Imagine being fired up and ready to pump iron at your local gym, but after a month or two you become disillusioned, your motivation drops and you lose interest altogether.
Your excuse is that you didn’t experience the fitness gains that fitness influencers and coaches had promised. You claim that you were dedicated, and that you put in the effort with a proper plan in place, but yet all your efforts seem abortive.
This scenario is more common than many people realize, but what people don’t know is that the sad picture painted here could be due to common mistakes that beginners often make.
In this guide, we take a look at five (5) of those common workout mistakes while offering solutions to counter and rectify these mistakes for optimal fitness gains and less complaints.
Mistake #1: Forgetting to Warm-up Before Your Workout Routine and to Cool-down Afterwards
Perhaps one of the most common mistakes that beginners make is failing to warm-up before they begin their workout session. Whenever you fail to warm-up you increase your risk of unforced injuries while at the same time reducing your performance levels with muscle strains a common occurrence. In the same breath, you should also spend time to cool-down after a rigorous workout session to ensure that your recovery is not hampered by the prolonged soreness of your muscles.
To avoid the injuries associated with a failure to properly warm-up, you should start your training program with a dynamic warm-up and stretching routine that will help to elevate your heart rate, boost blood circulation, increase the availability of oxygenated blood to your muscles, and subsequently activate a.number of major skeletal muscle groups.
Some popular dynamic warm-up routines include high knees, bodyweight squats, marching in place, arm swings, and jogging. Try to spend as much as 10 to 15 minutes on your pre-workout warm-up routine. As for your cool-down protocol, you can focus on static stretches aimed at targeting your shoulders, back, chest, calves, quadriceps, hamstrings, and other major muscle groups after an intense workout session. You should hold your choice of post-workout stretching exercise for between 20 and 30 seconds for each routine to help you relax after a session and to improve your overall flexibility.
Whenever you engage in a warm-up, you prepare your joints and muscles for the tension and intensity of your workout session. Furthermore, you lower your risk of muscle-related strains and injuries while at the same time improving your range of motion. With an effective cool-down, you curb muscle stiffness, boost circulation, promote the quick evacuation of metabolic waste, and quicken muscle recovery.
Mistake #2: Training with Improper Form
This is arguably the one thing that is responsible for incidents and accidents in the gym. Improper form when executing a workout, especially when lifting weights can easily lead to an injury that can put you out of commission for a long time and in effect disrupt your entire fitness plan. The most common mistakes when performing a lift include poor breathing techniques, arching your back when lifting weights, and putting in far too much momentum than needed during a lifting routine.
To avoid these common mistakes, you need to pay more attention to perfecting your form and technique rather than worrying too much about progressive overload and/or repetitions. If you are new to bodybuilding, you need to consult with experienced bodybuilders that will help you on your fitness journey. So whether you are performing deadlifts, squats, bench presses and so on, you need to execute each exercise the proper way.
In order to always stay on track and be sure that you are performing your workouts correctly, you can make use of mirrors and/or recorded video clips showing how your exercise of choice is executed. You should make sure that your form is always on point by focusing on keeping a neutral spine, performing movements utilizing a full range of motion, and engaging your core. It’s also important to perfect your firm with light weights before you gradually increase your weights. By deploying proper form throughout your workout regimen you will reduce the stress on your joints while activating targeted muscle groups. Proper form during your workout will ensure efficiency in your regimen for optimal results while minimizing injuries.
Mistake #3: Excessive Training
There is a real danger of overtraining where you spend more time doing more sets and repetitions than you should. A situation where you push yourself way beyond the limits of your mental and physical capabilities while not getting enough recovery time. Overtraining can lead to a number of issues including mood swings, incessant fatigue, injury, and erratic performance levels.
To avoid overtraining you need to prioritize rest and recovery. You need to know when to quit a training regimen so as not to pick up injuries. Rest helps you to recover properly from training and it is also important for muscle healing and hypertrophy.
By having an active recovery plan that includes light exercises such as cycling, foam rolling, swimming, and stretching you increase oxygenated blood circulation to your muscles to aid quick recovery and growth.
Make sure to spend between 7 and 9 hours a day sleeping in order to rejuvenate your body by improving your immune function, normalizing your hormone levels, and boosting your glycogen stores.
Mistake #4: Forgetting Proper Diet and Hydration
No matter how hard you train and how much rest you get, you will not be able to achieve your fitness goal(s) if you forget to incorporate a well-structured nutrition and dietary plan. Eating clean and healthy is always preferred, but that doesn’t mean you can’t indulge a bit from time to time.
Moderation is always the key to a good nutrition plan. You should know when you need to maintain a calorie surplus or deficit depending on your fitness plan.
You need energy to workout, so having the right balance in macronutrients on a daily basis is very important. Your pre-workout meal will get your day started while your post-workout meal will help your recovery efforts.
Focus on sourcing your meals from whole foods like whole grains, lean meat, vegetables and fruits. You should also be mindful of your fluid intake as dehydration is a real hindrance to any successful fitness program, so always stay hydrated before, during, and after your sessions.
You can enhance both your muscular performance and endurance levels when you consume nutrient-dense pre-workout meals that are rich in protein and carbohydrates preferably 1 to 2 hours before the start of your workout session.
By eating well and drinking enough fluids you will promote tissue repair, improved immune function, and metabolic efficiency. Eating the right food will also help to minimize post-workout fatigue while boosting your cognitive performance and enhancing your ability to recover quickly.
Mistake #5: Too Much Repetition
It is important to vary your exercise routine rather than repeating the same set of exercises day in and day out. For starters, variety helps to keep you motivated at all times and it is this motivation that will help you in furthering your training routine with progressive overloads on each workout. You can incorporate a variety of exercise routines, mix up your lifting equipment, sets, and repetitions to keep your regimen interesting.
Try out resistance training to train specific muscle groups using bodyweight exercises, resistance bands and freeweights. Include cross-training with the likes of martial arts, Pilates or yoga which can help to improve your overall balance and flexibility.
Conclusion
Perfecting your training regimen goes beyond just exerting yourself both mentally and physically. It involves discipline, resilience, patience, and an understanding of yourself to know when to rest and recover from an intense workout. Mastering your routine involves perfecting your form for all exercises to minimize injury and optimize performance. When you understand the five common training mistakes mentioned in this article and you consciously take steps to avoid making them, you put yourself in a great position to meet your fitness goal(s) within the expected time frame.
At Anabolic Coach, we can help you develop an individualistic training program designed to meet your peculiar bodybuilding and fitness goal(s). You can reach out to us for free consultation with an IFBB PRO today.
