When is sacrificing form okay?

I think form is important, not just for safety reasons but because doing weightlifting with control and good alignment involves more than just the "target muscle". When I am doing hammer curls, I think about what is going on in my tailbone and my toes and the lower abdominals, not just the biceps. Too much yoga, I suppose

wth is a hammer curl?

Assuming your goal is hypertrophy (muscle gain) than the point of working out is to stimulate your muscle as much as possible. If you are swinging and using momentum than instead of having a constant time under tension to maximize the work your muscles do, you're making your muscles do LESS work. In this case, bad form is stupid and pointless. You're lifting for ego and the number on the bar instead of improving your body. This goes for compound lifts like squats and bench too (if you're quarter squatting you're only cheating yourself).

HOWEVER, if you can do 6 reps and than reps 7-8 you cheat a little and without cheating you would have had to stop at 6 reps than I think it's OK since you're still MAXIMING the work you're doing. But if you can't even do a few reps with good form than you should lower the weight.

It really depends on what you are doing.

I come at this from a mostly bodyweight perspective. Once the exercises start getting hard, "perfect form" becomes a bit of a mirage. There is such a thing, but it is a near impossible to achieve ideal. You do the best you can and always try to improve your form. As you get stronger, and you get more and more practiced, your form improves. You will never get to the good form though without spending time working with lesser form. Along the way you will learn that some form breakdown is not only acceptable, but necessary (it is an unavoidable consequence of working hard).

As an example, a one arm pushup. Your first will be utterly atrocious form, this is unavoidable, it is far too complex of a movement and too high of a load to to be truly ready with perfect from from the get go. Not happeneing. Even 6 months later, working continuously, your form will be better, but it will still suck. Things like removing all rotation at the shoulders and hips, removing all upper body twist, and keeping the midsection perfectly straight are near impossible to achieve. The only way you approach this ideal though is by working through lesser form, always striving to improve. However as you work, as you start nearing failure during your set, your form will degrade, and this is perfectly acceptable; it is not unsafe in the least bit and is arguably more productive than the reps done with your very best form.

Even though I'm a guy, I've read NROL4W, one of the big points the author makes is that women have a tendency to so overfocus on perfect form that they don't push themselves very hard (while guys have the opposite problem). In the scale of perceived exertion, once you pass a RPE of 7, to 8 and above, some form breakdown is to be expected. Slow reps and grindy reps won't be perfect form. If you aren't ever doing slow reps or grindy reps, you aren't working hard at all, sticking to recovery level workouts and below.

For me, I'd only count the 8/10 that were good form, and work towards getting the last two. Using proper form is different from essentially cheating yourself out of your workout. If you're meant to be isolating the muscle, then only those reps should count. In NROL, I believe that when he's making reference to proper form being overrated, it's regarding such things as (when tall people are doing squats) not allowing for any extension of your knees past the ankle, for example.

Hammer curls are more of an isolation exercise, so I would be more concerned with form, range of motion, and contraction. If I have to reel in the dumbbell like I just hooked a sand-shark, that's a good indication that I'm using too much weight to be effective.

Argued with my s/o about this today. He noticed the last rep or two of my last set of hammer curls were pretty sloppy. I told him I knew about this but the next weight down wasn't challenging enough, so to me having the last couple of reps be imperfect was worth it to have the rest of my set be challenging and effective.

Anyway we agreed to disagree about that, and ill keep using the weight I have. But it makes for an interesting question- When is sacrificing form acceptable? If ever?

It is, especially an exercise like curls where the chance of injuring yourself is pretty low.

For squats, deadlifts, bench press, I tend to adjust the weight rather than my form. I've only been injured once in 20 years of weightlifting (strained back muscle.)

You will never, ever get me to agree with sacrificing form in any way to go heavier. If you can't do a lift, even a hammer curl (good way to tear a biceps by the way) with proper form, then you should stop the rep before.

Why doesn't sacrificing form for weight work?

2 reasons.

1) poor form means you aren't using the muscles that you are trying to, which means little or no performance gains in the area you are trying to work on, it's counter productive. And please don't say that you're still receiving some benefit, that's not really true, by the time you've reached the point where you cannot do a lift with correct form, you've already reached technical failure and won't receive any further benefit from an exercise (or you never will because you're engaging other muscles and spreading the load to well below fatigue levels). The trick is to recognize this point BEFORE you reach it with good form so you can eliminate or minimize risk of injury. the only way to do this is by knowing your body and paying attention to yourself.

2) Poor form generally means using secondary muscle groups as partial primary movers (also called supporting or stabilizer muscle groups) like the abdominal sheath, the medial gluts and in the case of the biceps the forearm (Brachioradialis muscle). this is bad as these muscles were not designed for heavy load and can easily be strained or even torn. I challenge anyone to find me someone with a degree in sports medicine, kinesiology, or physical therapy that says sacrificing form during weight training for more weight is a good strategy.

Form will break down the more tired you get and the heavier you go no matter what. Too many people see no progress because they're stuck on being perfect. Sometimes you need to go really heavy and crank out some reps if you're serious about building strength. But there is a difference between using momentum to help you out and just completely not knowing what proper form is. Because although using momentum and getting into a rhythm, you are technically within range of proper form since you know how to target the muscle you are working out, if that makes any sense, it does to me.

Just know your limits, that's also a big factor.

I agree, but would argue that in doing heavy lifting form is even more important, not less important.

Proper form should not stop you from lifting heavy. Using momentum means you aren't using your muscles, which defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

If you have momentum helping...chances are you aren't lifting heavy. When the weight gets heavy, bar speed declines to the point where I have a hard time seeing how momenum could help.

Depending on the lift. If you're talking about a compound lift like Squats or Deads than you're right. Curls? Very easy to cheat with heavy weight.

You will never, ever get me to agree with sacrificing form in any way to go heavier. If you can't do a lift, even a hammer curl (good way to tear a biceps by the way) with proper form, then you should stop the rep before.

Why doesn't sacrificing form for weight work?

2 reasons.

1) poor form means you aren't using the muscles that you are trying to, which means little or no performance gains in the area you are trying to work on, it's counter productive. And please don't say that you're still receiving some benefit, that's not really true, by the time you've reached the point where you cannot do a lift with correct form, you've already reached technical failure and won't receive any further benefit from an exercise (or you never will because you're engaging other muscles and spreading the load to well below fatigue levels). The trick is to recognize this point BEFORE you reach it with good form so you can eliminate or minimize risk of injury. the only way to do this is by knowing your body and paying attention to yourself.

2) Poor form generally means using secondary muscle groups as partial primary movers (also called supporting or stabilizer muscle groups) like the abdominal sheath, the medial gluts and in the case of the biceps the forearm (Brachioradialis muscle). this is bad as these muscles were not designed for heavy load and can easily be strained or even torn. I challenge anyone to find me someone with a degree in sports medicine, kinesiology, or physical therapy that says sacrificing form during weight training for more weight is a good strategy.

I'm sorry, but sloppy form on the last couple of reps of a hammer curl set is not a good way to tear a biceps, that is just silly talk.

The biceps can handle WAY more weight in the negative portion of a lift than the positve. Muscle tears are going to happen in the negative portion of a bicep lift. Failure in the postive of a bicep lift is still nowhere near dangerous weight levels for the negative portion.

Doing one arm chinup negatives well before you are ready is a good way to tear a bicep. Hammer curls? LOL.

I didn't say on the last couple of reps, I said if you can't do a lift without proper form, it's a good way to tear a biceps. I'm not sure why you wouldn't think so, the biceps and biceps tendon can tear at near maximal load just like any muscle and tendon group. Are you saying that you don't think it's possible to tear a triceps with an incorrectly performed curl with heavy weight?

2) Poor form generally means using secondary muscle groups as partial primary movers (also called supporting or stabilizer muscle groups) like the abdominal sheath, the medial gluts and in the case of the biceps the forearm (Brachioradialis muscle). this is bad as these muscles were not designed for heavy load and can easily be strained or even torn. I challenge anyone to find me someone with a degree in sports medicine, kinesiology, or physical therapy that says sacrificing form during weight training for more weight is a good strategy.

Really? So when you lift a box, couch, table, etc. while moving out of your house you only use your biceps, your forearms, triceps and other muscles have no function in a compound functional lift? News to me.