Chasing perfect form while also pushing for progress

[joelk511]

Hello Starting Strength coaches,

So on my last session, I had a goal of hitting 320 x 5 x 3 on squats and 315 x 5 x 1 on DL. During that session, I was honestly more focused on the goal of hitting the target set and reps than on hitting perfect form. On the last set of squats I missed on the last rep and form wasn't the prettiest but I still tried to get the 5th rep. I was still focused on good form throughout the session but the goal of the day was not to chase perfect technique but to chase sets/reps. If it was to chase perfect technique I probably would have called it after the 4th rep and not gone for the 5th since I knew things were starting to break down.

On that point I wanted to ask two questions:

1. When do you recommend for an individual to place greater focus on progress or the weight on the bar than on perfect reps? Another way to ask the question is if you have a recommendation for a set number of years or a guideline on how long an individual should lift chasing perfect form in order to build a strong base before worrying so much about progress or the weight on the bar?

2. Is it more important to hit all sets and reps with close to perfect form before progressing or should we still add weight even if the last rep or two of the last set broke down a little bit? Essentially, if our form is good overall but it started to break down a bit... should we still continue to focus on progress and add weight or make sure its perfect before moving up?

[Nick Delgadillo]

By form breaking down, do you mean you were squatting 6 inches high, on your toes, with a rounded back, or that your knees caved a little on the way up? If you spend all of your energy chasing perfect form at the expense of getting stronger, you'll never get stronger.

To answer your question, you should do both. You have 15 chances to get it right on a given workout. If a few of those suck, get over it and move on. If you're doing shit completely wrong, then it needs to be fixed first.