My Journey With Health And Fitness – The Impact Of Improving My Form

Every morning when I leave for my walk right now my husband laughs at me. Apparently it is because usually absolutely nothing I am wearing matches. For example, yesterday I was wearing a bright orange reflective toque, bright yellow reflective jacket, green camouflage sweatpants and navy blue runners with bright pink laces. Now I admit that is not exactly colour coordinated but it certainly should make me visible.

The last several weeks I have really been trying to improve my form. I mean, I am pretty good about things like watching my core, keeping my knees from going past my toes when doing squats, holding the barbells equally, etc. But I realized there are some extra things I could do that might give me just a little bit more. And so I started doing things like turning my feet out just slightly when doing squats, holding dumbbells in positions that allow me to use heavier weights, making sure to drop straight down when doing lounges and repositioning my pullups to better do scap pulls.

Today I realized this has really been paying off. I watched myself doing squats and I am dipping down much further (squats are always limited by the fact that my cranky knee only bends so far). I also know that doing my lounges my back knee is getting closer to the ground. Normally when doing weights where I have to lift above my head I go with 10 lbs but now I am sometimes fully comfortable with 15 lbs. These are all major improvements to what I am capable of doing and all of it is just from adjusting slightly. Truly I never thought I would willingly be trying to do scap pulls.

You know you are improving when the instructor comes over and removes one of the bands that you are standing while doing pullups because it was too easy for you and you gratefully let her do it. Yes, there are major impacts from improving my form.