Occasionally you will hear someone talk about cheating in regard to the manner in which a person performs a weight training exercise. The meaning of the term, “cheating” can vary according to the philosophy of the lifter.
When training with weights, some people actually recommend techniques that others would call cheating. For example, some would say that failure to use a full range of motion when performing an exercise is cheating. Others would argue that using a shortened range of motion can be used purposefully to keep the lifting stress on a specific part of the muscle being trained.
In an article titled, The Squat Depth of Six Mr. Olympia’s, I point out that most Mr. Olympia’s are not deep squatters. They don’t use a full range of motion when doing standard barbell squats which many would consider to be cheating. Likewise, if you watch 4 time Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler perform bench presses, he often stops one to two inches short of touching his chest when lowering the bar. When lifting the bar, he stops an inch or two short of lockout, which is true of many top bodybuilders. Some people do this in a manner that decreases the tension of the exercise in order to lift more weight or do more reps. This would be an example of nonproductive cheating. However, top bodybuilders shorten the range of motion in a deliberate manner that produces a stronger contraction and keeps their chest muscles under continuous tension. This would be a productive form of cheating, and when done correctly, many would not consider it cheating.
When it comes to the competitive requirements of a powerlifting bench press, you are required to lower the bar until it touches your chest. You must also lift to a full lockout. However, you will see many powerlifters who use a shortened range of motion on purpose to strengthen a specific portion of the benching motion. Likewise, some powerlifters do partial rep squats and deadlifts to build strength within a desired segment of the lifts. Some lifters see no use for this and consider it to be cheating, but others believe it adds to their strength and muscle size. Those who use partial range powerlifting exercises do exercises such as board presses, floor presses, high box squats, and using a power rack to perform partial range movements for squats, bench presses and deadlifts. Examples of this are shown in the following videos:
Board Press
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Power Rack Partial Rep Bench Press
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Floor Press
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When squatting, lifters may cut the range of motion by doing box squats off a high box, or they may do partial squats with a power rack as shown in the videos below:
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High Box Squat
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Partial Rep Squats On a Power Rack
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Some lifters feel that rack pulls or partial range deadlifts are beneficial for developing deadlift strength. A couple of examples are shown below
Rack Pulls for Deadlifts
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Bodybuilding Partial Reps
When considering body building, some lifters cheat the weight up when doing curls by leaning back and by using momentum to swing the bar up. This is sometimes done in order to lower the bar slowly for a heavy negative. Some bodybuilders do partial range movements at the end of their set because they are too fatigued to keep doing full reps. At the same time, they want to continue the set longer in order to thoroughly exhaust the muscle they are working. The first Mr. Olympia, Larry Scott, often used this technique and called it burns, or “partial rep burns,” at the end of a set. Partial rep burns are most often performed in conjunction with isolation exercises such as curls and leg extensions. Examples of all these techniques are shown in the videos posted below:
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Cheat Curls with Slow Negatives
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Heavy Cheat Curls Using Momentum
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Partial Rep Burns At The End of a Set of Leg Curls
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Partial Rep Burns at the End of a Set of Leg Extensions
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The Perception of Cheating In Regard to Lifting Speed
When it comes to cheating, there are people who think that the use of fast reps or explosive reps is cheating because momentum is being used to lift the weight. Others believe that explosive lifting is essential for maximum strength development.
Some lifters have a fixed concept of correct technique that they believe should be applied to each exercise. These are the most likely to think that anything that deviates from their perception of proper lifting technique is cheating. In contrast, there are other lifters who would be more inclined to say that cheating occurs when your technique undermines results or is used to deceive yourself into thinking that you can lift more weight or do more reps than you really can. But these same lifters are open to deviations from standard lifting form if the deviation proves productive.
Most of the discussion about cheating in this article is centered on common ways in which lifters deviate from a fairly standard way of performing exercises in order to gain more strength and size. The examples in this article consisted of how to use partial reps and partial rep burns. Some people would call it cheating, others would call it strategic training for better results. Of course, there is a different type of cheating that has no purpose and is counterproductive; the kind of cheating that causes a lifter to cheat themselves out of results because they are using poor form. Poor form takes away from the focus on a muscle or lifting motion instead of enhancing it.
While the content of this article has focused primarily on cheating in regard to exercise form, the next article will focus on how lifters and bodybuilders view cheating in relationship to effort. Best of training to you.