When you think of lifting “safely,” the first thing you probably think about is exercise technique.

My goal today is to challenge this belief and offer an alternative view- one that I believe to be more evidence based.

Exercise technique & injury risk

In general, this idea of “faulty” biomechanics being causative of injury is primarily based on in vitro studies; meaning dead people or animals.

The same relationship almost never translates to in vivo studies; meaning living humans (which you are, I’m assuming).

For instance, one of the most common recommendations when deadlifting (or lifting in general) is to keep a “flat back” or a “neutral spine.”

The idea here being that flexing your spine (bending forward at your low back) is harmful to the discs of your spine.

Here’s the problem: this claim is entirely based off of dead pigs.

Specifically, this claim is based off of studies where they take these dead pigs, provide 4,400 - 86,400 N of a bending force combined with a 1,500 N of a compressive force. Under such conditions, these dead pigs incurred disc herniations.

There’s just a few problems with this:

1. You’re not a dead pig. You’re a living human with living tissue that has the capacity to adapt.

2. That is a boat load of weight they put on these dead pigs. For reference, 4400 N is 990 pounds (450 kg). And, again, they did this to dead pigs.

There are now a number of studies where they look at the angles in the lumbar spine (low back) and how they relate to low back pain in living humans.

Thus far, no relationship has been demonstrated between how bent you are in your low back and the likelihood that you experience low back pain. [1]

In other words, if your back isn’t straight when you are performing a deadlift, there’s no evidence to say that your back is “at risk.”

A similar situation has been painted in regard to your knees caving in during squats / sport and risk of ACL injury.

In human cadavers (dead people), placing such a force on the knee damages the ACL.

In living humans, using this technique during movement fails to predict ACL injury. [2,3]

This idea has also been played out in the ankle [4], the shoulder [5], and so on.

All-in-all: the technique you use during exercise may be a factor with regard to injury risk, but it is certainly not the factor.

If it does contribute to risk, then the risk that “bad” technique carries is likely to be abysmally low, compared to other variables at least.

So, this leaves us with two questions:

1. When does exercise technique matter?

2. What is worth focusing on with regard to injury risk?

When does exercise technique matter?

Whenever I program a new block of training for a client, I’ll usually record a screen-share video where I go through each movement and explain how I’d like them done.

That might sound like a weird thing to do after what we just discussed.

However, even with all that taken into account, I still wouldn’t go as far to say that exercise technique doesn’t matter.

Rather, it just matters for different reasons.

To start, a great deal of how well you perform at a task is dependent upon your skill at the task. That is: the quality of your exercise technique.

If you were to look at a training session for olympic sprinters, most coaches will spend most of their time working on technique and efficiency.

Similarly, in a barbell back squat, you will be much stronger if your go down and up smoothly than if you are off-center and wasting energy where you don’t need to be.

Furthermore, sometimes you’ll opt for different training techniques in order to train different muscles; or to make it easier to train certain muscles.

Elevating your heels on a squat alters the technique by taking some of the load off of the hips and back and placing a little more load on the knees.

In other words, the more you elevate your heels, the more the movement becomes quadricep dominant and less glute dominant.

If your goal is to bias the quadriceps in your squats, then this technique change is a very sensible move.

What is worth focusing on with regard to injury risk?

As I hope you can understand, this is a very nuanced subject that I couldn’t possible answer in this format.

If I had to give one answer, though, it would be this: load management.

I’d go as far to say this is the single most important point to focus on in any good training program.

This is a subject that I am currently working on a longer-form deep dive on, but the short of it is this:

• There is some amount of load you can place on your body that is too little and is insufficient to elicit any adaptation

• There is some amount of load that is just right and will meaningfully promote the target adaptation you are after

• Finally, there is an amount of load that is too much and may promote an adaptation but also provides a risk of injury

The goal, as you can probably infer, is to stay in line with the middle point.

Here’s the important point to keep in mind, though:

This does NOT just mean the weight you are using on an exercise.

It also includes:

• The total volume & intensity you’re doing of that exercise

• What the rest of that training session looks like

• What the rest of your training week looks like

• How well you slept last night and the nights prior

• How well fueled you are going into a session

• How stressed you are from life

• etc. etc. etc.

The bottom line is this: injuries occur when the total load placed on your body exceeds your body’s capacity to adapt.

When these two variables are in balance, you get better overall.

When they are not in balance, that’s when your knee starts to ache (or insert whatever other joint / body part you want here).

Take-home

Exercise technique matters, but not because it is “safer” per se.

It matters because it can make your training more or less effective for whatever goal it is you are after.

I believe this matters, a lot.

Why?

The vast majority of people don’t meet physical activity guidelines. One of the primarily noted reasons for not doing so is fear of injury due to exercise.

In reality, the actual injury rates from exercise, even with “bad” technique, are abysmally low.

Any so-called risk-to-reward ratio is so in favor or reward it’s not even worth talking about.