How to maintain regular movements when exercising at home?

If you want to maintain standard movements during home fitness, the core priority is to lower the training intensity first and hone the muscle memory. This is far more effective than focusing on millimeter-level movement differences in tutorials. Believe it or not, I just walked through this pit a while ago with a fitness fanatic in my community. I practiced deadlifts following a short video. I felt that my movements were exactly the same as the blogger. So I hung up a 20kg kettlebell. After three days of training, my waist protruded. I had to lie down for half a month before I could walk normally. Later, I watched the training video he shot himself. It was discovered that when he stood, his center of gravity was off his heels by less than half a centimeter, and his core was not tightened. Such a small deviation would amplify the pressure on the lumbar spine several times under heavy weight. If he had used an empty bar or even practiced with bare hands for two weeks at the beginning, and honed the force sequence of each movement into muscle instinct, this problem would not have occurred at all.

There are actually two extreme directions in the current discussion on movement specifications on the Internet. One group thinks that the angle of each joint must be adjusted in front of the mirror. A difference of three to five degrees will be ineffective training and may even lead to injury. The other group thinks that as long as there is a sense of force in the target muscles, there is no need to be constrained by the details of the movements. In fact, both sides have applicable scenarios, and there is no need to argue about right or wrong. For example, if you practice yoga in the downward dog pose and you don’t have an old knee injury, it’s okay to bend your legs a little. You don’t have to stretch your legs like a straight stick, which can easily strain your hamstrings. However, if you practice back squats, which require high strength in the lower limbs, you really can’t be vague about the issue of knee buckling. Even if you practice with an empty mineral water bottle, you have to get rid of this problem, otherwise the meniscus will wear out sooner or later.

Many people are accustomed to practicing with their mobile phones at home. In fact, the position of the mobile phone particularly affects your judgment of your movements. Don't just throw it on the coffee table and start. From an upward perspective, your movements will be deformed. It is best to adjust the stand to shoulder height and practice lower limbs. Just adjust it down another ten centimeters and face the camera from the side. For example, when practicing lunges, you can see at a glance whether your knees are too far beyond your toes and whether your upper body is shaking like a roly-poly. This is much more useful than staring at the blogger on your phone.

Speaking of this, some people may ask, what should I do if there is no place to put a full-length mirror in the rented house and there is no one to help shoot the video? Nowadays, many smart fitness equipment with motion capture can actually be used. I used the fitness ring to practice plank support last week. My waist still felt very stable. The equipment first reminded me that my waist was slumped. When I touched my waist, it was indeed loose and weak. After adjusting, the soreness and swelling in my core immediately increased. Of course, there are also many senior enthusiasts who say that the capture of these smart devices is useless, and it is easy to misjudge if the angle is wrong. This is true, so I usually use a stand to record a complete training video every three or four days, and compare it with the standard movements in slow play. You don’t have to look for 100% perfection, just look for differences. For example, the standard movement is to sit back with the hips first and then bend the knees. I bend the knees first and then sit down. Just change this order. Ordinary enthusiasts are not competing in bodybuilding competitions, so there is no need to worry about whether the angle is a few degrees off.

There is another point that many people overlook. The movement specifications are not just about getting into the right posture. You need to understand the basic logic of exerting force. For example, when practicing push-ups, don’t just think about pressing your arms down and pushing up. You have to think about the whole process of “clamping” your body with your chest. When I practiced blindly before, I could do 30 in one breath. After the exercise, my arms were so sore that I couldn’t lift them up, and my chest didn’t feel at all. Later, I deliberately closed my chest every time I stood up, and I was sore and shaking after 15 exercises. The effect was much better. Oh, by the way, there is another criterion that is easiest to judge: if your joints feel tingling when you are practicing, don’t hold on, it is 100% because there is something wrong with the movement. Stopping and adjusting is better than anything else.