Lifting weights has endless benefits, but if you’re doing it wrong it can also have its drawbacks. Sacrificing good form for the sake of adding more and more weight is counterproductive at best, dangerous at worst. Progressively overloading your lifts with heavier weight each week is the best way to increase strength and muscle mass, but it’s not worth it if you’re risking injuries that could put you out of the gym for weeks on end. Especially as a beginner, using a lighter weight and working on your form until you have perfected it is the best attitude to have before trying to up the ante and start hitting personal records. Here are some specific exercises that require the perfect form to be their most effective.
Pull Ups
Starting with a bodyweight exercise, poor pull up form isn’t necessarily going to send you down the road to a serious injury, but it could very well stunt your progress. Being one of the hardest and most challenging bodyweight exercises, it’s also not an easy one to perfect but the hard work will certainly pay off. There are many ways to do a pull up and many modifications to be made once you’ve got the technique down, but a strong pull up form is important to master. This is a great resistance exercise that can be done anywhere and can help to build crazy strength in your upper body, so you’ll want to make sure you’re nailing it.
Deadlifts
If you’ve ever put your back out at the gym, it was probably doing deadlifts. This exercise does an amazing job at working both your back and your hamstrings, but it’s not an easy one to master. Keeping a back straight, hinging at your hips and even perfecting your grip on the bar can be challenging, even to seasoned gym-goers. An incorrect deadlift form can lead to pretty serious injuries, so when you’re just starting, stick to using very low weight (even just the bar) and practice until you feel confident and comfortable in the movement.
Barbell Squats
The barbell squat is another exercise that could lead to an injury if you’re not performing it correctly, due to the pressure it puts on your back. It’s important to focus on where your place the bar on your back (not on your neck), where you place your feet and how you hold your back when performing the movement. Keeping your back straight and upright and lowering yourself down with your legs without curving your back inwards is going to be the most important thing to consider. Once again, practising with a light weight until you’re comfortable is important and it’s always a good idea to have someone around in the gym to help you out when you do feel like progressing to something a little heavier.
Barbell Rows
Another great exercise that can ruin your back if you don’t focus on your form. Barbell rows require you to hinge at your hips and bring the barbell up towards your abdomen and then release – sounds easy enough but if your back is curved you could be putting serious strain on it and cause a potential injury. If you struggle with keeping your back straight, there are a few practice techniques you can try, such as holding a broomstick against your back as you bend over, to feel whether or not you’re bending your spine. Performing exercises like these in front of a mirror is also extremely helpful since you’ll be able to get a good look at your form throughout the movement. In general, practising certain exercises which will improve your posture overall can help you improve your form at the gym too.
Conclusion
These are just some examples, but almost any exercise could present a potential risk of injury if you’re not performing it with the correct form. As a beginner, take the time to properly research each exercise you try out. Look at diagrams or even watch some videos to make sure you have a good visual of what the movement should look like. Further than that, both beginners and more advanced lifters could benefit from one or two sessions with a personal trainer. These sessions could simply be used to ask the professional any questions you might have about how to perform certain exercises, as well as asking them to check, assist and correct your form on various movements you regularly perform or would like to try out. Prioritising your physical health means preventing injury as far as possible, even if that means building your strength a little bit slower.
