Three Stages of Form Home -> The Library -> Training Tips -> Stages of Form Form is a cornerstones of weight training. It describes how well (or how poorly) you are performing an exercise. There are three typical stages of form when lifting weights: strict, loose, and sloppy. Strict form is perfect form executing the exercise to the letter of the law. This is how you should perform the majority of your exercises. The second stage is loose form. This allows for some slight cheating movements, such as using a little momentum to keep the weight moving. When you can no longer perform an exercise with strict form, you naturally move to loose form to continue lifting and continue working the muscle. It is a continuum of style. Sloppy form entails gross cheating movements and terrible form. Examples of this include bouncing the bar off your chest when doing a bench press, pulling on your head when doing abdominal crunches or bending your back when doing push-ups. NEVER allow your form to go as far as sloppy. This quite often leads to injury.