Improving Lifting Technique

No workout again today as I continue to spend most of my time studying, but I do have a video for you from YouTube I want to critique. Before I start, in fairness to the maker of the videos, its a lot easier to sit on the computer and point out flaws than to be in the gym doing the work, but there is bad form/technique and the creator proceeds to give advice on lifting weights in the comments.

Image: istockphoto

First video had embedding disabled, but here is the link. The first thing I see wrong here is he isn’t meeting the exercise, he’s kind of shying away from the curls to start off with. When you go for a lift, meet it head on. In fact, you its sometimes good to exaggerate the movements to get the full effect.

Second, the weight is way too heavy for this guy. He comes right out of the gate rocking. A lot more bicep and a lot less body is needed. Third, I’m not exactly sure what his last 1/5th reps were going to accomplish, especially sense he rocked with them too. Another huge flaw was the music but hey if Wild Thing gets you going, well there you go.

Always take advice you get from people in the gym with a grain of salt – even trainers and even me. Everybody has their own agenda and opinions and some people don’t even know what they’re talking about. Its disappointing a lot of teens on YouTube want to start lifting weights and are looking to these videos on guidance and the people making the videos are hopped on steroids, don’t know what they’re doing, and/or are creating false impressions for beginners. There are even some weight lifting videos from kids 13, 14 and younger which is unfortunate because its really too early for them to be hitting the iron.

I think any age before 15 should be engaged in activities to be physically fit, but weight training should be left out of the equation. At the very most, weight training should be very, very light at this age.