The importance of proper form when exercising should never be underestimated. No matter if you’re strength training, doing cardio or any kind of exercise, you need to maintain proper form all throughout your workout. There are many reasons to this, and it all stems from your lack of technique. If you feel like your exercises aren’t really working out and your muscles are hurting a lot more than you think they should, then maintaining proper form could be the answer to your exercise woes.
Improper form can prevent injuries
One of the biggest causes of injury during exercise is because of improper form. This is especially important when strength training with things like dumbbells and kettlebells. If you’re unsure how to swing a kettlebell or properly lift weights, then it’s important you research by looking up videos, consulting images or even asking a personal trainer. If you don’t maintain proper form when exercising, then it could easily lead to injuries because you’re training the wrong parts of your body in order to do an exercise. If you’re swaying or heaving when you do strength training, then you can never maintain proper form and you should be lowering the weight of your workout equipment.
Doing reps incorrectly can make you hate your workout
One of the problems with exercise is that it can often feel like you’re not making process. This could always be due to you not liking the exercise in general, but the other cause might be because you’re not performing it correctly. If you’ve been squatting incorrectly for about a month then you won’t see many gains at all and it could lead you to feel unmotivated or even upset because you’ve been wasting your time. Don’t let this happen to you and kill your motivation. Ensure you’re doing your exercises properly so that you’re not wasting your time and working the wrong muscles.
Breathing techniques are important as well
Breathing helps you maintain the right form during exercise and it’s often misunderstood or forgotten about during sets. It’s one of the essential components of exercising because the more oxygen we breathe in, the less the chance of us feeling light headed or experiencing heart problems. Make sure you’re breathing properly during cardio and ensure that you’re inhaling before lifting and exhaling when you lower it. If you don’t keep this pace, then you’ll encounter numerous health problems that you think are due to your own fitness levels or other underlying health issues. In reality, it’s most likely because you aren’t breathing properly during your reps.
Summary
These are just a few examples of when an improper form can damage your workout and make it hard for you to see any meaningful gains. Whether it’s being out of breath because you aren’t inhaling and exhaling properly, or if you’re working the wrong muscles due to a lack of care for your form, fixing these issues doesn’t take long. All you need to do is ask a friend, a personal trainer, or just look online on how to correctly perform your exercises.
