise. The reason they call it good form is because it's the best movement for you, the most challenging, the most beneficial, and the safest.

   Now the next question is, is it dangerous to get into a good form? Because when you start out, your form is bad and you have to work on getting better at it, so that makes it dangerous right? Absolutely not.

   There are a few examples I'm going to share with you. Lets say you have bad form in weightlifting, you're really strong and can dead lift three hundred pounds, but your back bends and creaks like mad. You stop, that's damaging to the spinal column, so where do we go from a situation like this? You go to a lighter weight, you straighten your back, squat lower, and if needed, get a coach or somebody who works at the gym to help you out.

   Planches, another thing, is it dangerous to start out with bad form in those? No, not at all. Because it's bodyweight, and if you do a planche wrong, you might as well be doing a handstand. So to perfect your form, you watch yourself and observe, clean things up, start out from different positions to see which one you get your best form from and so forth.

   Form perfection only takes observance, a few steps back, clean up the old steps, make them look good, and work back up to where you were. Sure it'll be a little harder than you last recalled doing those exercises, but because you're paying attention and looking at the way things are done, and you notice you're actually looking better in your form, it will become less of an issue when you try to do it with good form, because you will be used to doing it with good form instead of bad form which will actually be harder.