Form

When I started strength training 8 years ago, I couldn’t lift the 35 lb barbell.

The trainers at the gym I belonged to back then were big into foundational work so we focused on my form - strengthening it, aligning it, learning how to use form properly. Slowly but surely I worked up to lifting the barbell, and then adding significant weight to it as I benched, pressed, deadlifted and squatted. 

But every once in a while, I’d start getting a twinge. In my knee or back. Or I’d struggle to get up the same weight a week later. Every once in a while, the thing I’d been building would begin to crack. Or fall apart.

No matter what I tried, how hard I resisted, it would become clear that the only option was to take all the weight off the barbell and refocus on form. Relearn, realign, re-strengthen. Strip the bar and go back to the foundation.

What needed to be tweaked? What needed to be engaged? What habits was I forming that didn’t support my strength? What had I lost sight of in my focus to grow?

If I skipped that step, I’d be stuck with an injury that would take much, much longer to heal. But if I took off the weight, went back to basics, and realigned myself with form, I could keep moving forward.