The myth of perfect form

In the winter of 2007, I chatted with a newspaper reporter who was looking into some of the arguments trainers and strength coaches conduct among themselves. We shared some of the strangest ideas we've heard about exercise form, and then he told me something he'd heard from women he knew in the media who were dedicated lifters and fitness buffs. They were all sick of the "form Nazis," the people who insist there is one way and only one way to do every exercise. If you deviate one degree from the prescribed angles, you deserve whatever injuries the exercise gods inflict upon your apostate muscles and connective tissues. The problem here, as I mentioned in Chapter 1, is that different bodies have different shapes and bone lengths, as well as slight variations in range of motion due to genetic or acquired flexibility issues. If you have less flexibility in your ankle joints, for example, your squat will look a bit different from mine-you won't be able to sit back on your haunches in the bottom position, with your weight distributed evenly on your feet. You'll start to come up on your toes, which isn't what you want to do with a barbell on your shoulders. (There is a squat variation, described on page 163, in which you deliberately lift your heels off the floor while holding dumbbells. But that's a different exercise, with a different goal.) You have to stop the descent when your weight shifts to your toes, which means your range of motion will be slightly shorter than mine. It's probably more useful to think of "ideal form," rather than perfection. Ideally, if you were to look at yourself from the side when you're in the bottom position of the squat, you'd see that your shoulder is directly over the middle of your foot. Your lower legs and torso would be at roughly the same angle in relation to the floor. That angle, however, will change from person to person. Someone with a relatively long torso and short legs would probably have more forward lean in the bottom position, with her knees out over her toes. Someone with longer legs would probably be more upright, with her knees behind her toes. Both would be good form for that particular woman, but neither would be using "perfect" form.Partial single-leg squat GET READY • Stand with your feet hip-width apart. • Lift your right foot off the floor behind you (or your left, if you're right-handed or your left is naturally your stronger side) . • Keep your thighs even with each other; just bend your right knee enough to get the foot off the floor. • You can have your arms out in front of your body or to the sides, whichever is best for your balance. DESCEND • Push your hips back, as if you were sitting back into a chair, and lower yourself as far as you can without feeling strain in your back or knee. (Remember, it's a partial squat.) LIFT • Rise back to the starting position. • Finish all your reps, then switch sides and repeat the set. Alternative You can do the same exercise standing on the edge of a sturdy bench or step. (I'm serious about the sturdy part.) Stand on one foot, with the other foot just off the edge. Don't bend the knee of your nonworking leg. Now, as you lower yourself, your nonworking foot will go straight down toward the floor. Some people (me, for example) find it easier to do the exercise this way, getting a better range of motion. It's up to you. Loading up You do the single-leg squat in phases 3 and 5, and in both programs you use fairly low reps: 6 per set in Phase 3, 4 in Phase 5. Chances are, doing these with just your body weight will be too easy, so you'll need to make them harder by holding light dumbbells in your hands, or holding a weight plate across your chest. If you choose to add weight, make sure you do a practice set with each leg, using no additional weight. She 's a pistol! I used to work with a woman who had been an elite figure skater. She could do single-leg squats all day with beautiful form. Moreover, she could do them with her nonworking leg straight out in front of her torso, a variation called the "pistol squat. " In the full-range-of-motion pistol squat, the thigh of the working leg touches the calf on that side. I 've never been able to come close to this position, but if you've ever been a dancer, skater, gymnast, or martial artist, you might be able to. If you can do pistols with no discomfort in your back or knees, feel free to substitute them for the partial single-leg squat. Unilateral maneuvers When doing an exercise that works one leg or arm at a time, always start with your nondominant side. So if you're righthanded, that's your dominant side, and you should start out with your left leg or arm. If you've had an injury to your dominant side, and it's now weaker than your nondominant limb, then start with the weaker one. Your goal is to match the repetitions you do with the weaker or nondominant limb with your stronger or dominant side. If you did it the other way around, you might do more reps per set with your stronger side, and exacerbate the imbalance. Dumbbell single-arm overhead squat GET READY • Get two dumbbells, one twice as heavy as the other. So if one is 5 pounds, the other is 10 pounds. • Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and toes pointed straight ahead. • Hold the light dumbbell overhead (actually, slightly behind your head) in your nondominant hand, with the heavier dumbbell between your legs at arm's length. DESCEND • Push your hips back and lower yourself until your upper thighs are parallel to the floor, holding the lighter dumbbell straight up over your shoulders. LIFT • Rise back to the start position. • Do all your reps, then switch arms and repeat the set.  Dumbbell squat, heels raised on plates GET READY • Set two weight plates on the floor (lO-pound plates should work well) so you can stand on them with your feet shoulder-width apart. • Grab two dumbbells, and hold them at your sides at arm's length as you stand with your heels on the plates. DESCEND • Push your hips back and lower yourself until your upper thighs are parallel to the floor. LIFT • Rise back to the starting position. Plate tectonics Why the plates under the heels? In theory, doing squats with heels elevated shifts more of the work to the vastus medialis, one of the four quadriceps muscles, which has a role in protecting your knees. If you're up for a challenge, try doing the exercise on your toes, without the plates under your heels. That's a variation Alwyn learned from the late Mel Siff, Ph.D. You probably want to do it without weights, at least at first. DEADLIFT WHAT IT IS Another fundamental human movement, the deadlift is perhaps the most useful gym exercise in existence. It mimics the action of picking up something heavy off the floor, which is pretty much your entire life if you're the mother of young children. Even if you're not, you're still a woman, which means the muscles on the back of your body are probably weaker than they should be, relative to the muscles on the front. The deadlift and its variations, more than any other exercises, correct that imbalance. WHAT MUSCLES IT WORKS The primary action is called "hip extension"-straightening your hips when your torso is bent forward. It shares that action with the squat, which means it works many of the same muscles, especially the hamstrings and gluteals. But the muscles of the upper and middle back get more directly involved. The diamond-shaped trapezius-which runs from the base of your skull, out to your shoulder blades, and down to the middle of your back-is responsible for pulling your shoulder blades together (among other tasks, explained later in this chapter) . With a heavy load in your hands, pulling your arms down and your shoulder blades farther apart, you can see how hard those muscles have to work to pull your shoulders back. Naturally, everything in the middle of your body that works hard in a squat works at least as hard in a deadlift. You must maintain the natural arch in your lower back, and the heavier the weight you lift off the floor, the harder it is for those muscles to protect your spine. (Remember, "harder" is better when it comes to improving your body in appearance and function.) You also work the gripping muscles in your hands and forearms. Remember back in Chapter 2, when I said that grip strength was correlated with longevity-that is, not dying? Well, here's the best way to strengthen that grip. Barbell dead lift GET READY • Load an Olympic barbell (the 45-pound, 7-foot-long bar) and set it on the floor. • Stand with the bar against your shins, your feet about shoulderwidth apart and your toes pointed forward. • Squat down and grab it with an overhand grip, your hands just outside your legs. • Straighten your arms and tighten everything, from your shoulders to your feet. Don't be afraid to grab the bar like you're mad at it. • Look straight ahead, rather than down at the bar or up at the ceiling. LIFT • Pull the bar straight up your shins as you stand. • Once the bar is past your knees, push your hips forward and pull your shoulder blades together in back. • Pause in this top position. DESCEND • Slide the weight back down your legs to the floor. You'll want to control the speed to avoid a sudden jolt to your lower-back muscles. But you don't have to lower the bar at any particular speed-just get it down to the floor. (If you've ever been in a gym with elite strength athletes , you know they simply drop the weight when they've completed a repetition with a near-maximum weight. Unfortunately, idiots sometimes do this as well, without any good reason beyond the fact that they're idiots.) • On your heaviest sets, let the bar come to a complete stop on the floor, and reset your grip and posture before lifting again. On higher-rep sets, let the weights tap the floor before beginning the next repetition. Strapped? Or strapless? If you've spent a lot of time in gyms, you've probably seen lifting straps. These are bands designed to help you hold onto a bar that you might otherwise drop due to limits in the strength or endurance of your gripping muscles. They're usually made from canvas, leather, or a nylon-acrylic blend, and are sometimes tricked out with neoprene or some other padding. Bodybuilders tend to use them for every exercise that involves a pulling motion-deadlifts, chin-ups, rows, shrugs. I used to use them, but abandoned the straps (along with my lifting belt) when I realized that it made more sense to develop enough strength to lift heavy things without straps and belts. After a few months, I could lift more without those props than I could with them. You, though, might benefit from using straps from time to time, especially if you notice that your grip strength gives out on you before the muscles in your back or hips feel as if they've been fully challenged. A quick online scan showed that prices range from six to thirty dollars with more options in length, width, and padding than I ever knew existed. If you don't want to risk the vagaries of the Internet, you can probably find a set at a local sporting-goods store that sells strength-training equipment. Harbinger and Schiek are the most popular brands.