However it is that you exercise, how's your form?
As a fitness trainer, I focus most of my efforts on getting clients to execute with excellent physical form. To the best of my ability, I educate as I correct. “This is why your elbows remain stationary.” “That's why it's so important to keep that outward pressure at the knee.” “When rowing the bar at this angle, you'll be targeting the muscles you want here instead of pulling from these muscles over here.”
When you know what excellent form is you better understand what you're training and why. You can then make more intelligent decisions accelerating your exercise progress.
Today, let's go beyond the gym. How's your form in life?
Hey there. It's me, Kore. And you're listening to Exercising Self-Control: From Fitness To Flourishing.
Let's start with a simple gym example. Take the barbell biceps curl. One of the most basic, least complicated exercises yet people still do it wrong. The proper form is holding the bar about shoulder width apart, palms facing forward, elbows tucked at your sides, curl the bar up, only pivoting at the elbows. The point is to isolate and work the biceps.
But here's what happens. People think the goal is to just get the barbell from their thighs up to their shoulders. So when the weight becomes challenging they mess with the technique: leaning back, lifting their elbows, which then is just working the shoulders, using momentum. They're moving the weight, but they've lost focus of the actual purpose.
The same thing happens in life. You set a goal, and you start to think the only thing that matters is achieving it. So maybe you cut corners to get quicker results, skipping over the foundation needed for quality work. You can think of this as rushing through your reps. Maybe you start basing your self-esteem on how much you're getting done and you start trying to impress others by taking on even more. You could think of this as ego lifting. Maybe you violate your highest values because it's inconvenient to do the right thing. You can think of this as ignoring pain in the gym. You're making progress. You can see that you are moving forward; eventually you reach your goal. But what did you actually develop along the way?
In the gym, did you develop your biceps, or did you just move the barbell from point A to point B? In life, did you develop a healthy, strong character? Did you grow into the person you wanted to become? Or did you merely check off an achievement while developing habits and mindsets inconsistent with who you want to be?
When I was young, just getting started in earnest on my lifting journey, me and my two good buddies would spend a couple of hours at a time in the gym. Those were good times. We wanted muscle. We knew you have to lift heavy to build muscle. All the muscle mags told us so. All the biggest guys in the gym lifted heavy, including my personal standard of strength: my older brother. So we had our standard and we went about it with a passion.
I held myself to that standard even when the context changed. My body dealt with injury rapidly when I was young. As I got older, not so much. Injuries started taking their toll. At one point, I learned about the rotator cuff and how important it is to keep it healthy and strong. Training it with the same gusto as any other major muscle group, I ended up learning a valuable lesson. There are appropriate loads and rep ranges for such a small set of muscles. 5x5 is not the right protocol here. This was prior to my becoming certified as a trainer, just to be clear.
The problem was I had confused goals with values. Goals must serve values, not the other way round. I equated heavy weights with strength. There is nuance here. The weight must be appropriate. Just because it's heavy doesn't mean it'll serve the purpose of developing the strength you want. There are other considerations. Correct form and technique should set the parameters of the resistance to be used. I had misunderstood the principles, forgotten my true purpose, and my form, while not exactly an afterthought, took a backseat to the quest to constantly lift as heavy as possible.
What I've learned is this. You can be moving, you can be getting things done, but if your form is off, if you're only focused on the outcome, you're probably building the wrong things. Just like bad form in the gym can lead to injury or imbalanced development, bad form in life leads to a character inconsistent with your values.
The beauty of exercise is the principles are simple to learn. A knee bend, a hip hinge, a horizontal push, a vertical pull. Know your purpose, learn the principles, practice good form, and you'll build the strength you are aiming to build.
Life works the same way. Honesty, integrity, rationality, consistency of effort. Live these ideals and you'll build a strong character. Then, whatever the circumstances, you will have good form and good technique. You'll be building yourself, not just achieving goals at any cost.
So, what are you really building with your exercise practice? It's not simply about moving the body under load. It's about how you move it. The resistance you use is pointless if it doesn't serve the purpose of the exercise, just as the goal is pointless if it doesn't serve your values.
When you focus on making sure your goals serve your highest values you can be sure you’re exercising excellent form, in the gym and in your life beyond the gym.
That's it for today. Catch you next time.
