Fitness enthusiasts talk about how important proper for is with every exercise they do, and rightly so. What we mean when we talk about form is how closely we stick to the purpose of the exercise as it was originally intended by its inventor. For example, keeping proper form with bicep curls means keeping your elbows locked by your sides, curling the weight all the way up to your shoulders, and slowly bringing it back down again.

In other words, forcing your bicep to do as much of the lift by itself as possible. This same principle applies to every muscle group in your body. When you are attempting to lift something heavy, it's your natural tendency to automatically try to use as many different muscles as possible to accomplish the task. Since you're trying to target muscles, this is the exact opposite of what you want, and so you must try and resist this tendency.

There's more to keeping good form than just getting the most out of your gym time, though. There's also your own safety to be concerned with. Having bad form while performing a heavy set of squats, for example, could lead to leg or lower back injuries that could put you in a lot of pain.

It becomes especially important if you're trying to do everything without the safety of a spotter, which most experts would recommend against to start with anyway. Cheating with your form is nothing short of cheating yourself. It creates a challenge when the weight you're pressing starts to get heavy, and takes a ton of focus to be able to continue controlling it, rep after rep. That discipline and determination is what separates the amateurs from the experts, when it comes to pumping iron.