Weight Training – The Relative Importance of Form vs Weight

There is a long list of reasons why lifting weights is important, including weight maintenance or loss through the burning of calories, increasing strength, building muscle mass, improving endurance, and increasing bone density. It’s also a generally accepted fact that it’s crucial to lift weights with correct form. While it is a truism that lifting with good form is essential, it’s worth revisiting why that’s the case.

One obvious reason that weight lifting form is important is that poor form can lead to injury, including strains, sprains, tears, and breakages of muscles, ligaments, bones, and joints. Without a doubt, lifting lighter weights with proper form is always better than lifting heavier weights with poor form.

A  perhaps less obvious reason for the importance of good weight lifting technique is that poor form can hold you back from achieving the muscular recruitment required to maximize muscular development. To understand why, as well as to ensure everyone’s safety, here are some general guidelines to follow when weight lifting:

·       When starting out, master the lifting technique, even using just body weight movements, prior to using heavier weights. It’s difficult to change bad habits that are developed early on.

·       Each lift should be completed through the full range of motion to maximize muscular recruitment and development; shortening the range of motion inhibits muscular recruitment.

·       Focus on fully contracting the target muscle group. The goal is not to simply complete a movement, but to contract the target muscle group until failure is achieved. For example, when performing a lying hamstring curl, using excessive weight can lead to both a less-than-full contraction of the hamstring, as well as bending at the hips and pulling with the lower back to compensate for the lack of hamstring contraction. Full muscular recruitment is required to maximize muscular growth.

·       Use a slower, rather than faster, pace when completing each lift. This prevents the use of momentum to complete the lift and concentrates the lifting stress on the target muscle group.

·       Choose a number of repetitions that aligns with your overall fitness goal. For example, target sets of up to eight repetitions to improve strength, up to fifteen repetitions to build muscle, and twenty or more repetitions to improve muscular endurance.

·       After choosing the number of repetitions, select a weight that makes the final 2-3 repetitions of each set challenging, but achievable, without having to pause between repetitions or compromising technique; if any swaying, bouncing, swinging, or arching of the back is required to complete a set of repetitions, the weight is too heavy. Achieving muscular exhaustion at the end of each set is essential for maximum muscular recruitment, and therefore muscular growth.

·       When completing each repetition, focus on maximizing muscular tension during both the ascending and descending portions of the lift. For example, when completing a bench press repetition, the pectorals and triceps should be tense during both the press and the lowering of the bar to the chest. This will help achieve the maximum muscular recruitment and exhaustion required to stimulate muscular growth.

·       Take adequate rest between each set of lifting repetitions to facilitate proper lifting pace and form, and the use of the full range of motion; sixty to ninety seconds of rest is a reasonable rule of thumb.

·       A good test of whether you’ve found the right balance between proper form and appropriate weight is if you’re able to breathe comfortably during each repetition, inhaling just prior to the lift, and exhaling following completion of the lift. Additionally, proper breathing minimizes the risk of unsafe increases in blood pressure, heart issues, or aneurisms while training.

Working out with an experienced trainer can be beneficial not only when learning how to weight train, but also to ensure that experienced weight lifters are using correct form and have not unknowingly developed bad habits over time.