I was teaching one of our introductory classes tonight. It’s one of my favorite classes to teach because often time the participants are so new to what we do and they are an open book. It’s an opportunity to really help guide them the right direction.
During the workout I make my way around the room checking on form and making corrections as needed. I made a simple adjustment on two students in how they did their push ups, and both of them realized that it was actually harder to do it the way I asked them to, then the way they were doing it.
Doing things properly in many cases can make things easier on us. In a lot of cases it makes things harder.. at least initially. All I asked them to do was keep their elbows closer to their ribs and keep their shoulders back. This puts the focus on lats and triceps which is more sound for the shoulder. But that doesn’t mean it’s easier. If you have spent years doing push ups the wrong way you have probably gotten pretty good at doing them the wrong way.
Often times “bad form” comes when things are hard. Our body looks for an easier way out. We arch or round our backs because we do not have the core strength to maintain a good brace. It is too hard to do it correctly, so your body finds another way. Just because it’s easier, doesn’t mean it’s right.
Doing the right thing isn’t always easy at first. Especially if you’ve been doing it wrong for so long, but it will absolutely make things easier in the long road. The problem is, it is hard to see where we are going. We get caught up in immediate results. We get caught up in focusing on what others are doing. We don’t think about dealing with the struggle now, to find the best version or ourselves later.
I challenge you to focus on doing things the right way. Take the long road. Focus on quality over quantity. I promise you will be pleasantly surprised with the results in the end.
Be good, train hard, stay safe.
-aaron
Aaron Jannetti 