• Keep up to date with Ausbb via Twitter and Facebook. Please add us!
  • Join the Ausbb - Australian BodyBuilding forum

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.

    The Ausbb - Australian BodyBuilding forum is dedicated to no nonsense muscle and strength building. If you need advice that works, you have come to the right place. This forum focuses on building strength and muscle using the basics. You will also find that the Ausbb- Australian Bodybuilding Forum stresses encouragement and respect. Trolls and name calling are not allowed here. No matter what your personal goals are, you will be given effective advice that produces results.

    Please consider registering. It takes 30 seconds, and will allow you to get the most out of the forum.

Mirrors - useful or waste of time?

DKD

DKD

Private Dancer
Do mirrors have a place in a gym?

I get put off by the thought of looking at myself mid-set when I'm busting my ass lifting the weight. I don't want my mind to wander to the thought of "gee, look how hard I'm working/struggling with this weight". I just want to focus on what I'm doing, not how i look when i'm doing it.

By the same token, you could probably pick up some useful pointers on your technique if u had them. I haven't got any in my home gym....ocassionally i think maybe i should get some.

What are your thoughts? Like them, hate them?
 
Yeah, the more i think about it, i reckon they would be good for light warm-up sets...to study what you're doing. That, plus an iphone to video yourself, and you'd be on the way to some decent self-analysis.
 
I believe the mirror is helpful to me when squatting, I feel it helps me keep my head and chest up and out, last week I faced the opposite way and I lost my way, felt like I was doing good mornings looking at the floor...
 
I have one in my home gym. Used to use it as a technique tool when i first got it but I don't use it a lot these days.
 
If u don't want to look at your self doing a heavy set just turn around . I like mirrors really easy to keep form oh also to check out all the hot chicks ;)
 
I HATE mirrors.
How can you possibly push up some seriously heavy weight if you analysing what your doing?

If your not practising posing in your jocks, putting your make-up on, or have them attached to your roof, I see no use for them.
 
Sticky said:
I HATE mirrors.
How can you possibly push up some seriously heavy weight if you analysing what your doing?

If your not practising posing in your jocks, putting your make-up on, or have them attached to your roof, I see no use for them.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
 
Sticky said:
I HATE mirrors.
How can you possibly push up some seriously heavy weight if you analysing what your doing?

If your not practising posing in your jocks, putting your make-up on, or have them attached to your roof, I see no use for them.
Click to expand...

Yep agree also. If your lifting heavy weight you wont want to be looking at yourself in the mirror.

I have also never heard of any coach suggesting watching yourself in the mirror while lifting. Most say it is worse for your technique.
 
Last edited:
There was a study done saying it decreases performance, but I didnt mention it because I cbf finding it.

Common sense should prevail............... I would hope.
 
Sticky said:
There was a study done saying it decreases performance, but I didnt mention it because I cbf finding it.

Common sense should prevail............... I would hope.
Click to expand...
id say thats coz its a distraction, your mind will want to look at what your doing, loss in focus = loss in performance.
 
I will probably agree when I gain more experience, for the moment, as a complete novice, it's purely psychological....
 
No need for mirrors, don't have one , don't want one.

Missus: "we should buy a mirror like the gym"

Me: "Hang on a minute, wasn't I the idiot who wanted to train at home?, didn't you only start training at home when the gym shut at xmas and was gonna go back but haven't yet?
Is this not the man cave you apparently hate?

Take your MM bar that has no grip
AND
th_GTFO.png
 
Putting things into their perspectives (as far as bodybuilding goes), a mirror is yet another one of many bodybuilding tools: weights, supplements, belts, and protein bottles. Some of us have a dear friend in a mirror, whilst yet others, an enemy in disguise!

A true friend will always endeavour to tell you the honest truth about the way you look. Sometimes we don’t like it. Sometimes we seek someone who’s got the gift of the gab where only sugar laced words come out of him or her. Mirrors are the same. Some are just too blunt and honest they scare us away; we look too small in them, they make our efforts feel less than mighty. We target the one/s with the best lighting (so we pretend), and believe the lie that looks right back at us every time we stare.

At the end of the day, bodybuilders are human beings just like everyone else. We have our weaknesses and we certainly have our strengths. But there’s no denying that people as a whole, from all over the world, have a natural tendency to want to exaggerate. Everyone does it for his or her own private reason. A magazine company would exaggerate everything and everyone on the cover of their magazine to generate a better sale. My Mazda 2 had never looked as huge as the day I saw the advertisement for it. You’d think a house could fit in the back of it. Some bodybuilders will resort to drugs to get bigger than big so they can perhaps “fit in” better.

Many a bodybuilder entered a competition and came at the bottom of the rank because of that lying mirror or that not so honest “friend”.

So in a nutshell, I'd say look for that honest mirror with a (human) friend to match and use them to your advantage lest both abuse your intelligence and leave you with nothing but regrets. Furthermore, be honest with yourself; listen and know when someone has your interest at heart, and leave inflated mirrors for inflated egos to match!


Fadi.
 
Last edited:
Bazza20 said:
Fadi how did you come up with all that from the question do mirrors have a place in the gym. Lol.
Click to expand...
What do you mean? I've given my answer and the answer is yes they do and no they don't, depending on the way you approach the subject. Do you have any objection to my reply, if so, let's hear it please.


Fadi.
 
Fadi said:
What do you mean? I've given my answer and the answer is yes they do and no they don't, depending on the way you approach the subject. Do you have any objection to my reply, if so, let's hear it please.


Fadi.
Click to expand...

No mate, don't disagree with you. Just having a laugh at how complicated you can make a simple question.
 
Bazza20 said:
No mate, don't disagree with you. Just having a laugh at how complicated you can make a simple question.
Click to expand...
Okay I understand, some may wish to have a laugh, whilst others would simply take what they need and leave the rest.

Take care Bazza.


Fadi.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top