Back when I was kid working out for the first time, I'd devoured Muscle Builder and Musclemag.
And those magazines always preached the importance of strict movement.
And to this day, most everybody continues to preach the same.
You must exercise with strict, strict form.
Heck, I preach the same.
You know the drill - it prevents injury, keeps focus on muscle, builds muscle, blah, blah, blah.
By the way, I believe all that; it's preaching to the choir as the saying goes.
But just as important as lifting with strict form is, it is equally important to lift as heavy as possible.
Lifting heavy gets you strong and sometimes, even gets you big.
The challenge is that we are generally weakest at the very start of most exercises.
Think about it - what is harder, getting the barbell off the chest or locking out the last 5 inches of the bench press? Or how about starting a barbell curl, which point is the hardest? And like the weakest link, you can only lift as much as the weakest stage of the movement.
But again, to get strong you must lift heavy.
So that is the challenge, overcoming the weakest point.
The answer is a controlled cheating.
The first time I saw a guy nudge the barbell through the start of a curl, I saw the path that laid beyond the 60lbs I had been using for a month (hey, I was 140lbs 15 year old in high school).
With controlled cheating, you can blast past your sticking point and get strong in a serious way.
For many years to come I used as strict a form as I needed to; but to push heavier weights, I was never afraid to used controlled cheating.
Controlled cheating is just that, a deliberate act on your part to get a weight past a sticking point.
It is not using outrageously heavy weights that force you to do ridiculous body contortions to move it 5 inches.
And there are some movements you should not use controlled cheatings.
Any exercise that involves the knees should be done very strictly.
You would never cheat, controlled or otherwise, on a squat or the dead lift.
I would not cheat on any triceps movement nor would I do so on any abs exercise.
On the other hand, biceps, lats, delts, and Pecs to a degree are good candidates for controlled cheating.
Regardless, do so in a safe manner.
Whenever you do cheat, only cheat as necessary to get a weight past the sticking point.
And never embark on cheating until your form is great to begin with.
Cheating, like any other form of forced repetitions, is a weapon that can ultimately hurt you as much as it can help.
It all depends on how you use it.
Treat it like a loaded gun.
And those magazines always preached the importance of strict movement.
And to this day, most everybody continues to preach the same.
You must exercise with strict, strict form.
Heck, I preach the same.
You know the drill - it prevents injury, keeps focus on muscle, builds muscle, blah, blah, blah.
By the way, I believe all that; it's preaching to the choir as the saying goes.
But just as important as lifting with strict form is, it is equally important to lift as heavy as possible.
Lifting heavy gets you strong and sometimes, even gets you big.
The challenge is that we are generally weakest at the very start of most exercises.
Think about it - what is harder, getting the barbell off the chest or locking out the last 5 inches of the bench press? Or how about starting a barbell curl, which point is the hardest? And like the weakest link, you can only lift as much as the weakest stage of the movement.
But again, to get strong you must lift heavy.
So that is the challenge, overcoming the weakest point.
The answer is a controlled cheating.
The first time I saw a guy nudge the barbell through the start of a curl, I saw the path that laid beyond the 60lbs I had been using for a month (hey, I was 140lbs 15 year old in high school).
With controlled cheating, you can blast past your sticking point and get strong in a serious way.
For many years to come I used as strict a form as I needed to; but to push heavier weights, I was never afraid to used controlled cheating.
Controlled cheating is just that, a deliberate act on your part to get a weight past a sticking point.
It is not using outrageously heavy weights that force you to do ridiculous body contortions to move it 5 inches.
And there are some movements you should not use controlled cheatings.
Any exercise that involves the knees should be done very strictly.
You would never cheat, controlled or otherwise, on a squat or the dead lift.
I would not cheat on any triceps movement nor would I do so on any abs exercise.
On the other hand, biceps, lats, delts, and Pecs to a degree are good candidates for controlled cheating.
Regardless, do so in a safe manner.
Whenever you do cheat, only cheat as necessary to get a weight past the sticking point.
And never embark on cheating until your form is great to begin with.
Cheating, like any other form of forced repetitions, is a weapon that can ultimately hurt you as much as it can help.
It all depends on how you use it.
Treat it like a loaded gun.
SHARE
