“Form gets many definitions in the dictionary. One which I liked for this entry is “the essence of something“. When we coach form or speak of it in regards to an exercise our desire is to impress upon the athlete a fundamental understanding of the exercise or movement occurring.  We coach to form in order to safely and efficiently achieve the desired training goal.

Too often people and athletes at gyms “go through the motions”. The questions “why am I doing this exercise?” and “what cues am I looking for?” should always be going through your head while performing an exercise. If I am working to improve explosive strength should I do slow moving exercises or weights that I can barely move? Am I heading toward a different goal than intended?….If I am working to strengthen a particular muscle group or motion I need to be sure that I am effectively isolating or targeting, and then safely stressing the fundamental motion.

How often have we heard “train like you play”? This old adage is quite accurate. Train the motion you are trying to play with, or speed, or strength, and so on.

The goal is to think about everything you’re doing. Don’t just look at a sheet and do some approximation of the next exercise. Think about how it applies to your sport and how that should affect your performance of the exercise. USE FEEDBACK. Mirrors are excellent aids for form as we learn kinesthetic awareness (feel or awareness of our body moving through space–coordination). Listen to your trainers and make adjustments accordingly. If they don’t provide feedback, ask for it. How about now? How about now? Is this right?

Use each rep or set as a chance to improve and be constantly evaluating yourself as the set is being completed. The take away is that form leads to maximum performance. Form cues are to help protect the body, and align it for maximal work output in the given exercise. Learn form, and you will be able to progress toward your potential. Pick up bad habits and leave them uncorrected, and you may progress, but at some point you will take several steps back to correct the form, and also address the possible imbalances or compensations developed as a result of “cheating”.

Learning to identify the “essence” of the exercise or motion will help you to better execute it and exert your strength most effectively. Remember, form counts for more than weight or reps. The body will naturally cheat to use other muscle groups when it can find a bio-mechanical advantage presented as a result of imbalances within us (this is why so many people look different when doing similar exercises–push ups, pull-ups, bench press). We all have slightly different strengths and weaknesses and correct form helps us to strengthen our body or muscle groups in accordance with the way they have evolved to function, which results in efficiently achieving maximum performance.

So….How’s your form?”