Good Form

Greetings!

Competition season has begun! The first World Cup of the season is in May in Salt Lake City, so of course I’ve been training hard.

Every year I find new ways to improve my training. Two years ago, for example, the most helpful thing I’d learned was the importance of having different warm-up plans for different comps (I’ll share those at some point). Last year I learned how to really train my legs so that I could rely on them more (I’d also hurt my right shoulder so campusing didn’t feel all that safe). This year, I learned more about strength training. I also learned more about how to improve cardio fitness, but that’s a story for another time.

Strength training interesting though. As an athlete with a neurological disability (Cerebral Palsy), learning how to strengthen my legs has always been tricky. I learned better ways to control the inevitable spasms, and how to know when to rest so that said spasms don’t throw me off the wall. I was also able to improve their flexibility, to some extent. But I didn’t know good ways to actually make them stronger. I tried weighted squats, but they would often hurt my back. I tried jumping rope, but my lack of cardio endurance would make it so I couldn’t do it for very long at a time. My legs also were’nt strong enough to handle very much of that while still being able to maintain functionality. The result was that I was able to get to higher foot holds, and I could even do heel hooks occasionally.

But I couldn’t use any of my newfound abilities. This year, though, I finally figured some stuff out. As it turns out, I can do things like deadlifts, box jumps, and Bosu ball squats. I learned that dropping off a bouldering wall from various heights is a great pylometric exercise that helps with doing deadpoints. I also learned that using a stationary bike that has cages on the pedals is a great way to make it so that I can move my legs one at a time rather than both of them trying to move when I only want to move one. Those are all good exercises. The issue I’m having with some of them is that my form looks incorrect compared to that of an able-bodied person’s.

Take deadlifts for example. Deadlifts are a great leg-strenghtening exercise. One bends at the knees until their thighs are paralell to the ground while their body is hinged forward at the hips. They grab the bar, stand straight up while pulling the shoulders back, and then bringing the bar back down and repeating the process. My balance is a little wonky, so these look a little different for me.

That said, I found that leaning my knees against a bench and taking the balance aspect out of it is a good way to for me to work on form. I also found out that I’ve been doing Romanian deadlifts rather than traditional deadlifts. These are better for my balance and they let me focus on weight and form more.

Box jumps are another fun and weird exercise. They should look similar to ‘proper’ squats. One sinks down with their knees at about 90 degrees and springs up and forward onto a platform of some kind. When they land on the platform, they should have their knees bent at 90 degrees and their thighs parallel to the ground. Then one could either jump down into another squat or step down and repeat the process. Mine, on the other hand, like this:

I need a good while to psych myself up to do the jump. I don’t sink as low as one is supposed to, and I land on the insides of my feet. My body will sometimes take a while to respond to me trying to straighten it up before the actual jump. When I do jump, I sometimes need to lean forward on my partner. I can do them independently, but no matter how I do them, my knees buckle inward.

They’re hard, and terrifying, but I still do these exercises. I like to jump off before repeating the rep, which is another good pylometric exercise. Jumping up onto the platform also helps me work on springing quickly while I’m on the wall. I’ve missed before and banged my shin, and I’ve even fallen backwards when I tried to do it independently on a mat. Like I said though, it’s still an exercise that’s worth doing.

Here’s one more example. There’s a ‘right’ way to fall off of a boulder wall. Ideally one would fall feet first and let their body roll backwards. The arms are crossed in front. I’ve actually shown people how to do this. I also tell them what we usally tell people: try not to land just on your feet. That said, I would also show them my way. My way of falling off a boulder wall is, in fact, to land just on my feet. I show this because it’s bound to happen anyway. I tell people to make sure that they land with their knees bent, so as to absorb the shock of the fall.

That all sounds pretty normal, right? The thing is, I don’t just land on my feet or roll backwards. I sometimes fall feet first and let my legs fold inward, like in a ‘W’ sit. We tell people not to let their hands hit the floor when they fall, but mine don’t follow the rules. None of this hurts, it just look a little weird.

I do this because I found that it’s safer to let my legs do whatever they naturally want to do rather than forcing them to land ‘correctly.’ They don’t get as stiff on the way down, which means that I don’t get as scared.

So, what does good form mean? Should one stop doing exercises because their bodies don’t let them do the exercises in the pre-approved ways? I’m sure that people would say that unless the form can be done well doing the exercise isn’t worth it. I, however, think that exercises have their uses with or without perfect form. If the exercise can be done with form that is close enough, and doing the exercise doesn’t pose a risk to the person, they should be fair game. If I only did exercises when the form was perfect, I wouldn’t have gotten as far in my fitness journey as I have so far. To me, the goal is to get the most out of the exercise that I possibly can. I try to stay as true to form as I can, but I prioritize doing the exercise and getting the most out of it.