RealNinja
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Yo guys. Lifting weights is awesome and a super fun hobby, but people tend to forget that the human body is fragile and a lot of things can go wrong in the gym. It isn't that hard to fuck yourself up when you're messing around with barbells and dumbbells that weigh hundreds of pounds, and you're in compromising positions using muscles that don't normally get used. One bad set or one bad rep can cause problems that become a pain in the ass for months, years, or even the rest of your life. I can attest to this- lifting like an idiot left me with a bulging disc in my lower back, and sciatica symptoms at 17 years old. I got my passion for lifting weights from my father, who was benching 275 when he was my age. Now at 45, he can't even do bicep curls because he has multiple screws in his elbows. So I'm going to be telling you guys about how to keep your joints and spine safe and healthy so you can mog DYELs in the nursing home.
SECTION 1- SHOULDERS / ROTATOR CUFF
The human shoulder joint and rotator cuff anatomy is kind of a mess. It tends to be injury prone and easily tweaked/impinged. I'm going to go over some do's and don'ts for shoulder health. Can't get a big chest if you can't bench because you fucked up your rotator cuff.
PRESSING FORM
Proper form for any kind of bench press starts with good scapular control; AKA keeping the shoulder blades retracted. This transfers stress from your front delts and triceps onto your pecs. Not only does this help you grow your chest properly, it also limits shoulder rotation and keeps you from injuring your rotator cuffs by placing too much tension on them.
Where a lot of people fuck up bench press form is the lockout. You do not need to fully straighten your arms at the top of a rep. When you force the weight up too high and straighten your elbows out hard, your shoulder blades move from their retracted position to allow this. Use light dumbbells or barbell to experiment with this, crank out a bunch of reps and focus on what your shoulder blades do. Find the top of your range of motion that allows your scapulas to stay locked in their retracted position. Look at how Jay Cutler benches: this is the furthest his arms extend.
Another common barbell bench press mistake is not unracking properly. If your gym has the bench press J-hooks set too high, you will be forced to lock out your elbows when unracking, making you lose upper back tightness. Set the bar at a lower height. Unrack by gripping the bar tightly- think about bending it in half. Use your lats to "pull" the bar out over your chest, maintaining scapular retraction.
OVEREXTENSIONWhere a lot of people fuck up bench press form is the lockout. You do not need to fully straighten your arms at the top of a rep. When you force the weight up too high and straighten your elbows out hard, your shoulder blades move from their retracted position to allow this. Use light dumbbells or barbell to experiment with this, crank out a bunch of reps and focus on what your shoulder blades do. Find the top of your range of motion that allows your scapulas to stay locked in their retracted position. Look at how Jay Cutler benches: this is the furthest his arms extend.
Another common barbell bench press mistake is not unracking properly. If your gym has the bench press J-hooks set too high, you will be forced to lock out your elbows when unracking, making you lose upper back tightness. Set the bar at a lower height. Unrack by gripping the bar tightly- think about bending it in half. Use your lats to "pull" the bar out over your chest, maintaining scapular retraction.
You want to avoid overextending your shoulders. Ideally your shoulders will be able to go through a robust range of motion, but we want to control our range of motion when we are putting the shoulders in a weak position or using heavy weights.
When doing lateral raises, raise the dumbbells until your arms are parallel with the ground. Do not swing them up so far that they go above your head. If you're doing something like a dumbbell pullover, don't bring the dumbbell so far back that it's touching the ground, forcing your fully extended and weakened shoulders to bring that heavy weight back upwards.
(THIS IS BAD FOR YOUR SHOULDERS)
ROTATOR CUFF HEALTHWhen doing lateral raises, raise the dumbbells until your arms are parallel with the ground. Do not swing them up so far that they go above your head. If you're doing something like a dumbbell pullover, don't bring the dumbbell so far back that it's touching the ground, forcing your fully extended and weakened shoulders to bring that heavy weight back upwards.
(THIS IS BAD FOR YOUR SHOULDERS)
Always start a push day with rotator cuff warmups. Work them through a full range of motion in order to prepare them for your pressing movements.
Facepulls are a great exercise- not necessarily for building rear delts, but for keeping your rotator cuffs nice and mobile. You can use cables w/ a D handle attachment or a light dumbbell to do internal rotation warmups, which look like this:
You may have seen CBum doing these before he bench presses.
Upright external rotations:
John Meadows demonstrated a resistance band rotator cuff exercise that has greatly reduced my shoulder pain. It goes like this:
Wrap a resistance band around your wrists. Stand facing a wall at arm's length. Using your wrists, pull the band apart. Place your extended fingertips on the wall, and "walk" your hands up the wall in an alternating pattern, maintaining tension the whole time. You are fighting to keep that band pulled apart. Walk your hands all the way up as far as they'll go, then walk them back down as low as they'll go. Repeat x3.
SECTION 2: BACK/SPINEFacepulls are a great exercise- not necessarily for building rear delts, but for keeping your rotator cuffs nice and mobile. You can use cables w/ a D handle attachment or a light dumbbell to do internal rotation warmups, which look like this:
You may have seen CBum doing these before he bench presses.
Upright external rotations:
John Meadows demonstrated a resistance band rotator cuff exercise that has greatly reduced my shoulder pain. It goes like this:
Wrap a resistance band around your wrists. Stand facing a wall at arm's length. Using your wrists, pull the band apart. Place your extended fingertips on the wall, and "walk" your hands up the wall in an alternating pattern, maintaining tension the whole time. You are fighting to keep that band pulled apart. Walk your hands all the way up as far as they'll go, then walk them back down as low as they'll go. Repeat x3.
This is potentially the most important section of this guide. There are a lot of ways you can fuck your back up. You only get one spine. It's the most important structural element of your body and it's extremely difficult to repair/heal. DO NOT EGOLIFT ON SQUATS AND DEADS. If you fail the rep, you fail it. Drop the weight or roll the bar off your back. A squat is not a bicep curl, you do not cheat and break form so you can get one more rep.
NEUTRAL SPINE: BRACE THE CORE
"Neutral spine" means the natural position of your spine when standing up with proper posture. This is to be maintained during ANY exercise that places stress on the low back- bent over rows, squats, deadlifts, romanian deadlifts, leg press, etcetera.
Lots of people hear that you shouldn't round your back when squatting, and overcompensate by hyperextending their spine, like this:
This is bad form just as much as it is to round your back. Your spine likes to stay in the exact alignment that it's in when you stand up normally. It's not good to forcefully bend your spine in EITHER direction.
You have lots of musculature surrounding your spine that helps keep it stable and healthy. Weakness in these muscles, or not properly activating them, can lead to spinal flexion during your compound movements. If you get unlucky, you will end up with a bulging disc or herniated disc which leads to all sorts of problems. On the posterior, your spine is supported by spinal erectors, lats, traps, rhomboids, glutes. On the anterior, your lower back is supported by your core- rectus abdominis and obliques.
When we do something like a squat, ALL of this tightens in order to keep our spine stable. The scapulas retract to allow the bar to sit atop the traps, to give it a stable shelf. You use your hands to pull the bar downwards to tighten your lats and keep it locked in place. You brace your abs to keep the spine supported from the opposite side.
HOW DO I BRACE MY CORE?Lots of people hear that you shouldn't round your back when squatting, and overcompensate by hyperextending their spine, like this:
This is bad form just as much as it is to round your back. Your spine likes to stay in the exact alignment that it's in when you stand up normally. It's not good to forcefully bend your spine in EITHER direction.
You have lots of musculature surrounding your spine that helps keep it stable and healthy. Weakness in these muscles, or not properly activating them, can lead to spinal flexion during your compound movements. If you get unlucky, you will end up with a bulging disc or herniated disc which leads to all sorts of problems. On the posterior, your spine is supported by spinal erectors, lats, traps, rhomboids, glutes. On the anterior, your lower back is supported by your core- rectus abdominis and obliques.
When we do something like a squat, ALL of this tightens in order to keep our spine stable. The scapulas retract to allow the bar to sit atop the traps, to give it a stable shelf. You use your hands to pull the bar downwards to tighten your lats and keep it locked in place. You brace your abs to keep the spine supported from the opposite side.
You simply take a large breath in and hold it in your belly while flexing your abs, creating intrabdominal pressure and supporting your spine. This video from squatuniversity gives an excellent visual demonstration, and gives you a way to see what proper bracing feels like. Attentionspancels- its only a minute long, just go watch it.
HINGE AT THE HIPS
Hip-hinging is how you properly perform romanian deadlifts or straight leg deadlifts. It's also a great thing to implement into everyday life. It's an instinctive movement- instead of bending down by curving your spine, you bend down by "breaking in half" at the hips and leaning over without moving your legs or spine from their positions.
When you need to lean over to pick something up off the floor, either hip hinge or squat down. Break the habit of bending your spine, even if you just need to pick up your phone or a pencil. Transfer the compression from your spine to your hamstrings or quads. As you get older and your body becomes more fragile, this becomes more important to do.
GOOD POSTUREWhen you need to lean over to pick something up off the floor, either hip hinge or squat down. Break the habit of bending your spine, even if you just need to pick up your phone or a pencil. Transfer the compression from your spine to your hamstrings or quads. As you get older and your body becomes more fragile, this becomes more important to do.
You're only in the gym for 1-2 hours. The rest of your waking hours, you're doing other things. It is important to maintain good posture at all times throughout the day in order to keep your spine healthy. Sit at your desk or at the dinner table upright, not slouched over. Stand tall when you walk, chest out and shoulders pulled back. Create tightness in your lats and abs to support your spine. Use your glutes to propel your footsteps.
SQUAT TROUBLESHOOTING- WHY CAN'T I SQUAT WITH A NEUTRAL SPINE?
Potential issue #1: Impaired mobility in the hips, hamstrings, or ankles. If you have long femurs, your knees have to go further over your toes in order for your back to stay upright while squatting. Bad ankle mobility can lead to your low back rounding to compensate. Inflexible hamstrings can lead to the low back compensating by rounding over when you squat to depth. Test your hamstring mobility by trying the hip hinge described above. Can you reach 90 degrees or lower? Again, tight hip flexors can lead to lower back compensation. If you have bad mobility anywhere in your lower body, read up on stretching and mobility work to address it.
Potential issue #2: Weakness in supporting muscles. Glutes, spinal erectors, back, abs/core. If you feel like your spinal erectors or ability to brace your core is the limiting factor when you squat, do targeted isolations. Hip thrusts, hyperextension/reverse hyperextension, rows, machine/cable crunches, hanging leg raises will strengthen the muscles that support your spine and allow you to squat safely.
SECTION 3- KNEES AND ELBOWSPotential issue #2: Weakness in supporting muscles. Glutes, spinal erectors, back, abs/core. If you feel like your spinal erectors or ability to brace your core is the limiting factor when you squat, do targeted isolations. Hip thrusts, hyperextension/reverse hyperextension, rows, machine/cable crunches, hanging leg raises will strengthen the muscles that support your spine and allow you to squat safely.
Your knees and elbows take a lot of wear and tear in the gym because of the repetitive motion of something like a curl, pushdown, leg extension, leg curl. These motions place strain on your tendons and ligaments.
ELBOWS
Elbow pain and tendonitis is commonly caused by overextending in weakened positions, similarly to shoulders. The EZ bar is your friend here. A completely supinated grip on curls or skullcrushers using a straight bar can hurt your elbows by locking them into an uncomfortable movement pattern. Your elbows will feel better when they are allowed to have a bend. Let your elbows flare naturally when doing skullcrushers, overhead extensions, or french press. Always use an EZ bar to avoid excessive tension on the tendons of your elbows and wrists.
Avoid curling too heavy. Egolifting on curls is stupid- heavy bicep curls below 8 reps place too much strain on your tendons and they aren't going to grow your biceps the best. Preferably keep it above 10 reps.
Strengthen the muscles that support and stabilize your elbows. Forearms, wrist flexors, brachialis, brachioradialis, biceps. Do different curl variations. Hammer curls and reverse curls are great for beefing up your forearms and helping keep your elbows strong.
KNEESAvoid curling too heavy. Egolifting on curls is stupid- heavy bicep curls below 8 reps place too much strain on your tendons and they aren't going to grow your biceps the best. Preferably keep it above 10 reps.
Strengthen the muscles that support and stabilize your elbows. Forearms, wrist flexors, brachialis, brachioradialis, biceps. Do different curl variations. Hammer curls and reverse curls are great for beefing up your forearms and helping keep your elbows strong.
Again- strengthen the muscles which stabilize your knees like calves, tibalis anterior, quads, glutes, hamstrings, adductors. "Corkscrew" your feet into the ground when squatting and keep your knees stable- avoid excessive knee wobbling and movement on the concentric of a squat.
EXERCISE SEQUENCING
This applies to both knees and elbows. Be smart about how you perform your workouts. Jumping right into heavy squats or skullcrushers is terrible for your knees and elbows. Before you get into the meat and potatoes of your lifting session, get everything warmed up. Arm day should begin with light curls or pushdowns, moving up in weight, before doing JM press, skullcrushers, preacher curls, and other movements that place lots of tension on the elbows.
Leg day should begin with light leg extensions and leg curls, moving up in weight before doing squats, leg press, and other movements that place lots of tension on the knees.
Leg day should begin with light leg extensions and leg curls, moving up in weight before doing squats, leg press, and other movements that place lots of tension on the knees.
