Sorry for the long boring life story essay reply but Ive got a lot of work to do right now for my uni course which puts me into essay write mode in order to avoid it (Im always at my most talkative/philosophical when I should be doing something else). This post has got me into rant mode so here I go.
Basically just wanted to say I can relate to the being a big guy accused of bad form bit myself. My body weight is currently pushing 235lb (here in Aus its only just starting spring and Ive been bulking up big time) so I think some people (the newbies) at the gym think Im just a big fat guy there to lose a bit of weight or something (cause skinny lean looking beginner type dudes seem to be fore ever amazed judging by their shocked expressions that Im lifting a hell of a lot more than them despite out weighing them by probably 1.5 times). I get looks of how can this fat slob of the street be lifting more than a lean muscley trained dude like me (even though Ive been training twenty years and them probably one or two).
Im only just getting over some sort of shoulder strain/injury (maybe rotor cuff) or something thats limited my bench in the last year or so. (In top form I do four sets of five reps with 315 pounds on the bench press or sometimes just go for an hour at 3 reps per set with 315lb with 5 min between reps, can do it all day like that, in normal condition). Anyway this last year due to shoulder pain/strain limitations Ive only been working out with 225lb to 245lb on the bench press. (Only got back to a set of six reps with 265lb this last work out).
Anyway because Im going light (i.e. light for me, my body has benched 365lb before) when benching 225lb I do it really fast and explosively. I dont believe in tempo stuff just do it at the rate that feels comfortable for me. For 315lb that comfortable rate is quite slow, I cant rapidly decelerate 315lb like I can 225lb, but when I do 225lb I do it damn fast. At 225lb I pretty much just drop the bar under gravity (even pull it down to my chest) then suddenly stop it less than an inch from my chest but usually dont touch what so ever at all or if I do its only a light touch, then I explosively push back up.
Yet a couple of times I have heard people (behind my back; or perhaps Im just paranoid) comment to their mates that Im only lifting that much because Im bouncing it off my chest, yet I dont even touch the damn thing. That really pisses me off. (In the days decades ago when I did bounce it off my chest Id end up with bruises and it hurt like hell, you really cant bounce that much weight off your ribs anyway). Yet there are these skinny dudes fantasizing they too could be pushing 300lb if they too were prepared to cheat by bouncing it off their chest (yeah Id like to see that without a squat).
The other day I saw out of the corner of my eye while Im benching a group of skinny guys watching me with smirks on their faces (then again maybe Im just paranoid and fantasizing what they are thinking). I thought I bet they think Im bouncing it off my chest. So to prove a point instead of lowering the bar over my lower pec/rib area I do around five (rapid) reps with 225lb (it was my 2nd warm up set) lowering the bar over my throat instead - as if to say to them, do you really reckon Im bouncing 225lb off my throat. Anyway when I stand up one of the guys says to his mates (who were all watching me) ‘strong neck’ (then quickly turns his back to me). (He was surely joking but grrrrrrr).
Anyway on the topic of getting results despite using bad form heres an example from my own case. I think within a year of starting body building I was repping away with 95lb BB curls long before I could do them anything like properly (in that case I really was cheating and like nothing else) yet within a year or two or three (however long it was) I had not increased the weight I curled any, instead I was simply doing the same 95lb weight with very strict reps (hardly moving a muscle, still as a statue apart from moving biceps).
Even after several years of training I still wasnt lifting much more than 95lb BB curls (115 at the most) yet I experienced a substantial arm size increase, in fact I once had them up to 18 3/4’’ (at a body weight of about 210lb) (they are now down to about 17’’ 1/2 but dont/cant train arms or anything else with anything like the ridiculous volumn I once did when I was younger). Anyway moral of the story is that in that case I made good progress despite the fact that I started out using sloppy form (the progress I made was keeping the weight the same but tightening up the form, perhaps a non conventional way of doing it but it still worked).
Heres another example of bad form getting good results (albeit its a bit off topic being in a different field to body building but same principle). I was watching a cro-cop MMA video the other day and after a couple of minutes of him and the other guy dancing round not doing much with the other guy doing a lot of faking, suddenly out of nowhere cro-cop does his trade mark lightning fast round house to the side of the guys head and the guy drops like a sack of potatoes. Cro-cops ability to successfully take out his opponents with a round house kick to the side of the head never ceases to amaze me as Ive made probably thousands of attempts over three years of Taekwondo sparring (yeah I know T’do is crap) to do just that but only succeeded twice (fortunately once was in state competition) and I know just how hard it is to do that.
Yet as I replayed the video on slow mo I saw that crocop didnt quickly snap his kick back like he should (so as to avoid his opponent being able to grab hold of it) but just let the leg drop down keeping it straight. Now that is a basic white belt level mistake and he wouldnt even pass his first yellow belt grading in a competent Taekwondo club (if there is such a thing) with a sloppy technique like that. Yet crocops sloppy round house kick technique (ie sloppy by traditional MA standards) is far fasting that mine ever was and much more successful than me and probably millions of other martial artists out there with better form at using it to take out opponents.
The moral of the story being that a kick or punch done with bad form doesnt suddenly become harmless and ineffective because its not done with the ideal form that some martial arts school teaches. (In cro cops case his opponents tend to be unconscious anyway at the end of his high roundhouse kick so I guess how he retracts his kick doesnt matter too much anyway). Its also an example of an expert at an at an art getting away with breaking a rule that is still a good rule for novices to follow.
To sum up then, bad form can still get good results (the laws of biology and physics don’t necesarily know what good or bad from is supposed to be according to the human experts).
Often though the supposed expert who looks like he is cheating to the newbie probably knows what hes doing any way (and probably isnt doing things as badly as the newbie thinks he is).
A couple of brief points;