Heavy Weight vs Proper Range of Motion?

Happy hump day everyone, hope you have been kicking ass with your training. So I was at the gym earlier today and saw something that really spurred an idea for today’s blog post. As I finished up training my morning clients I went to get a nice max effort upper body workout in before round 2 of clients. While I was on the floor I saw a guy standing by the squat rack with 405 on the bar. Anytime I see someone squatting heavy it catches my eye because, quite frankly, no one does it! So as I watched out of the corner of my eye I saw a couple things occur. Before beginning the set this guy tighten his belt up to the point of almost popping. I am a firm believer in lifting RAW! That means no straps, wrist wraps or belts. If your lower back and core is not strong enough to hold the weight on your back you shouldn’t be doing it! Also if your grip and wrists are weak how to expect to strengthen them if you’re using wraps or straps? The only time a belt should be used is if you’re attempting a PR or doing a 1 rep max. Back to the story, so we have are belt on tight and we are ready to squat some heavy weight. As he began his 3 rep set of squats all I could look at was one thing, he was not even close to performing a full squat with his hamstrings going parallel to the ground! A couple grunts later the set is over and this guy is leaning on the squat rack like he just got shot! After taken a couple minutes to recover, he then stuck his chest out and strutted over to the leg press like he just accomplished something. Situations like this really get me fired up, leading to this post.
Way too many weight lifters get too tied up in the amount of weight they are lifting and negate the most critical parts of the exercise, proper form as well as full range of motion. If you can not perform a set of the exercise you’re attempting with proper form and ROM then you are most likely lifting more weight then you can handle. By doing this a couple things can occur. Your risks of injury increases greatly, and let’s face it, the last thing we want to do is miss time to do unnecessary injuries. Also by breaking form or doing half reps with heavy weight you won’t get nearly as much out of the exercise and are more or less cheating yourself out of results!
The two major exercises I see people “cheating on” and not performing full range of motions are the squat and pull-ups, which are your top lower body and upper body exercise. I see skinny guys at the gym all day repping out 15-20 pull-ups going down half way. Until you can complete a set of 10 pull-ups with a full hang on the bottom you do not impress me and quite frankly you’re not strong! The sticking point of the pull-up is generally that bottom 1/3 of the movement, so by eliminating that portion of the lift you are not getting nearly as much out of your set as you can. This is very similar with the squat as well. The sticking point of are squat is going to be the point when we are stopping are body from moving downward and attempting to move it back up. This portion of the exercise really loads up the hamstrings and will increase your strength dramatically.
So what does all this mean? By performing heavy sets with weight your body can’t handle your creating certain imbalances throughout your body. What happens when your body has muscular/flexibility imbalances? The rest of your body tries to make up for the muscle groups that are slacking which can lead to over compensation injuries. Performing less weight with proper form and full ROM is much more beneficial and less risky when it comes to lifting weights for athletic performance or for any washed up meathead trying to look better at the beach. When I train my clients the first repetition I see where there form goes to sh*t or lose ROM I will have them stop the set. Who wants to be known as the trainer that injured the star High School athlete and made them miss there senior year, I sure as hell don’t! Hope the post was helpful, any questions or comments drop them below, Keep training hard!




Look at old school strong man John Davis getting DEEP on his squat!!