Why Lifting Technique Doesn't Cause Injuries

Jono Vautin
Oct 23
4 min read

This article took me far longer than I expected.

Every time I sat down to write it, I found myself arguing with myself about the point I wanted to make.

I found myself re-writing this post constantly. I was almost considering making this article into a podcast purely because I thought I might have more clarity on my view by saying it rather than writing it.

But I think I’ve worked out what I want to write.

So, buckle up.

Is lifting technique important?

Yes. But some nuance is required.

People need to know what the movement looks like and how to achieve it. Without that, you can’t do the exercise.

Where I think we can go too far as health professionals, is stressing about every tiny detail of a given movement and trying to make the movement look “perfect” before letting the client progress.

Or even worse, telling people that improper technique will cause injury or pain.

People will have different builds and different strategies to achieve the movement. Our job is to help them find the most effective pattern that allows them to continually build their strength.

Take a squat, if the person in front of me can perform the core of the movement well, I’m not too stressed about minor details. A little bit of knee valgus or spinal flexion, especially if they are lifting a heavy weight, I’d say that’s fine.

Slight deviations on every rep should be expected.

But, if the deviation is more than slight (knees almost touching during a squat) and it is a frequent issue, then we should step in an give a cue on how to achieve a more efficient pattern.

What are you trying to achieve?

Do you just want the person in front of you to have a squat so perfect it can go in a textbook?

Or are you chasing the adaptation of building stronger glutes and quads?

I’d take a bet that most of us are in the second category, we want the adaptation.

If spending an extra 10 minutes a session just worrying about your client having a slightly better front rack position instead of just doing more front squats, is what you want to spend your time on go for it. But just doing more front squats and lifting weight will probably be a better use of their time.

Chase the adaptation not the “perfect” lift.

Most of the time the technique will emerge.

This is a concept that is spoken about within the realm of skill acquisition, and it should be taught to more health professionals as well.

It comes back to the idea of motor performance vs motor learning.

Motor performance is where you spend time making a person’s execution of the skill perfect during the session, but they are back to square one at the following session. It’s a short-term change in their motor behaviour that is only seen during that training session and is not present at subsequent sessions.

Motor learning is where you are happy to let the person self-organise and find their own way to achieve the task. You might put up some guidelines to get them towards the movement you want, but they get themselves there. This often looks messier in the initial stages, but over time the person will have a better execution of the task.

Don’t stress if it looks messy and your client isn’t quite getting it yet. Chances are in a few sessions they will be nailing it.

Touching Base:

High Quality Creatine: Want to reduce your risk of injuries, Creatine can help. Check out Wonder Foods Australia to get your tub today.

Upgrade to Paid: Not sure what or who to trust for health advice on the internet, we’ve got you covered.

Upgrade to Paid

Can improper technique cause injuries?

According to research, no.

In fact, some researchers almost point to the opposite, trying to lift with the proper manual handling technique seemed to have higher rates of low back pain.

Workers that received proper training on manual material handling had no difference in reported back pain compared to workers that received no training. (Schwab & Daly, 2020; Martimo et al., 2008).

Another study looked at how people that currently have low back pain lifted during free-style tasks compared to people without low back pain. The researchers observed that people with low back pain had a technique very similar to how typical manual handling training teaches them (Nolan, et al., 2019).

Even more interesting though, is a study from Noteboom et al. (2023), that investigated the causes for gym-based injuries.

They made a couple of points that I think are worth noting.

One, they found that men younger than 41 years of age were the main group that had gym-related injuries. They theorised a potential explanation that young men are more likely to take risks. Within a gym setting, that would be trying to lift a heavier weight than they previously have or attempting more complex exercises.

Two, a high frequency of lifting (5 times or more per month) combined with a fulltime job, appeared to be associated with a greater injury frequency. The work didn’t have to be manual in nature (i.e. they could be tradies or office workers), just the stress of fulltime work seems to increase the risk of gym injuries. And this tracks when you appreciate the bio-psycho-social concept.

Yes, this diagram is showing all the factors that influence how we experience pain. But it is a good map of all the different stressors we experience in daily life.

Load management is key, understanding when you have had a big day or week and how that can affect your gym performance and may increase your risk of injury is important.

It might not be the poor technique that causes the injury, but the accumulated fatigue from the course of the day that weakened a muscle or tendon that lead to your quad strain during squats.