Exercise Technique: Training Aggressively While Staying Healthy

I am a firm believer in the saying that there is no such thing as a bad lift or movement, just bad form. 

What does this mean exactly?  There is a lot of debate in the strength and conditioning world over many different exercises and whether or not they are good for your body.  Are certain movements worth doing, or do they put you at too high of an injury risk? 

This is where I have an issue.  In my opinion it’s usually not the movement itself that causes the injury.  It’s the fact that the form of the movement is horrible due to either bad coaching or using too much weight for proper movement (which is also a sign of bad coaching).  You will see it all the time, just watch YouTube or even certain gyms’ promotional videos.  They have people with horrible form and a coach watching them do it and not correcting them.  Now, everybody is always in need of working on their technique, so to say that form in any of these videos should be perfect is unrealistic.  However, if you are the coach and you are either filming or being filmed coaching, you shouldn’t be watching somebody do horrible push-ups or any other movement, and not helping correct them.  To me, that is a red flag. 

While listening to a presentation recently, an Olympic weightlifting coach made a very good statement: watch highlight videos of a lot of the college football teams and watch their Olympic lifts.  You will see guys doing 315 lbs or more on a hang clean that look like they are about to crumble due to horrific form.  Rather than have that guy take some weight off the bar, work on his technique, then progressively work him back to heavier weights, some coaches continue to allow poor technique.  This is when certain “lifts” get bad reputations. 

Having an athlete getting hurt because they are doing too much weight, with horrible technique is just carelessness.  Then coaches, parents, and even athletes begin to talk about whether that “lift” puts them in harm’s way. 

So forget about anybody saying that squats are bad, or overhead lifts might hurt our shoulders.  Follow proper exercise progression and technique and these movements will put you light-years ahead of those not doing them. 

At Warrior Performance Gym we aggressively “Push the Limit” to ensure that you get the most out of your training while still maintaining a healthy body.  

Side Note: If somebody has an injury history or current injury, that changes the game-plan, otherwise...TRAIN ON!

"PUSHING THE LIMIT"

www.warriorperformancegym.com

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-Jon