Perfect Movement Is a Myth — and It Might Be Holding You Back
This idea came up during a conversation with one of our team’s friendly physical therapists.
She mentioned the two types of people that she tends to see after an injury.
One puts themselves on an accelerated timeline where the body starts feeling good, then it must be time for a 300-rep body blaster.
The other carefully manages pain, works on restoring range of motion, and steadily rebuilds their baseline strength. But then, they get skittish after all the steps of the acute phase of rehab go well, and it’s time to squat again, or deadlift, or bench press.
She says, “It feels like I have to push them off a cliff.”
Not because they aren’t physically capable, but because they’re holding onto this idea of perfect movement before they’re willing to load again.
Waiting for Perfect Movement
No one squats, pulls, or presses with textbook symmetry rep after rep.
Movement always includes small degrees of variability, asymmetry, or individuality, depending on the individual's body.
Yet many people stall here because they tell themselves, “I don’t want to add load until my movement is perfect.”
The problem is that perfect doesn’t exist in the gym or in life.
If you’ve spent weeks or months improving mobility, motor control, and tolerance, continuing to delay loading often provides diminishing returns.
At some point, not loading becomes the bigger limiter.
Several lines of research support this idea:
- Movement variability is normal and protective - Healthy movement is not rigid. Studies on motor control show that variability allows tissues to distribute stress and adapt over time. Excessively constrained movement can actually increase localized tissue loading rather than reduce it.
- Strength is protective (even with imperfect mechanics) - Long-term injury risk correlates more strongly with strength deficits and load intolerance than with slight deviations in technique. In other words, a slightly imperfect squat performed by a strong athlete is often safer than a “perfect” squat performed by someone underloaded and deconditioned.
- Exposure builds resilience - Tissues adapt to the loads they experience. The gradual reintroduction of load restores confidence, coordination, and capacity. Avoiding load in pursuit of perfection delays this adaptation rather than enhancing it.
Why Waiting Can Cap Long-Term Potential
The problem with holding back load indefinitely is that:
- Strength plateaus earlier
- Confidence never fully returns
- Fear of movement lingers
Ironically, the attempt to be “safe” can lead to chronic underloading, which may increase injury risk rather than reduce it.
The Practical Takeaway
This isn’t an argument for recklessness!
But just a reminder that if you’ve:
- Addressed the big mobility and strength deficits,
- Restored tolerance to basic movement patterns,
- Removed pain as the primary limiter,
Then progression doesn’t require perfection. It requires progressive exposure.
Sometimes the next step in rehab isn’t another corrective drill.
It’s picking up the weight again, accepting a little messiness, and letting your body iron out the wrinkles.
Originally published as Movement #291
