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Mar 9, 1999
No, I'm not accusing you of being unfaithful in your marriage, I'm talking about the often-occuring cheating in the gym. You've all seen the guy that is supposed to do bicep curls and ends up loading on more weight than he'd do for deadlifts - and performs 3 reps of some kind of almost-obscene hip/back swinging motion. Afterwards, he's bright red in the face and brags about how exhausted he is afterwards, topping it off with a lecture about the necessity of using heavy weights to grow. And through his entire workout, a closer look at his elbow-joint (which is the ONLY thing that matters when it comes to bicep-training) is hardly moving at all. Ergo: The movement in his body is generated by OTHER muscles than the biceps.
Needless to say, this guy will get zero gains at best and a nasty back-injury at worst.
But is it really a matter of black & white, right or wrong? Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke about the benefits of controlled cheating 20 years ago, and proudly stated that he used cheating in almost every workout. Others speak of cheating like Monica Lewinsky speak of Linda Tripp. Both sides has a point, but what does this mean to YOU, in real life? Let's take it from the top - there's two basics that MUST be fulfilled in order to promote muscle growth - the targeted muscle needs to work, and the work must overload the muscle in order to force it into growth. The guy in my example above has focused so much on the latter that he forgot about the first part, and when no results comes, he interprets it as him going too light and makes it even worse by loading on even MORE weight next time!
However, the other extreme is not that productive either, where you have this guy grinding out set after set with light weights, watching the form like a hawk in the mirror.
Yes, he's disciplined. Yes, he avoids injury. Yes, he's much better off than the first guy. But is he packing hundreds of pounds of muscle? Probably not. The simple conclusion to draw from all this is that there has to be a middle way, where you avoid injury but can employ certain controlled cheating. When I say "controlled," I mean that you should use a weight so that the majority of your reps are done without cheating, but in order to grind the last ounce of power out (and avoiding the dreaded sticking-points) you do some
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