Fixing Technique
Why to take weight off the bar to do so, why it's worth it in the long run, and how to do it efficiently rather than wasting endless time practicing with light weights
As the title and subtitle suggest, this article will be about a brief explanation and practical tactics for fixing your technique.
Small technique issues can often be corrected in the context of your normal work sets, and sometimes they aren’t even a big enough deal to worry about at all. But large technique issues that are fundamental to the performance of the lift, can’t be fixed at heavy weights.
When using heavy weights, your focus needs to be on pushing hard enough to complete the set, and only a small amount of brainpower can be dedicated to technique. The motor pattern here has to run about 95% on autopilot, with only a tiny amount left over to focus on 1-2 small technique corrections. This is fine if your form is basically good and you’re just shoring up a small technique issue here or there. You’ll always be working to perfect something for your entire lifting career, form is never statically perfect forever. But for large fundamental issues, you need more brainpower available to focus on fixing them, than the small amount available when using heavy weights.
Correcting major technique issues requires re-patterning your entire movement. If the weight is heavy enough that you need ~95% of your focus on simply pushing hard enough to make the lift and not fail, you don’t have enough leftover brainpower to do that major re-patterning. You need to take a fair amount of weight off the bar to fix these kinds of fundamental technique issues, but the weight also can’t be so light that you can’t feel gravity’s pull at all. You need to correct the issue in the context of the way the movement is normally done, against gravity.
There’s no absolutely hard-and-fast rule, but working up to weights that are about 70-80% of your normal working weight (not your max) is a good starting point for this kind of fundamental technique re-patterning. It’s heavy enough to feel the weight, but still light enough to have sufficient leftover brainpower for fixing things and re-patterning.
The mistake so many people make here, is working endlessly on technique at this light weight, then at some arbitrary point weeks or months later, jumping back to their previous work weight and hoping the technique work carries over. No. Don’t do that.
The key to not wasting your time is to work it til the issue is corrected or til your technique is re-patterned, and then repeat a few sets at that weight for that workout. But don’t stay at that weight. Go up a little the very next workout, even if only 5 lbs. You have to force your body to perform the new, corrected form in the context of additional challenge. This forces all the muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc - as well as your brain that manages the motor pattern - to adapt to the new technique in their anatomically, biomechanically, and neuromuscularly predetermined correct proportions and amounts, with each new small weight jump.
The end result is a body wholly adapted to the new technique in all aspects, by the time you get back up to your work weight. There’s no hoping or guessing if the correction at 75% will transfer back to 100%. You know it will because you forced it to at each step along the way.
The amount of the weight jumps per workout will depend on the lift in question, as well as your strength. If you’re fixing your squat and do your routine work sets at 405x5 and you drop to 315x5 to fix it, you can make bigger jumps than someone fixing a 135x5 press that they drop to 105x5 to fix. The former might do something like 315, 325, 335, 355, 375, 390, 405 - smaller 10 lb jumps at first as they get used to the new form, then slightly bigger 20 and 15 lb jumps once they’ve gotten the basic hang of it. The point is, despite dropping almost 100 lbs to fix their technique issue, someone squatting twice a week will only need a few weeks to be right back at their prior work weight but with corrected form, not endless months working with light weight, just hoping at some point he can jump back to 405 and have it be perfect.
For the 135 to 105 press, you’ll probably just use 5 lb jumps the whole way, and it would take the exact same amount of workouts (7) as the squat example above.
So you have to use context and judgement here, I can’t spell out every possible example and case for you, but that’s the concept for you to apply. Don’t let major technique errors go on, but don’t spend endless months “working on it at light weights” either, just hoping it’ll be perfect at some point with heavy weight. FORCE IT TO BE, by using this process.