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Productive Cheating

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Yes, in my opinion, it's productive to cheat on your sets in some rare cases. By cheating, I am referring to poor form in order to do more reps. This is often frowned upon in the lifting world, and don't get me wrong, I always laugh at idiots flailing their body weight around in order to lift more weight on a given exercise. However, there are some times when this is alright, or acceptable by my social standards at least.

You should always start your exercise with great form, and use the proper range of motion and/or isolation. But, let's say you have the strength to perform 6 reps of a given exercise, but you're really trying to improve that number to 8. If slightly cheating, or break your form a little bit, can get you those 8 reps, try it. Have your spotter hold off on assisting you, and break your form (only slightly) to edge out those last reps.

That being said, beware of several things to avoid. (1) Only try this one or two workouts, if you still cannot manage the 8 reps, or whatever you're goal is, then try a different plateau breaker. You do not want to generate consistent bad form habits. (2) When cheating on your form and/or telling your spotter to not assist you as much, be sure you don't hurt yourself.

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Creator: ryan
Category: Strength Training
Posted: 2/6/2008

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Saves: 2
Comments: 5
Views: 156
Votes: 5
Helpful/Unhelpful %: 40% / 60%
Popularity Score: 33.6

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	“ I disagree - lower the weight - "cheating" isn't going to do anything - it will be more beneficial in the end - you are right a 90 degree angle is what you want b/c your quads should be parallel to the ground - my only concern is that if your body cant do the proper form than you are over working the muscle - being a girl i primarily do longer reps and lower weight and have found that although it is perceived that it will take longer to build up the weight, it really doesn't if you remain focused on your goal and really keep track of what you do each day - my advice man up and do everything the proper way!!" ”
	- MleighS84 on 2/7/2008

	“ Well, i'm referring to not going low enough when i say bad form... I think the general opinion is that you should go to about a 90 degree angle (people who have more info on this, let us know). But, I know sometimes when I'm doing squats, I have a good feeling that if I try to do an extra rep or two, and I bend my knees to 90 degrees, I'm not coming back up. Therefore, sometimes I cheat to get one or two more out. ”
	- ryan on 2/7/2008

	“ good point, but with squats, going lower is not considered bad form, its just tougher ”
	- tdotross3 on 2/7/2008

	“ This tip obviously would not relate to an exercise which is commonly cheated (such as dumbbell curl) but is more targeted toward something such as squats. Where maybe you can bend your knees far enough for proper form for 6 reps, but if you went down that far for a 7th or 8th, you wouldn't be able to make it. Do the first 6 with proper form, then cheat a little on the last two. ”
	- ryan on 2/7/2008

	“ if you break your form, you arent getting as much out of your muscles and can risk injury, plus its almost counterproductive.. i see way too many people, especially doing dumbbell curls, that lean back, which uses back muscles.. lower the weight and use proper form ”
	- tdotross3 on 2/7/2008

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