I have previously written a lot about the importance of having correct
exercise technique for both the safety and effectiveness of your
workouts. While there is no question that technique is important, you
may not know how to improve your technique, especially when learning new
exercises. The best way is probably to hire a qualified personal
trainer to teach you proper technique, but for many people that is not a
reasonable option. In that case, one of the best things you can do is
watch yourself in the mirror while you exercise.
There are two things that are critical for achieving proper exercise
technique: you obviously need to know how the exercise is supposed to be
performed and your body needs to have the ability to move the right way
by contracting the correct muscles. This may not sound too challenging,
but if you are performing a new exercise or even a variation of an old
exercise, your body may not do exactly what you want it to.
The real issue is that our perception of how our muscles and joints
are moving is not always the same as what they are actually doing. When
exercising, or performing any movement for that matter, your body
receives feedback about the movement from numerous sources, including
what you see (visual information) and what you feel (tactile
information). Your body also gets feedback from your perceptions of the
movement and your spatial orientation, which is called proprioception.
When you consciously tell your body to move a certain way, such as
when performing an exercise, your brain combines all this feedback to
get the information it needs. Then your brain sends signals to your
muscles telling them how to contract in order to perform the movement
correctly. This generally works pretty well, but if the feedback your
brain gets is not completely accurate, then your subsequent movements
will not be exactly what you want or expect.
The most common problem is that our proprioception is usually not as
accurate as we think it is, especially when it comes to performing
unfamiliar movements or exercises. In other words, your body segments
will be in different places than you think they are during the movement.
Your positioning may not be off by much, but every little bit makes a
difference. When your proprioception is off, you will not have correct
exercise technique and your workouts will not be as safe or effective as
they should be. Fortunately, these problems can be greatly reduced by
using a mirror while you are exercising.
When you watch yourself performing an exercise or movement, your brain
receives more accurate proprioceptive feedback, since it is able to
combine your perceptions of movement with the visual feedback. As a
result, your brain is able to send more accurate signals to your muscles
and joints telling them how to move, which also serves to recalibrate
and improve your overall proprioception. This is important, because the
better your proprioception, the better your form will be.
Learning proper exercise technique doesn't happen right away and it
takes many repetitions performed frequently over a period of time to
develop great form. The way you perform each reps does influence how
fast your technique improves, because the more variance there is in your
technique from rep to rep, the longer it takes your body to develop a
consistent movement pattern. Watching yourself in a mirror is important
here as well, because it allows you to make sure that each rep has as
little variance as possible.
If you don't pay attention to your form or have poor proprioception,
you may never develop good form and it is possible to develop chronic
form flaws instead. Just as performing exercises correctly improves your
form, consistently repeating an incorrect movement makes that same flaw
more likely to occur in the future. Therefore if your proprioception is
off and you think you are performing a movement correctly, but are
actually doing something different, you will reinforce bad form instead
of improving your technique.
Watching yourself in a mirror may not seem like it would affect things
very much, but it really does make a difference, especially when it
comes to your proprioception. After you perform an exercise with good
form for an extended period of time, it will become an ingrained
movement pattern. This means you should still be able to maintain proper
technique without watching yourself in the mirror anymore. This is the
ideal point you want to reach when learning any exercise or movement
pattern.
Of course, there are many exercises where you will not be able to
watch yourself in a mirror, but you can still see at least some of your
body's movements. You may have to move your head around to see how
different body segments are moving, but this extra effort will provide
you with very important feedback. Just make sure that when watching your
movements you are not altering your form in a negative way.
If worst comes to worst, you can always use a video camera to record
your movements. While this does not offer real-time feedback, watching
video should still help improve your proprioception and form, especially
if you watch it right after you complete the exercise. Regardless of
what method you use, watching yourself while exercising is an easy way
to improve your technique and ensure you are getting the most out of
each of your workouts.
fit
