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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

How much can you curl, not hurl (cheat)?

On certain occasions and every now and then, I run across a flaming fool who doesn't even know how to execute arm curls and/or even know how much weight they can truly curl, but yet they often claim to be a physical fitness guru at the same time. Oh, man... Have you ever heard of something called "form" or perhaps the little phrase that says, "don't cheat yourself?" 

I ask, "how much can you curl, not hurl," for very obvious reasons. See, many folks, especially the newbies, only think about the amount of weight that is on the bar while performing straight curls from the stand-up position. By the way, unlike any other type of curl, the stand-up position with a single bar (E-Z bar, standard Olympic, etc.) with weights for the curl exercise, opens more opportunities to cheat than a brothel or bordello in a big city on a Friday night. 

Anyway, I really hate it when somebody brags about how they can "curl" an x-amount of weight when they really only "hurl" the weight upon them, using their back, hips, etc., and/or anything but their biceps & forearms just to achieve the status of "I curled this and that amount." When in fact, they are usually weak as hell, and just blowing hot air with ignorance... WTF is wrong with these people? 

It is also especially funny, when the same folks are contested to prove their strength on an incline slant, using only their arms to raise the weight, or when they are challenged at performing dumbbell curls in the sitting position using nothing else on their body but their arms, and they fail miserably. LOL! 

The point is really simple here, and many people know exactly what I'm talking about whether you are either professional weightlifters or knowledgeable physical fitness amateurs or just have plain common sense, and that is: Never cheat (unless you have a good reason, like half-reps, for example) on an exercise, no matter what it is; if you can't lift the amount of weight on the bar, etc., never compensate by altering your form by hurling the weight in an awkward fashion, bending improperly, or using other body parts that are not normally required for the exercise, and so on.

To be fair, although I hate to say it, cheat curls do have a place for certain athletes, arm wrestlers, and advanced lifters (I'll include a side note at the bottom of post), but nevertheless, beginners and intermediates need to quit freakin' cheating their self and be honest in what you are able to lift. Besides, if you continue to cheat yourself and take shortcuts - such as poor form - you may end up injuring yourself later on. Man-up and start from ground zero. Besides, since when has lying to yourself ever amounted to anything good? On a change of subject, but yet still related, check out the image below... Ha-ha!
  Side Note: There are times when a person might need to cheat on an exercise, whether it's performing push presses to help get the extra reps to ultimately improve your strict military press or odd movements on the pull-up bar to try and eventually make gains toward being able to execute muscle-ups, half-reps during dips or bench presses, etc., but those are compound exercises. Curls are not, which is the main point of this post. 

If you want to improve your biceps via the curl, all the cheating will ultimately lead to a dead end. I'm not saying you have to always perform strict curls with your ass cheeks and upper back pressed firmly against a brick wall, nor am I saying you should solely be doing concentration curls in a seated position or preacher curls on an inclined slant. BUT if you want true gains in the curl department, you might want to check what all you're working during the motion besides your arms, just saying... However, cheat curls would help certain people, say, arm wrestlers, for example. The added weight you can use while cheating, hurling, etc., does add a lot more strain on the wrist, hands and forearms, that is, if you don't injure your back during the process. Some people also believe that cheat curls help build more muscle via the increased eccentric overloading albeit that is very debatable. I'm just adding these last few tidbits in case I sounded totally one-sided earlier in the post, which I most likely did because I was mainly thinking about beginners and amateur lifters with feign bragging rights performing the hurl, uh, I mean curl.

---End of Post "How much can you curl, not hurl?"

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