• 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.

Mirror me?

hakea

New member
Hey, hope i posted it into the right section.

I just set up my gym in my room and im wondering if i should get a mirror. I think it would be good to watch my own form and correct. Also, once i gain a bit of mass, a bit of a motivation driver.

Whats your thoughts, personally?
 
I believe having a mirror is better than not having a mirror.
If you can have a mirror, I think it's better than not having a mirror.
If you can have a mirror, I think having a bigger mirror is better than a small mirror.
If your room is small, a mirror will make it look bigger, especially if it's one of those bigger mirrors I just mentioned.
A small mirror will still be good, but bigger is better.

Personally, I have 3 mirrors, large ones too.
 
Last edited:
Unlike the hulk I don't like mirrors. When it comes to form they give visual feedback that is incorrect because they only show one plane of a movement.

You're best to develop the proprioceptive feedback for exercises imo. Also movements are far easier when you look at a fixed space.
 
Unlike the hulk I don't like mirrors. When it comes to form they give visual feedback that is incorrect because they only show one plane of a movement.


Mirror on the front and mirror on the side, that's how I do it.

Honestly though, I think visual feedback throughout the exercise is very important to focus and concentrate on the muscles you are targeting.

May be different for bodybuilding style training and pure strength training.
 
Adrian I'm really not trying to undermine you but its very, very bad formwise, particularly for exercises like the squat and deadlift where you can look great from the front but have a rounded back and a massive lunge forward from not sitting back.

If I had a gym I'd have a mirror, but it would be in front of the dumbells not the power rack.
 
Even though side view is the best indication for something like squats,
I believe you can still get a very good gauge of image depth and overall form by viewing yourself in a mirror from the front.

It's just a tool.
May work for some and may not work for others.
Probably a personal thing.
 
Last edited:
Mirror fucks up your form.

My forms in squat, deadlift and clean improved heaps when I started training at a place with no mirror.
 
Mark Rippetoe said:
Squatting in front of a mirror is a really bad idea. Many weight rooms have mirrors on all the walls, making it impossible to squat without a mirror there, within eyesight, giving you its bad feedback. A mirror is a bad tool because it provides information about only one plane, the frontal, and depth cannot be judged by looking in the mirror from the front. Some obliqueness of angle is required to see the relationship between patella and hip crease, but a mirror set at an oblique angle would produce a twisting of the neck. Cervical rotation under a heavy bar is just as bad an idea as cervical hyperextension under a heavy bar. But the best reason not to use a mirror in front of any multijoint exercise is that you should be developing kinesthetic sense of movement by paying attention to all the sensory input provided by proprioception, rather than focusing merely on visual input from a mirror. "Learn to feel it, not just see it," is excellent advice.

There.
 
There have been a few studies done on training with & without the use of a mirror.

From memory, I think they found that the feedback from the mirror was distorted, similar to when people train wearing glasses. The focal point is lost. I'll try to find the podcast I heard about it and get some some decent data..

I don't have a prOblem with antidotal evidence
 
There have been a few studies done on training with & without the use of a mirror.

From memory, I think they found that the feedback from the mirror was distorted, similar to when people train wearing glasses. The focal point is lost. I'll try to find the podcast I heard about it and get some some decent data..

I don't have a prOblem with antidotal evidence

does that mean i should stop squatting in my white kanye west glasses?
 
Top