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> It doesn't seem like it should matter where you look when doing something unrelated to your eyeballs, such as making a salad, or riding a bike. After all, the

by nojs 3y ago

> It doesn't seem like it should matter where you look when doing something unrelated to your eyeballs, such as making a salad, or riding a bike. After all, the eyes move independent of the rest of the body, right? So why is it relevant where we look when lifting a weight, if all the other parts of the body are moving properly? Prompts to “look straight ahead” and such in a gym context are usually so you maintain the correct position of your neck and avoid injury.

catchnear4321 3y ago
that’s what the author said a bit further down. > And if you look straight down while lifting a weight, your back and neck will do bad things they were never supposed to do.
nimbleplum40 3y ago
[flagged]
- ianbutler 3y ago
  Anyone reading the above comment, that is terrible information. Proper form relates to how you can avoid blowing out your back or knees or other things that are important to you as a human when weight lifting. Mechanically there are ways to put less stress on body parts when doing various lifts. At the most basic level, the ways that put less bad stress and increase also increase your ability to life more weight is what is meant by proper form, not whatever this person is trying to communicate.
  - YZF 3y ago
    There is "good form" in the sense of going through motions that work well with body mechanics. There isn't absolute consensus on the nuances. E.g. it's common advice to lift loads with your back straight and bending your knees but as said a deadlift isn't performed that way and you can lift very heavy weights with your back bent. You'll have one sport scientist say you should have your elbows at a certain angle when you do a bench barbell press and another say it's fine to have them at another angle. Often form is modified to fit individuals. You should learn the outline of how a given exercise is performed and some points are important but some advice on "proper" form can be dated/wrong/adjusted from person to person. You also need to start with a small enough weight/resistance to get a feel for what works for you (and see if it agrees with your body). I think a lot of injuries are related to trying to do too much too soon, not necessarily purely to bad form.
    - ianbutler 3y ago
      > There is "good form" in the sense of going through motions that work well with body mechanics. This is largely what I was trying to communicate. I agree with what you've said, especially the variance person to person. I was trying to caution towards the passerby who might read this without much lifting experience to actually appreciate that nuance or have the strength and stability built up already and then they just go and hurt themselves.
      - nimbleplum40 3y ago
        I get where you’re coming from, but I think there’s a much bigger risk the other way. All of this focus on “perfect” form makes the gym incredibly intimidating. I’m not accusing you of saying this, but often we give people the impression that if they try to deadlift and their back rounds a bit or they squat and their knees cave in that their discs are going to go shooting out of their spine and their knees will be forever ruined. Then people don’t lift… Injury rates for lifting are incredibly low. Much lower than any other sport. And the long term health effects are huge!
- vore 3y ago
  Well, try lifting a very heavy weight through your back and see what happens.
  - nimbleplum40 3y ago
    How else would you deadlift? Your back is a lever. Also watch strongmen lift atlas stones. It’s all in the back, and a rounded back at that.
    - ianbutler 3y ago
      You deadlift through your hips into your back. It's a standing motion. If you're deadlifting heavy weight exclusively through your back rounded or not you will injure yourself.
      - nimbleplum40 3y ago
        There really isn’t good evidence for this. How do you think strongmen lift atlas stones? If a rounded back led to injury then their discs would be shooting out of their backs…
        ianbutler 3y ago
        I'm not arguing rounded or not. I'm arguing that only lifting from the back will result in injury, you can keep your back straight or rounded. Intuitively, using your back as a lever with heavy weight, without using other elements of your core to support the lift increases the risk for hyperextension and then injury. I'm happy to entertain evidence to the contrary. I will say from my experience deadlifting above 300lbs you would not be doing yourself any favors only lifting from the back. I just watched an atlas stone video and you can clearly see involvement of the whole core, they are not simply levering the stone up.
        nimbleplum40 3y ago
        I agree that on a deadlift you should use your core. You’ll engage your whole posterior chain. I don’t think the barbell would leave the floor otherwise! But in general, there isn’t a lot of evidence that “bad” form (again, very hard to define that) is correlated to injury risk. There is great evidence that overall load and fatigue management is correlated with injury risk (ex. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27677917 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27677917).
- Stephen_0xFF 3y ago
  Proper form is very real. We all share the same anatomy and the levers that are your arms perform the same way. A weight lifter might not arch their back compared to a power lifter when doing a bench press, but each setup is fine. A sumo or conventional deadlift are both fine, but bending your back to lift weight weight vs using your legs is improper. They’re not arbitrary patterns either, they target specific muscles because of the human body’s anatomy. You also don’t just randomly pick a different amount of weight…
  - nimbleplum40 3y ago
    > We all share the same anatomy and the levers that are your arms perform the same way. No, there's a huge amount of difference between individuals. Anatomical differences, differences in experience, differences is response to training stimulus, differences in pain perception, etc. > but bending your back to lift weight weight vs using your legs is improper Strongly disagree. See any strongman lifting atlas stones [1]. See stiff leg deadlifts. Also, why is it improper? Who decided that? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju2nRDBa3o0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju2nRDBa3o0
- darkerside 3y ago
  > “Proper” form is basically impossible to define. It’s all just moving arbitrary amounts of weight through space in arbitrary patterns. False dichotomy. Yes, every person's form will be a little different. Even every individual lift.l will be different because we exist in analog meatspace. But, while there isn't just one right way, that doesn't mean there isn't a wrong way. Do it the wrong way, and you do hurt yourself.
  - nimbleplum40 3y ago
    > Do it the wrong way, and you do hurt yourself. Can you define “wrong”? Injury risk is mostly a function of load and fatigue management, not form.
- mr_mitm 3y ago
  Yes, for whatever reason people are quick to point out the risks of weight lifting even though it has one of the lowest injury rate of all sports [1]. Typically people that don't even lift regularly. In contrast, no one bats an eye if you tell them you like skiing and have a few drinks at the hut before your last downhill ski run for the day. [1] http://www.temple-of-iron.com/powerlifting-injury-rate-comparison/ http://www.temple-of-iron.com/powerlifting-injury-rate-compa...
  - nimbleplum40 3y ago
    Exactly! Lifting is very safe and has an incredible cost-benefit ratio. The conversation around form is especially frustrating since it’s never data driven and really just scares people away from the gym. And by telling people that they must use “perfect” form (whatever that is…) or they’ll get seriously injured, we’re actually priming them to overly fixate on any little tweak they might feel while lifting and actually _increasing_ their risk of feeling pain. Anecdotally, if form actually mattered so much for injury risk then there’s no way lifting would have such a low injury rate. Go into any gym and you’ll see all kinds of “incorrect” form, yet there aren’t discs shooting out of backs and knees exploding all over the place. What really matters for injury risk is load and fatigue management, and we have great evidence for that. [1] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27677917 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27677917

by nojs 3y ago

catchnear4321 3y ago

that’s what the author said a bit further down. > And if you look straight down while lifting a weight, your back and neck will do bad things they were never supposed to do.

nimbleplum40 3y ago

[flagged]

ianbutler 3y ago
Anyone reading the above comment, that is terrible information. Proper form relates to how you can avoid blowing out your back or knees or other things that are important to you as a human when weight lifting. Mechanically there are ways to put less stress on body parts when doing various lifts. At the most basic level, the ways that put less bad stress and increase also increase your ability to life more weight is what is meant by proper form, not whatever this person is trying to communicate.
- YZF 3y ago
  There is "good form" in the sense of going through motions that work well with body mechanics. There isn't absolute consensus on the nuances. E.g. it's common advice to lift loads with your back straight and bending your knees but as said a deadlift isn't performed that way and you can lift very heavy weights with your back bent. You'll have one sport scientist say you should have your elbows at a certain angle when you do a bench barbell press and another say it's fine to have them at another angle. Often form is modified to fit individuals. You should learn the outline of how a given exercise is performed and some points are important but some advice on "proper" form can be dated/wrong/adjusted from person to person. You also need to start with a small enough weight/resistance to get a feel for what works for you (and see if it agrees with your body). I think a lot of injuries are related to trying to do too much too soon, not necessarily purely to bad form.
  - ianbutler 3y ago
    > There is "good form" in the sense of going through motions that work well with body mechanics. This is largely what I was trying to communicate. I agree with what you've said, especially the variance person to person. I was trying to caution towards the passerby who might read this without much lifting experience to actually appreciate that nuance or have the strength and stability built up already and then they just go and hurt themselves.
    - nimbleplum40 3y ago
      I get where you’re coming from, but I think there’s a much bigger risk the other way. All of this focus on “perfect” form makes the gym incredibly intimidating. I’m not accusing you of saying this, but often we give people the impression that if they try to deadlift and their back rounds a bit or they squat and their knees cave in that their discs are going to go shooting out of their spine and their knees will be forever ruined. Then people don’t lift… Injury rates for lifting are incredibly low. Much lower than any other sport. And the long term health effects are huge!
vore 3y ago
Well, try lifting a very heavy weight through your back and see what happens.
- nimbleplum40 3y ago
  How else would you deadlift? Your back is a lever. Also watch strongmen lift atlas stones. It’s all in the back, and a rounded back at that.
  - ianbutler 3y ago
    You deadlift through your hips into your back. It's a standing motion. If you're deadlifting heavy weight exclusively through your back rounded or not you will injure yourself.
    - nimbleplum40 3y ago
      There really isn’t good evidence for this. How do you think strongmen lift atlas stones? If a rounded back led to injury then their discs would be shooting out of their backs…
      - ianbutler 3y ago
        I'm not arguing rounded or not. I'm arguing that only lifting from the back will result in injury, you can keep your back straight or rounded. Intuitively, using your back as a lever with heavy weight, without using other elements of your core to support the lift increases the risk for hyperextension and then injury. I'm happy to entertain evidence to the contrary. I will say from my experience deadlifting above 300lbs you would not be doing yourself any favors only lifting from the back. I just watched an atlas stone video and you can clearly see involvement of the whole core, they are not simply levering the stone up.
        nimbleplum40 3y ago
        I agree that on a deadlift you should use your core. You’ll engage your whole posterior chain. I don’t think the barbell would leave the floor otherwise! But in general, there isn’t a lot of evidence that “bad” form (again, very hard to define that) is correlated to injury risk. There is great evidence that overall load and fatigue management is correlated with injury risk (ex. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27677917 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27677917).
Stephen_0xFF 3y ago
Proper form is very real. We all share the same anatomy and the levers that are your arms perform the same way. A weight lifter might not arch their back compared to a power lifter when doing a bench press, but each setup is fine. A sumo or conventional deadlift are both fine, but bending your back to lift weight weight vs using your legs is improper. They’re not arbitrary patterns either, they target specific muscles because of the human body’s anatomy. You also don’t just randomly pick a different amount of weight…
- nimbleplum40 3y ago
  > We all share the same anatomy and the levers that are your arms perform the same way. No, there's a huge amount of difference between individuals. Anatomical differences, differences in experience, differences is response to training stimulus, differences in pain perception, etc. > but bending your back to lift weight weight vs using your legs is improper Strongly disagree. See any strongman lifting atlas stones [1]. See stiff leg deadlifts. Also, why is it improper? Who decided that? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju2nRDBa3o0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju2nRDBa3o0
darkerside 3y ago
> “Proper” form is basically impossible to define. It’s all just moving arbitrary amounts of weight through space in arbitrary patterns. False dichotomy. Yes, every person's form will be a little different. Even every individual lift.l will be different because we exist in analog meatspace. But, while there isn't just one right way, that doesn't mean there isn't a wrong way. Do it the wrong way, and you do hurt yourself.
- nimbleplum40 3y ago
  > Do it the wrong way, and you do hurt yourself. Can you define “wrong”? Injury risk is mostly a function of load and fatigue management, not form.
mr_mitm 3y ago
Yes, for whatever reason people are quick to point out the risks of weight lifting even though it has one of the lowest injury rate of all sports [1]. Typically people that don't even lift regularly. In contrast, no one bats an eye if you tell them you like skiing and have a few drinks at the hut before your last downhill ski run for the day. [1] http://www.temple-of-iron.com/powerlifting-injury-rate-comparison/ http://www.temple-of-iron.com/powerlifting-injury-rate-compa...
- nimbleplum40 3y ago
  Exactly! Lifting is very safe and has an incredible cost-benefit ratio. The conversation around form is especially frustrating since it’s never data driven and really just scares people away from the gym. And by telling people that they must use “perfect” form (whatever that is…) or they’ll get seriously injured, we’re actually priming them to overly fixate on any little tweak they might feel while lifting and actually _increasing_ their risk of feeling pain. Anecdotally, if form actually mattered so much for injury risk then there’s no way lifting would have such a low injury rate. Go into any gym and you’ll see all kinds of “incorrect” form, yet there aren’t discs shooting out of backs and knees exploding all over the place. What really matters for injury risk is load and fatigue management, and we have great evidence for that. [1] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27677917 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27677917