Do you use the mirror at the gym?

Conventional wisdom is often worth listening to. The generally held advice, for instance, to avoid swimming with feeding sharks has value. It is also true that marrying a first cousin is fraught with peril. Of course, sometimes conventional wisdom is not so much wisdom as much as it is just an idea that has caught on without any actual foundation. So if you are one of those gym-goers who like to do their squats in the mirror to check out your form is that wisdom or just an idea that has caught on?

Double leg squats where you squat down using both legs, either with or without additional weights, are used to build leg strength and also as part of rehabilitation.

Double leg squats where you squat down using both legs, either with or without additional weights, are used to build leg strength and also as part of rehabilitation. The idea is that doing the squats in front of a mirror gives you feedback on your form and positioning to prevent preferentially using one leg over the other. These researchers however, noted that there has been no studies done to see if watching yourself in the mirror does anything to improve the symmetry of your squat.

To test this they had healthy males and females aged 18 to 50, without back or hip problems, perform squats with their feet on two different force plates. This allowed the researchers to measure the amount of force a person put on each leg during the squats. The subjects were asked to perform five squats with their feet facing forward in a fixed position, five in a mixed position with their feet a fixed distance apart but in a self-selected position, and five in a self-selected position with their feet at a distance and position of their own choosing.

Half of the subjects started using the mirror and the other half without the mirror, then they switched.

The data showed that when people were forced to stand with their feet facing forward at a fixed distance and watched themselves in a mirror they tended to shift 0.56 per cent more of their bodyweight to their dominant leg. When they did the same squat without a mirror they shifted just one per cent more to their dominant leg which is not a statistically significant difference. When they were asked to choose their own foot starting position and look in the mirror they tended to shift 0.82 per cent of their bodyweight to their non-dominant leg as opposed to shifting 0.74 per cent to the non-dominant leg when they did not use a mirror. Again, this is not a statistically significant difference.

So, on reflection, it seems that looking in the mirror while you do your squats is not such a good idea unless you really just want to check your spectacular quads and awesome abs while you do them.