Sunday, November 9, 2008

The Bad Form Hall of Fame

That was my gym today, the Bad Form Hall of Fame. It seemed that everywhere I looked people were using bad form.

There was one guy who did every exercise he tried incorrectly, which had to be some sort of record. When he did tricep pushdowns, for instance, his elbows were flared out instead of pulled tightly against his body (and I'm not even getting into the discussion about why he was doing them in the first place).

I saw a woman try the same exercise. She leaned into it too much, making her entire upper body do the work, not her triceps.

And another guy did tricep kickbacks (again, why waste so much time on these isolation moves?) and he didn't even extend his arm fully.

There's an easy way to avoid this -- do a little reading or ask an expert. I may not always do everything right, but I do work hard to understand the correct form and then try to get it right.

No comments: