It Doesn't Matter How Much You Lift
It's How You Lift It
Last Update On December 4, 2011
Far too many people are concerned about their lifting numbers. Everyone tries to loft impressive weight at the gym in order to impress other even though they may be strangers. Let me tell you something and save you a little time and potential physical pain - Nobody cares how much you lift. People are so self-focused that there is a chance nobody will even notice you in the gym. Let alone count your plates on the barbell. Of course there are a lot of competitive trainees out there who cannot live with the fact that somebody can lift more weight and is stronger in general. If this is you you have a big problem.
First it's very important that you perform each exercises with acceptable form in order to hit the targeted muscle groups. For example unless you arch your back during a chin-up you will not recruit the lattissimus dorsi and you will end up training biceps and other elbow flexors instead of your back. Another perfect example is the bench press - far too many people will bounce their bench presses at the bottom in order to lift more weight and when you perform so fast negatives you are missing half of the exercises. The negative part of every repetition is very important because there is more muscle damage done on the way down than on the way up. It's just the way that it is. So, if your goal is to build muscle you should perform controlled negatives in order to get benefits from all phases of the movement.
Another exercise than many people fail to perform correctly is the lateral raise - while the lateral raise is quite simple a lot of people end up doing it wrong. The correct way to do a lateral raise in order to target the middle deltoid which is the most important deltoid when it comes to appearances you should make sure that the thumb is pointing slightly down. In other words keep the rear end of the dumbbell slightly higher than the front end of the dumbbell. This will make sure that you don't cheat the weight up with your front delt. However there are far too many people that are afraid to use light weight for this exercies and end up overtraining their front deltoids because the poor thing has to compensate for everything. There are other example but I think you ge the idea.
Proper form does not mean using the pink dumbbells for every exercise despite what the fake personal trainers think. You should challenging weight but not so challenging that you can't perform the exercises correctly. Also make sure that an increase in weight is not coupled with a reduced range of motion because that will diminish the benefits of your workout as well. The greater the range of motion the greater the exercises. Every exercise is about movement. When you reduce the movement you decrease the benefits of the exercise as well. A lot of people end up doing quarter squats and later complain from knee pain. While you can lift a lot more weight during a quarter squat you are also performing the exercises over a significantly reduced range of motion. Not to mention the fact that you are only training quads because the glutes are taken out of the movement. If you want to know how deep you should squat for maximal results check this article.
When you enter the gym I want you to forget about everybody else. You are not going to the gym in order to impress anybody. That's competition. Not to mention the fact that most likely you don't even know the names of half the gym members. Is their opinion really that important to you? Fuck them. Just go and do your best. The rest will come.
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