Break These 7 Weightlifting “Rules” For More Muscle, Less Fat, and Better Performance

Olympic Weight Lifters are, pound-for-pound, the strongest… most athletic… and most lean and muscular athletes in the world.

And yet they break almost every bit of “weight lifting wisdom” that you have ever been told by well meaning weight training experts and authorities.

Which of these 7 weight training dogma rules should you be breaking (or should be breaking) too?

Dogma #1: “Always Use a Spotter!”

Olympic Weightlifters hardly ever use spotters in competition or in training. If something goes wrong, they simply drop the weight on the floor.

I used to work out all the time without a spotter and never got injured. How? When you do most of your exercises standing on your own two feet (instead of laying down like a bench press)–in most cases if something goes wrong you can just get out of the way and let gravity take its course. If you’re not doing standing exercises you should — or get a power rack.

Dogma #2: “Always Lift Slow and Steady!”

Slow, steady and tight has it’s place. When you are grinding out maximal weight (85%+ 1RM) on your presses and lifts. But once your technique is down you always want to lift as fast as possible.

Here’s the thing: TRYING to lift as fast as possible and actually lifting FAST are two different things. A bar bending weight on the deadlift is NOT going to move fast no matter how much you want it to–that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try though. The faster you try to lift the more muscle fibers you’ll recruit.

Olympic lifters lift fast, the beginning of snatches and cleans are basically really fast deadlifts, etc

Dogma #3: “Don’t Lock Out Your Elbows, Knees, etc!”

At the end of a snatch or clean and jerk weightlifters almost always get under the bar and lock out their arms. You should lock out your arms, knees and other joints too. It builds support strength in your joints and tendons which allows you to handle heavier loads without injury.

You also build up the ability to absorb shock and blows to your body structure this way. Trust me: You don’t want your muscles getting strong while your tendons stay weak–that’s a recipe for disaster.

Dogma #4: “Do 3 Sets of 10-12 Reps!”

You won’t catch Olympic lifters following the commonly accepted reps/sets schemes. That’s because they know fatigue is to be avoided if performance is to be optimal. So instead of 3 sets of 10 reps you might find them doing 10 sets of 3 reps, most likely 2 reps or just singles.

The lift heavy… they lift often… and they stay as “fresh” as possible. They don’t “go for the burn” when working out.

Dogma #5: “Don’t Squat Deep — It’s Bad For Your Knees!”

Despite the fact that half the world sits in the “deep knee” position every single day, this still makes sense to some people. Olympic squatters squat DEEP to get under the weight. So much so that I hear there’s even a rule that keeps them from touching the floor with their butt. The rate of knee injury is not high with Olympic Weight Lifters.

Dogma #6: “Don’t Hold Your Breath — Breathe With The Movement”

Common advice is to breath in on the eccentric part of the lift/press and breathe out during the concentric part. Weightlifters hold their breath during the long portions of the lifts requiring max tension. So do powerlifters. So should you (provided you don’t have high blood pressure).

Holding your breath creates intraabdominal pressure which stabilizes your spine like a virtual weight belt and increases your strength output.

Dogma #7: “Check Your Form In The Mirror”

Most trainees do it for vanity reasons, they check themselves out in the mirror while they’re “pumping iron” but advice is commonly given to check your form in the mirror too.

You should be looking at a specific point throughout almost all of your lifts… and turning your head around or to the side during squats ,deadlifts, overhead work and the like is just asking for injury.

Olympic Weight Lifters never do it and neither should you.

Learn More. Avoid Dogma. Test Everything.

You should always strive to increase your knowledge. But remember, just because someone says something doesn’t necessarily make it true (even if I say it)… or true in EVERY situation. Feel free to “break the rules” sometimes. Or in the words of my main man Jay-Z:

“so dont believe everything your earlobes capture it’s mostly backwards
unless it happens to be as accurate as me and everything said and done you happen to see
then actually believe half of what you see none of what you hear even if it’s spat by me”

Word yo

I got the idea for this article by reading one of Charles Staley’s articles: Cheating To Win.

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