Stop Optimizing Your Way Out of Progress

I need to tell you something that might make you uncomfortable: you're probably overthinking your form—a lot.

If you've been following fitness content online for any length of time, you've seen it everywhere: videos breaking down the "optimal" way to do every exercise, complete with studies about muscle fiber orientation, internal moment arms, and why your basic lateral raise is only D-tier unless you make seven specific adjustments.

Here's the problem: while you're busy trying to perfect your scapular positioning and internally rotate your humerus at precisely the right angle, you're missing the forest for the trees. And those trees? They're keeping you weak.

The Science-Based Trap

Don't get me wrong—biomechanics matter. Understanding how your body moves can help you train more effectively and avoid injury. But somewhere along the way, we've turned exercise technique from a means to an end into an end in itself.

The fitness industry has discovered that "science-based" content gets clicks, so now every influencer is flashing studies on screen for three seconds and claiming their special variation is S-tier while basic movements are garbage.

They'll show you before-and-after photos that conveniently ignore lighting, camera angles, and the fact that the person got closer to the camera, then attribute all progress to their revolutionary 15-degree angle adjustment.

Reality check: Most of these studies are being misinterpreted, taken out of context, or applied in ways that make no practical sense for real people doing real workouts. Half the time, they might not even be well-designed studies.

When Perfect Becomes the Enemy of Good

Imagine that someone spends a ton of unnecessary time setting up for a lateral raise, making sure their scapulae are perfectly protracted, their palms are internally rotated exactly 37 degrees, and they're moving through the precise plane that some cadaver study suggested was optimal. Then they do a set of 12 with 10-pound dumbbells and call it scientifically superior.

Meanwhile, the person next to them grabs the 25s, does three solid sets with good-but-not-perfect form, uses body english to hulk up the last two reps, and gets stronger week after week.

Guess who's going to have better shoulders in six months?

Here's what matters for muscle growth:

• Progressive overload (getting stronger over time)

• Consistent training (showing up regularly)

• Adequate volume (doing enough sets)

• Not getting injured (basic safety, not perfectionism)

Notice what's not on that list? Optimizing your internal moment arms or finding the exact fiber orientation that maximizes muscle activation in a lab setting. Am I saying that biomechanics never matters? Not at all. For an advanced trainee, it can matter significantly. But for most of you reading this post? If you over-focus on biomechanics, you’re probably prioritizing the wrong things.

The Paralysis of Analysis

The pursuit of perfect form creates several problems:

Analysis paralysis: When every rep requires conscious management of seven different body positions, you can't focus on what matters—moving weight and getting stronger.

Reduced intensity: It's hard to push yourself when you're constantly monitoring whether your lat is properly "wedged" or your scapulae are positioned just right.

Exercise avoidance: When basic movements become "inferior," people abandon exercises that actually work in favor of needlessly complex variations.

Missed opportunities: While you're perfecting the setup for your "optimal" rear delt isolation, you could be doing pull-ups and getting your entire upper body stronger.

What Good Enough Looks Like

For 90% of people, good enough form means:

• Moving through a full range of motion

• Controlling the weight (not throwing it around), particularly during the eccentric contraction

• Using the target muscles to move the load (understanding that it’s normal for multiple muscle groups to assist on many exercises, especially heavy compound movements)

• Not doing anything that hurts (or figure out why it hurts then make a form adjustment so that it doesn’t)

• Being able to repeat the movement consistently

That's it. You don't need perfect scapular mechanics. You don't need to internally rotate to hit specific muscle fibers. You don't need to avoid entire planes of motion because they're "suboptimal."

The Big Rocks First Principle

Here's what beginners and intermediate trainees should focus on:

Get stronger at compound movements. Your shoulders will grow more from getting your overhead press from 95 pounds to 135 pounds than from perfecting seven different isolation exercises.

Progressive overload beats perfect form. A lateral raise that goes from 15 pounds to 25 pounds over six months will beat the "scientifically optimal" version that stays at 15 pounds because you're too busy managing the setup to push yourself.

Consistency trumps optimization. A subpar program that you follow is infinitely better than a supposedly perfect program that you abandon after two weeks because it's too complicated or time-consuming.

Simple works. Basic movements have built impressive physiques for decades. They don't suddenly become inferior because someone published a new study about fiber angles.

When Form Matters

Having said all this, I'm not advocating for sloppy training or complete dismissal of biomechanics. Focusing on details and small form tweaks can absolutely be beneficial if you have a specific issue or injury, a medical professional has advised you to make a correction, or when you’re in the advanced phase of training. Furthermore, form matters greatly when:

• You're getting hurt doing an exercise

• You're clearly not using the target muscles

• You're using momentum to compensate for weakness

• You can't feel the muscle working at all

But form perfectionism (adjusting every angle based on theoretical advantages from studies done on cadavers) is often just procrastination dressed up as science.

The Real Science

Want to know what the research shows about muscle growth? Muscles grow when they're progressively challenged with adequate volume and provided sufficient recovery. The specific angle of your elbow or the exact plane of motion matters much less than whether you're getting stronger over time.

Studies show that muscles can grow across a wide range of rep ranges, exercises, and techniques. The human body is incredibly adaptable, not the finicky machine that needs perfect calibration, as some content creators would have you believe.

Breaking Free From Optimization Obsession

Here's your homework: for the next month, focus only on getting stronger at basic movements. Pick simple exercises you can load progressively:

• Overhead press instead of seven different delt isolation exercises

• Pull-ups instead of perfect rear delt flies with optimal fiber alignment

• Basic lateral raises with dumbbells you can actually progress on

Track your weights. Add reps or load when possible. Stop worrying about whether you're in the scapular plane or the frontal plane or whatever plane someone decided was 3% better based on a study you'll never read.

I’d wager you’ll make more progress in that month than in the previous three months of trying to optimize everything.

The Bottom Line

The fitness industry profits from making simple things complicated. Basic movements become "inferior," standard techniques become "outdated," and suddenly you need a PhD in biomechanics to do a lateral raise.

But your muscles don't care about your theoretical knowledge. They respond to progressive tension, consistent challenge, and adequate recovery. Save the biomechanics deep-dives for when you're actually strong enough for them to matter.

Right now, your shoulders probably don't need perfect fiber recruitment. Instead, they probably need to get used to moving heavier weight. Your rear delts don't need optimal internal moment arms. They need to get stronger at pulling movements.

Stop optimizing your way out of progress. Start simple, get stronger, stay consistent. Your future jacked self will thank you for focusing on what actually works instead of what sounds scientific.

The best exercise is the one you can progressively overload for months without getting hurt. Everything else is just noise.