Captain Ahab’s BodyBlog

Part Two

It may seem during part one that I was picking on the ladies and maybe I was so now it is time to go after the guys. 

I would like to start with a similar observation as I did in Part one. If you are one of the many people mostly men, who are throwing around really heavy weights using poor to ridiculous form then you are NOT really challenging yourself (professional or high ranking amateur bodybuilders exempted) but rather you are not hitting the target muscles you are after and you are guilty of most likely working your egos. If you are unable to do at least 3 sets of 8 reps with perfect form then you need to decrease the weight you are using. 

A great example is happening in the gym where I work out. There is one fellow in particular who has been there for over 3 years and no matter what exercise he is doing he piles on the plates or picks up the really heavy dumbbells. He then proceeds to do less than half reps for his squats, lays back almost flat out when he is doing his wide grip pulldowns, jerks the bar only about ¼ the way up on T-bar rows and has never raised his traps over 1 inch towards his ears on his shrugs. For barbell curls he throws his shoulders back so far that he is almost bent over back wards and then practically dropping the bar back to the start position he curls himself forward so that the bar is just about to touch his knees and then he again throws himself and the bar back and calls these barbell curls. I used just a few of his exercise flaws as examples, as there are many more I could have chosen from. The part that is really sad is that he is constantly complaining the he is a hard gainer because he is not seeing any results and is always downing the most advertised brand of weight gainer protein shake because he thinks that by doing so it will help him grow muscles but the only part of him that is actually growing is his waist. 

Now for the other side of the coin. There is another fellow at my gym who has been there for about a year and he is getting results like crazy and has everyone gawking at him when he is working out, but instead of gawking they should be taking note of what he is doing that are giving him these great results. Every single exercise he does is with what I believe is almost perfect form. When he squats his butt almost touches the floor and he slowly lowers himself down and equally slowly rises back up. When he does T-bar rows not only does he bring the bar all the way up but he even holds it for a count and then slowly lowers it back rep after rep. When he does his shrugs his traps almost touch his ears and again he holds at the top for a long count before lowering down again. When he does barbell curls he stands ramrod straight all the time and only bends his elbows while raising the bar and at the top he squeezes his biceps on each and every rep. 

I used these two polar opposites as prime examples as to why one person is getting bigger and achieving his goals and why the other person while not achieving any decent results is actually gaining in a place that he should not be gaining. I hope that if you see any examples of yourself in the first man I spoke of you will identify that it may be your ego that is getting worked by lifting the heaviest weights you can and if you are not seeing actual muscle gains you may want to take a page from man number two’s workout regime and lower the pounds and raise the gains. No one will think less of you if you drop down a few pounds and start using good form.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 14th, 2008 at 11:15 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.