Important take-aways:

1. Joint alignment is always important. Wear and tear is a real thing, so don’t neglect your joint health.

2. Immobilize the rest of your body; particularly your upper legs. The only body part that should be moving is your lower legs as they utilize the power of your hamstrings to squeeze that weight back to the pad.
   sidenote: push back into whatever is available in order to keep your butt in the seat and your lower back against the pad. Some gyms have machines equipped with seatbelts for this purpose. If it’s there, use it!
   Also, I mentioned Reps In Reserve (RIR). For beginners that’s not really easy to gauge, but as you mature in your lifting and repeating many of the same exercises dozens, or even hundreds of times, you’ll start to recognize your body’s failure points/rep limits for a given weight. In which case, example: if you know you can get 12 reps on the lift you’re performing, so choose to only go to 10, you’ll have 2 “reps in reserve.”
   another also: best way to take the lift past failure is to have a spotter or trainer who knows how to spot assist you on the back side of the lift (getting your calves smashed back into the pad) for a couple/few reps after you fail to be able to do so on your own.