Yngvie Malmsteen. Steve Vai. Tim Hensen.
Unless you are a guitar nerd, these are names that you probably should not recognize.
But all three of them are prodigies. Math rock savants. Technically perfect players who play with such amazing speed and precision you could barely fathom as possible on the instrument.
Yet, as I mentioned, very few have heard their names and even less have bought their albums or appreciated their skill.
Now, if I say Jimi Hendrix or Eddie Van Halen or Stevie Ray Vaugh, even if you aren’t a boomer or Gen X’er similar to me, you probably know these guys. You can picture in your mind a psychedelically dressed Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire. You’ve probably maxed out your bench press to Van Halen’s solo in “Panama” more than once over the years.
The funny thing about these guys is that their talent is seen as less like a product of study and more like a gift from God. Sure, they picked up the instrument young and practiced plenty, but they are viewed more like “chosen ones” where the music just effortlessly pours through them.
The first three guys, they are perceived in a different way. With them, none of what they do is based on soul or feel or artistic expression. They simply have the ability to repetitively put the right notes in the right place as if they were computers devoid of feelings.
And the truth is, neither are true.
Stevie Ray Vaughn may not know how to read music but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t completely understand progressions and intervals and possess an ability to speak the language of music with other musicians.
And while Tim Henson plays very complex chord voicings at the speed of light, it doesn’t mean he’s a soleless robot just going through the motions. The guy has a throat tattoo for Christ’s sake.
My point is, the most successful musicians, in their own way, are a marriage of the two. Great technique and understanding, incredible feel and passion for what they do.
A similar dichotomy arises in strength training as well.
There, for sure, is the technical side.
How your program is organized, the bar path on your power clean, your coordination on the Row Erg, even how you load plates on the bar are very important considerations when it comes to both your success and your safety in the gym.
The other side is less about passion (sure, that helps) but more about capability. Developing at least a minimum level of force, strength, cardiovascular output and, more qualitatively, grit to be able to yield real benefits from training at all.
To paraphrase my colleague Dr. Pat Davidson, you have to be strong enough to even train in the first place.
So how do we rectify these two things? How do we get to a place where we prioritize technique for our long-term benefit and safety while not micromanaging our movements before we are even at the level that they would have impact?
As with most things, the answer exists on a continuum.
If you are brand new to the gym or have been training but typically spend your time in a Pilates class or on the cardio floor and are looking to do more strength training, step one has nothing to do with either technique or capability, it’s all about consistency.
When you are new to the weights, just showing up 2-3 times per week is the goal. Don’t overly concern yourself with what you are doing. Don’t obsess over hurting yourself. The risk of not showing up in the early stages is much greater than the risk of getting injured.
So, if you have to, just walk around the gym floor, pet a couple of the machines, make a friend or two and don’t worry too much about the structure or the output.
Once you’ve gotten into the routine of attendance, your next move is to find a very simple program with low skill exercises that you can perform. Don’t worry about tracking your weights, don’t worry about progression, don’t even concern yourself too much with technique. If you (or someone else) is picking out the right exercises for you at this point, there shouldn’t even be the need to concern yourself with such things.
Now, as you’ve gotten past the first few weeks or months of training, you are going to want to incorporate both concepts simultaneously.
You are going to want to track what it is you are doing and make things slightly (SLIGHTLY) more difficult over time by adding weights or reps. That “progressive overload” you keep hearing about that is essential for making progress in the gym? That’s all that means. Making things slowly (SLOWLY) more challenging over time.
Also, as your training plan becomes more robust (you are adding resistance, perhaps utilizing more compound movements) you are going to want to pay attention to your technique and form as well.
Why?
Two reasons. The first is that optimizing for technique will maximize the result. You are already in the habit of going to the gym so it would suit you to start the process of doing things really well. Secondly, your body doesn’t know good from bad, it just knows what it knows. So if you teach it poor technique for long enough, it will default to that technique every time and you will have to spend a long time unlearning bad habits.
In other words, every bad rep you perform takes you further away from doing a good rep.
Back to capability. Your two best friends here are going to be a program that makes sense for you and tracking your output. You can hire a coach to create a program for you or you can find a program online (this does require a bit of knowing what you are looking for). There are also no shortage of workout trackers out there and even a good old pencil and notebook are fantastic for keeping tabs on your weights, reps and sets.
When it comes to managing technique I’ve only been able to come up with three options. The first is that you can watch videos online of exercise performance with good technique and try to mimic that. The second is to find one of those friends that you made when you stepped onto the gym floor in your first weeks and recruit them as your training partner. The last is to hire a coach to watch your lifts and give you feedback.
The risk with the first two is you have no idea how good the feedback will be. This is one of the many paradoxes of training. By the time you figure out if your program or trainer are any good, you're probably experienced enough to figure a lot of this out on your own.
Unfortunately, all trainers are not created equal, either. So just throwing money at the problem is not a guarantee of a solution. Get some recommendations and do your research. It does matter.
The goals of your early training days are to build consistency, develop enough capability that the training will be impactful and hone your technique so you get the most out of your training and establish habits that will serve you well for the rest of your training career.
Great lifters, like great musicians, don't choose between technique and capability. They develop both until the distinction disappears.
Nail that and you’ll be performing a perfectly executed back squat with a barbell that is one fire in no time.
And isn’t that what we all really want from training, anyway?