M3 | SHRED2SHRED 52

FORM is everything

I am learning a new skill. I have been pecking at a keyboard for 44 years now and I'm pretty quick...but I make a lot of mistakes and have to go back to correct them all the time. That's inefficient.

So...I decided yesterday to learn a new skill...or more correctly to change inefficient poor FORM.

In other words I'm teaching myself to touch type. See, as well as being a Health and Fitness professional I am a writer....makes sense doesn't it.

And....it's fun.....learning a new skill or correcting poor form turned into a game is great way to accelerate progress and I reckon it won't be long before I am an expert touch typist.

Poor form in resistance training is also a BIG no no and your progress will be severly hampered if you are not sure about whether you are doing an exercise correctly or not.

Let me explain. Barbell Bench press for example is a compound exercise intended to exercise the "Pectoralis major " muscle with the secondary muscle being triceps. Since no muscle works in isolation there are other muscle groups involved but in BB BP the chest is your primary focus and everybody knows that don't they.

Or is it....If you go into the bench press position with your hands too close together all of a sudden it places a lot more emphasis onto the Triceps and the chest does not get the work it should.

Another good example is Tricep pushdowns. The correct form in order to isolate the tricep is to stand up straight with your shoulders down and back before you extend your arms downwards. But you'll see all the 'big boys' bent right over the bar using the whole stack and pushing down with the uppers lats and deltoids, otherwise known as back and shoulders..Yes the triceps are getting work but nowhere as efficiently as they should.

The message is....don't do what the monsters are doing and....make sure that your form is correct all the time....if you are going to spend time in the gym every day....make it worthwhile.