Everytime I see someone almost blowing out their back doing squats, or doing the worst bench press ever known to man, I think about Scarface.

I’m standing at the edge of the balcony mowing dudes down and watching the headbands, mesh fingerless gloves, ipods and little white towels fly into the air, while I laugh uncontrollably out loud.

Is that wrong?

Well, instead of going up to these guys and wasting my time “trying” to help them out and them not listening, I figured I will give YOU, the people who are interested in really perfecting their technique and learning to stay injury free, some very simple tips for correcting your form.

And trust me, you don’t need a lot of money, expensive equipment or gadgets to do it.

Pattern Correction

When technique is compromised while performing strength exercises, the failure occurs in a specific direction, resisting a movement pattern or along a movement pattern.

We can force adherence to the movement pattern by pushing or moving the athlete or lifter in the direction of the FAILURE OR COMPENSATION.

This can be done with an elastic band or an additional weight added to the lifter.  This should be in addition to your verbal coaching cues.

Strength Training Movement Patterns:

• Horizontal Push / Pull
• Vertical Push / Pull
• Hip Dominant
• Quad Dominant
• Free Flow / Chaos

Why Are Exercises Performed Wrong?

• bad technique, no knowledge of how the lift should be performed
• Knowledge to perform the exercise, but not enough repetitions (ie. greasing the groove, they say it takes 10,000 reps to overcome a bad technique or to become proficient at a movement)
• something is tight (not flexible, not mobile enough for the specific movement)
• something is weak
• too much weight
• something is not braced
• fatigue
• poor equipment
• bad environment

Let’s look at a few examples of how some common exercises are performed incorrectly or where the failure occurs.

Some Common Exercise Technique Flaws:

Squats – lifter / athlete’s knees kicking in

Push-ups – lifter / athlete’s hips are sagging or starting to sag after fatigue

Lunges – lifter / athlete’s knees are wobbly, kicking in or kicking out

RDL’s – lifter / athlete’s head down, hips are shooting up or they are bending over

SPECIAL NOTE:  Fatigue changes everything.  Form may be corrected at the start of the movement or as fatigue sets in AND the athlete / lifter’s must correct the pattern DIFFERENTLY at different stages of fatigue.

So, let’s remember our goal – correcting exercise technique by pulling the lifter into the direction of their compensation.  Let’s see how this works.

Correct Way to Perform the Exercises:

We need to correct the bad technique on the exercises listed above.  Let’s see how their should be performed according to what was being done wrong above.

Squats – Knees should be forced outward tracking over the toes – add a band around the lifter’s quads to fix the pattern.
Push-ups – Hips should remain fixed and up while glutes, hamstrings and abs are isometrically contracted – add a chain or sandbag on the lifter’s lower back to fix the pattern.
Lunges – knees fixed without movement, tracking with hips and ankles, stabilized in the sagittal plane – add a band perpendicular to the lifter’s knee to fix the pattern.
RDL’s – Head in line with the spine, lower back fixed in neutral (slightly arched) and hips move backward – add a sandbag to the lifter’s shoulders to fix the pattern.

Here is the video you voted on, “How to Correct Any Exercise”.  Please subscribe to my Youtube channel and get ready for many new videos coming out in the next several weeks.

Pattern Correction

THE MASTER COLLECTION

PS.  Just a quick heads-up.  Due to the all the requests I keep getting to setup a package where you can buy all of my products all at once, I created the MASTER COLLECTION!  You can buy all of my products and get a HUGE 20% discount.  Check it our HERE.

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 7th, 2009 at 9:32 pm and is filed under accelerated muscular development, how to build muscle, strength training muscle building workouts, strength training powerlifting, strength training to improve athletic performance, strength training workouts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.