Stop Cheating Until You Learn How
January 13th 2007 12:54
The goal of all serious weight trainers is to force their muscles to work with ever increasing intensity. This is really not easy. Yet, bodybuilders have for many years experimented with techniques that extend their muscles to the limits of intensity. One of the most useful of these is called cheating.
Cheating in the gym is,of course, using momentum created somewhere other than the isolated muscle to complete a movement. If you do a movement from the beginning of the set with these tricks of momentum you will be submaximally training the muscle in question to say the least. People,for instance, who arch their backs or swing their hips while performing a curl are not really seriously applying stress to the biceps. Nor is an overhead press performed while leaning backward or using the legs to help raise the weight the kind of shoulder work that gets rewarded with large deltoids. In fact lots of rocking and rolling while doing movements probably means your ego can't stand the thought of doing a set strictly with a smaller weight. Real muscles are built by fanatical devotion to strict movements with whatever weight you can handle properly.
That does not mean that cheating has no place in serious muscle building. Its proper place is at the end of a set of strict repetitions, when the isolated muscle cannot do any more. If you desire to add even more stress to that muscle, then and only then would you consider cheating. That would involve doing some extra,forced reps. Forced repetitions can only be done by the very cheating that is ill-advised for early reps. This "good" cheating results in overload for the muscle and can lead to increased capacity.
The trick to cheating is thus not to use it until you are supposed to use it. Learn to apply strict form and then add the cheating. Your servant, as always.
Cheating in the gym is,of course, using momentum created somewhere other than the isolated muscle to complete a movement. If you do a movement from the beginning of the set with these tricks of momentum you will be submaximally training the muscle in question to say the least. People,for instance, who arch their backs or swing their hips while performing a curl are not really seriously applying stress to the biceps. Nor is an overhead press performed while leaning backward or using the legs to help raise the weight the kind of shoulder work that gets rewarded with large deltoids. In fact lots of rocking and rolling while doing movements probably means your ego can't stand the thought of doing a set strictly with a smaller weight. Real muscles are built by fanatical devotion to strict movements with whatever weight you can handle properly.
That does not mean that cheating has no place in serious muscle building. Its proper place is at the end of a set of strict repetitions, when the isolated muscle cannot do any more. If you desire to add even more stress to that muscle, then and only then would you consider cheating. That would involve doing some extra,forced reps. Forced repetitions can only be done by the very cheating that is ill-advised for early reps. This "good" cheating results in overload for the muscle and can lead to increased capacity.
The trick to cheating is thus not to use it until you are supposed to use it. Learn to apply strict form and then add the cheating. Your servant, as always.
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