How To: Film Your Lifts for Critique
Filming your lifts is extremely helpful. Even advanced athletes can benefit from filming their lifts to ensure they are continuing to use proper form. Often, over time, small deviations in form can become ingrained as bad habits. Little nagging injuries can lead to gross compensations elsewhere in the body. Filming your lifts and constantly reassessing can be of great benefit to preventing you from heading down a long and ugly road.
One great thing about filming is that you may realize what you are doing wrong before you even share it with a coach. You may watch the video in the gym before your next set and say to yourself, “My word, what was I doing?!?” No better time than to readjust then the present.
What lifts should you film?
You will get the most benefit from filming the big compound movements such as: squats, deadlifts, lunges, swings, bench press, overhead press, rows, pull-ups and push-ups.
How do you film them?
Bring a friend to the gym or a tripod or any number of mounts such as the Perchmount in the above image. You will want to film from at least two angles and preferably three. You will want to start filming 10 seconds or so before the lift that way you can capture your set up on film as well. Often times an exercise can be screwed up right from the start if you do not set up properly.
You will want to make sure the entire body is in view, but do not get so far away that you cannot see detail. Also, you will want to film at the height of the movement of the key joints. Therefore, for squats you would want to film at hip height. For Bench Press, you will want to film at about the lifters shoulder height on the bench. For overhead press and pull-ups you would film at shoulder height standing up.
For the purpose of filming, keep the repetitions low, simply film 3 to 5 repetitions with a moderately challenging weight.
Any further questions, contact me!
Lift – Angles in order of preference
Squat – side, back, front
Deadlift – side, front, back
Lunge – side, front, back
Swings – side, front, back
Bench Press – 45 degrees from the feet, side, front
Overhead Press – side, front
Row – side, front
Pull-up – side, back
Push-up – side, back near feet looking down
