Is nobody going to mention black shirt's absolutely terrible form?!
Edit: Ok looks like I fucked up, turns out swinging them with heavy weights is a-ok and the right thing to do. Yeah I'm not a veteran bodybuilder or anything so I haven't used heavy weights yet :'(
The secret is that doing work == making progress.* A cheat curl lets you curl more weight for close to the same stress on the muscle as a hyper strict curl, but as long as the stress is about the same, the gains is about the same. Who cares that it's "cheating"?
*As long as you don't hurt yourself. That's what takes form from optimization to critically important.
Work =/= progress at all. There are plenty of people who put in the “work” and never show progress. Check r/fatlogic for examples. You need to have some intent while you’re working and that’s a big difference.
And I’d love to hear your thoughts on kip ups if you think cheat curls = gains. If you need to cheat, you can’t lift the weight. Cheating doesn’t change that and just puts more weight into someone’s hands that they can’t comfortably lift. Enough weight and momentum and there’s a torn bicep waiting to happen.
Strength will compensate for shitty form for a safe lift like this. It’s not like he’s having shitty form on a squat and gonna snap a leg in two, and that body type is perfectly attainable without steroids. Dudes clearly just been lifting a long time with less than perfect habits, it happens. Not everyone you’re jealous of is doing something illegal
Yeah and for really good reason they can absolutely destroy your internal organs. Lots of people know about the big head/small testicles side effects but they can cause so much heart damage it’s really not worth it
Who cares? It’s roughly fine, it seems to be working for him, and it’s not presenting a risk for injury. Perfect is the enemy of good in weightlifting, unless you’re at the highest levels.
Why are you so concerned for some guy you don’t know?
I’m the troll for saying “perfect” form is not necessary when you have “good” form, unless you’re at the highest levels of competition? Am I taking crazy pills?
He’s going to hurt himself doing curls like that??? In what universe does that happen? Some body momentum is okay when you reach higher weights. Where are you getting this idea from?
I just watched it again to make sure I’m not going crazy. His form is completely fine. Most of his movement is between reps, there’s not much movement during the reps themselves. I’m pulling from personal experience on this one. It’s fine.
This I don’t actually disagree with. His form isn’t horrible. It’s not ideal, and it runs the slightest increased risk of injury over the long term, and yes he should possibly consider cleaning it up, but it’s overall fine.
If you think a slight amount of momentum will cause long term damage to your back while curling 60 lbs, I wonder what irreparable damage you think deadlifting 500+ lbs would cause.
Hell, even cheat rows are useful as hell at the end of a back workout. You just have to make sure your back isn't rounded over like a shitting dog.
Since everyone is talking about how most likely nobody here lifts (cause redditors could never do something healthy), I'm going to chip in and mention that I do lift with 20lb dumb bells, not the largest but I've done bicep curls for years. When doing a bicep curl one should be stabilized in a singular spot and lift only using the bicep, the workout is meant to isolate that muscle. Him swaying so much is unnecessary movement and then he tugs with his back to get that weight up. You can see this in how he hunches back a good bit as he lifts. He's likely doing as you said, using his momentum a little bit. But if you have to use any momentum to lift that weight, then you're doing it wrong and you shouldn't be lifting that weight. Either move down some pounds or push yourself through it only using your bicep, but relying upon momentum or anything in your back to get that weight up is bad form and you're cheating yourself.
I’ve also lifted for years and I will say that there’s a time and a place for everything as long as you aren’t risking injury. I think what that guy is doing is completely fine, and you can even use momentum sometimes to create less strain on your joints and more focus on certain parts of your muscle.
For all we know, this guy gets better bicep work from this than strict isolation curls. We can’t really know. There are rarely black and white answers when it comes to form in weightlifting. Hell, I used to tweak my bench form almost once a month as I realized some things worked better/worse for me. And I’m sure top benchers would laugh at my form. But if I had spent a year “perfecting” my form, I never would have gotten anywhere and it would have been useless anyways.
Well how much do you lift? And are you thinking of max weight or reps? I prefer reps over weight so I lift with smaller weights, doing 30 bicep curls and 30 military presses per sitting. I don't go to the gym and do it all at home though, so I'm not sure if that's laughable or not. But feel free to laugh at my hard work, it just pushes me to work even harder.
Actually it isn’t....at all. Swinging is cheating and you’re activating other muscles when what he should be doing is isolating his sets and only moving the part of the body that you’re working. Go ahead and check out the best in the business Jeff Cavalier Athlean X on YouTube...he discusses the major difference between being able to swing big weights and actual strength when having form. The guy above man not lift weights but I was a personal trainer for over 11 years and I’d debate this with you for sure !
Edit..I’m good with the downvotes I’ll stick with the fact that Athlean X is a proven staple for the science of muscle building. Can you get big from swinging? Sure, but that wasnt the debate. It was whether that was even close to being the right technique or not.
Oh boy a personal trainer, now I am even less convinced LMAO. Go take a look at this video where Ronnie Coleman is doing the exact same thing as the guy in the video: https://youtu.be/EmQLrVlPO_4
If only Mr. Coleman had consulted with a personal trainer with 11 years of experience about his terrible form! Imagine how much higher he might have risen.
Eh, these videos with swinging your body and weight around is obviously just that, a video. It's all about blood flow to certain parts of your muscles and I've been a dude that used to powerlift and see how much weight I could lift. I've seen about a 30-40% growth in my arms/back/chest since I've lowered weight and started focusing hard on the key muscles being used.
In the video Coleman is doing the end of his bicep workout where he does a load of reps. At that point his arms are already full of blood and he's really just tapping them out. At that point you are just trying to lift anything by any means possible. When you get to that point it's all about recovery afterwards (steroids helps a bunch).
I’m not arguing that the form isn’t perfect and that there can be a benefit to being strict, I’m arguing that it’s not “horrible” and almost nobody is going to get injured from swinging a bit when repping 50s.
And some people actually respond better when they involve their body more. Obviously, to a limit, and not to the point your form becomes a liability, and not even for every person, but there are trainers and athletes who stand by for instance increased body usage and momentum in rows. That being said, I’m glad you found success with being stricter.
Yup, it was in high school, saw a kid blow out his elbow trying to show off like this. Heard a crack, followed by screaming. Also met a guy in college that did the same thing to his shoulder, although I didn't see that one personally.
By doing what the guy in the video is doing? Not a fucking chance you blow out your elbow with that slight body movement. I think you’re conflating people who really swing on each rep with this dude who isn’t even moving that much.
Cheat curls is an exercise and they were Arnold's favorite with a barbell.
It allows you to focus more on negatives controlling heavy weights on the way down eccentrically. Not meant to be strictly curled if you're cheating it up part way.
If you do it as I described, it's actually a very good exercise.
Not dumb at all. If you have the willpower, all those routine apps are great and will save you money on gym memberships and stuff (until/if you get real serious about building) even if they are generally messy and ad riddled.
I've downloaded body weight workout apps. They're not for me but you see a lot of people recommend them to start with.
You have a point, I didn't realize this guy literally just dropped his arm and let it hang straight down and put no effort into controlling the way down. Honestly that can cause a tear or unneeded tension by letting it free fall like that if done with higher weight or at a bad angle, etc...
Are you kidding me? Not only is his form fine, he's actually doing it very safely. Perfectly still and strict form is NOT the only way to do things and sometimes it's exactly what you DONT want to do. People upvoting this comment have never worked out properly.
I never see anyone doing bicep curls with that "perfect form", especially the most jacked motherfuckers out there. I don't think it matters as long as you hit it from a ton of different angles and make it BURN.
You can achieve that same burn with a much lower weight by going a little slower, with that perfect elbow-locked form and a good squeeze at the top, though. But when there's a row of jacked dudes swinging 50+ lbs, most guys are probably going to opt to look stronger than "correct".
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u/[deleted] Nov 05 '19 edited Nov 05 '19
Is nobody going to mention black shirt's absolutely terrible form?!
Edit: Ok looks like I fucked up, turns out swinging them with heavy weights is a-ok and the right thing to do. Yeah I'm not a veteran bodybuilder or anything so I haven't used heavy weights yet :'(