This one change could give you the definition that you’ve been looking for.
So we discussed how using poor form can lead to injury in Let’s Talk Form [Part 1], and now we will cover the second reason why you should use good form: targeting specific muscles that we plan to work on.
But why does any of this matter? Truth is, if you’re in the gym just to jerk around heavy weights all day, this probably isn’t the topic for you, but if you’re in the gym working your butt off to make sure you look your best, then you’ll want to listen to this.
When you’re trying to develop a certain type of body shape or muscle definition, you typically start out by critiquing yourself in the areas that need most improvement. But once you find those spots, how do you fix these imbalances? Well, if you want a bigger chest, you should do chest workouts right? Yes and no.
The chest is actually one of the easier parts of the body to work on. It’s quite straightforward, only split into two different muscles; the Pectoralis Major, which is considered the lower part and bulk of the chest, and Pectoralis Minor, which is the “upper” area that gives the chest its full look. Since these two are separate muscles, they both require individual work if you want to have a full and well-developed chest.
This is where the problems show up. Most people get to this point and just hop on to machines at the gym that will target that specific muscle group. While this generally the right idea, what follows has everything to do with how efficiently you grow and how well you develop your definition. So let’s talk some physiology.
In order to move, your body relies on muscle contractions to shift your bones in whatever direction you intend to move. Muscles are connected to bones, so when you flex or contract your muscles, the attached bones get pulled along.
In the human body, there are approximately 640 muscles, but only 206 bones. So if the muscles are connected to bones, that tells us that each bone probably has multiple different muscles attached to it. More importantly, that tells us that any motion your body performs will rely on a combination of various muscles that are attached to the moving limbs.
When you hop on a bench press, you know that the majority of the load will fall on your chest muscles, what you might not know is that your triceps, shoulders, and many more muscles than I can name all come into play here. The majority of the those muscles play a stabilizing role in the pressing motion, but if you neglect your form here, you offset that heavy load from the muscles that are meant to be pushing onto the muscles that are just meant to be holding.
When you do that, you end up jerking the weight up and down instead of controlling the motion and allowing your muscle to go through its full contraction. This is a very common problem with beginners at the gym. They get pulled into the idea that heavy is better and try to put up as much weight as they can. Instead of focusing on the weight being lifted, it is more important to focus on the stress you put on the muscles that you are working on.
This pie chart below shows the total energy you use to go through a movement. The numbers here are made up, just so we can get an idea of the concept of targeting a muscle during a movement. We have 6 different muscles that are putting out different forces to push or pull the weight through the motion. Let’s say that today we want to work Muscle (2). If we decide to perform the exercise with the current form that we are using, 30% of the load is put on Muscle (2).
By paying slightly more attention to our form, we shift our position slightly to place more of the load on Muscle (2). The shift isn’t drastic, it’s just a very small change that causes the change in balance. The next chart shows the difference in energy on each muscle caused by that shift.
We see that a portion of the load that was being taken by Muscle (1) has shifted and is now placed on Muscle (2). If you have all the time and energy in the world, it might not matter to you, but this small change in form is an important tool you need to sculpt your body in a way that you see fit.
If you’re serious about improving and shaping your body, developing solid form, plus the ability to really feel your muscles, is one of the most powerful tools to help you achieve that goal. So when you step into the gym tomorrow morning, let’s think about how we want to look before jumping on those 120 pound dumbbells.
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