There is no one right way when it comes to training. Obviously, it depends on your individual goals. I’m assuming you want to improve your overall health, build lean muscle mass, and decrease body fat. Some people need high frequency, high volume, low intensity. Others react better with low frequency, high volume, high intensity training. Just like there’s more than one way to skin a cat, there’s more than one way to get results from your training. I’m not dogmatic in my approach to training. There are several modalities that will improve your health and help you achieve the physique you desire. (However, I do have preferences when it comes to training and I will share them in a future post).
Sometimes the things you aren’t doing are more important than the things you’re actually doing. I’ve listed 10 things to avoid that will ensure you get the most out of your training. The following are in no particular order:
1. Going Straight Into a Working Set Without Any Warm Up
This doesn’t mean you need to run a mile on the treadmill, hold 10 different static stretches, and do 5 warm up sets before your first working set. You’re better off performing a dynamic warm up before your session (In a future post, I will share the dynamic warm up I like to use with my clients, as well as myself, especially before a lower body work out).
Let’s say you’re training your back today. Spend a couple minutes on the rower. The goal I set for my clients is to row 500 meters in less than 2 minutes. That will get your blood pumping to your back. You can follow that up with 5-10 arm circles each way: forwards and backwards, big and small. After that I like my clients to do 5-10 band pull aparts and 3-5 plate halos in each direction. I recommend that you do 1-2 warm up sets of the exercise before your first working set. At that point your muscles and joints will be prepared for the training session that lies ahead.
2. Prioritizing Isometric Movements Over Compound Movements
You can’t expect to make progress by coming into the gym and hitting three different curl variations then spending 15 minutes on the elliptical before you head home. Compound movements (ex: squat, deadlift, bench press) should be the foundation of your training program. Many people will waste most of there time trying to build arms with 3 sets of cable roped tricep extensions and 3 sets of hammer curls without doing a single compound exercise. If you’re not following a training program, get one. You’re not doing yourself any favors going into the gym and randomly selecting a few exercises that sound good in your head. I will be posting training programs in the future. If you’re interested in acquiring a program before my post(s), fill out a contact form below and let me know.
3. Overlooking the Importance of Form
Form is everything. If you don’t lift the weight with proper technique, you won’t work the targeted muscle(s) and will subject your joints, ligaments, and tendons to undue stress, increasing the risk of injury. Even if you’re lucky and don’t get injured, you’re still short changing yourself by quarter repping through the exercise. Going through the full range of motion with proper technique for each movement is crucial for muscle development. You’re better off not lifting at all than lifting with bad form. If you don’t know what proper form is, hire a trainer. If you can’t afford a trainer, watch YouTube videos.
4. Lifting With Your Ego, ‘Maxing Out’
This is typically a young man’s mistake. Loading the barbell with too much weight, knowing full well that you won’t maintain proper form throughout the entire movement, let alone the whole set. For whatever reason, people love to struggle through an ugly set with a heavier weight and subject themselves to potential injury rather than using a weight they can control and work through their full range of motion. Swallow your pride and drop the weight. Remember form is everything. Strength comes in time. No need to rush into a weight you can’t handle properly.
Side note: 1 Rep Maxes are purely ego and not worth the risk. Congrats, you know you can deadlift 450 lbs. once. All while curling your spine like a cat and nearly herniating several discs. Now what? Unless you’re a Powerlifter, knowing your 1RM is irrelevant.
5. Not Logging Each Workout in a Training Journal
This might seem a bit pedantic, but recording the results of each training session is invaluable. It’s crazy to think you’ll get results by going to the gym and lifting the same weight for the same amount of reps week in and week out. That’s a recipe for mediocrity. Unless you have a photographic memory you must record your work outs. I’ve used the Notes app on my iPhone as a training journal and various apps but nothing beats pen and paper. Writing how many sets, reps, and weight used for each exercise will help you immensely.
For a long time, I would run through each work out purely off of memory. I could remember what weight I used the previous session and had a target rep range to hit. I got decent results for a while, but I eventually plateaued. No wonder. What else is going to happen when you go in and bench press 90lbs. dumbbells 3×10 every week?
Recording the weight and reps achieved for each set will give you a goal heading into the next work out. Knowing you benched 90lbs. for 3×10 last week is one thing, but seeing it written down in your notebook gives you a mental edge, and a target to work towards. Now you can take some of that mental energy that was being wasted on memorizing all of the weights and reps of the past and put your full concentration into outdoing your last workout. During your next training session, you can try to add one more rep to each set or use a heavier weight but lower the reps. What gets measured gets managed.
The journal also allows you to make notes during your training. Maybe you didn’t sleep well the night before, or you were feeling run down and that explains the lull in performance for a particular workout. Vice versa, maybe you had a great workout and can make a note of anything you did differently that you found beneficial. After recording your sessions for some time, you’ll be able to flip through your notebook and see all the progress you’ve made as well as what worked and what could use an adjustment.
6. Trying to Spot Reduce Body Fat
Go into any gym in America and you’ll find some poor soul trying to burn off his stubborn belly fat by performing endless weighted sit ups on the decline bench to no avail. Little does he know, you can’t target fat loss in a specific area of the body. That’s not how our bodies work. When it comes to losing belly fat, your answer is found in the kitchen. You hear it all the time, “You can’t outrun your fork”. And it’s right. You must dial in your diet if you want to have a visible six pack.
7. Taking Every Set to Failure
Many people mistakenly take every set to failure. This is a surefire way to burn yourself out. It takes the fun out of training and makes every session feel like a grueling mental and physical test. Yes, it is important to push yourself and put your full effort into each workout, but that does not mean you need run your tank all the way to empty every set. There is a time and place for training to failure, but it must not be over used.
8. Valuing Machines Over Free Weights
A lot of people new to fitness fall for this trap. They start going to the gym and are instantly drawn to the machines. I can see why, they’re far less intimidating than the free weight section and they are fairly self explanatory. However the machines will limit your progress.
Machines restrict the movement to one plane of motion, forcing you to follow a set path. This cuts down on the amount of work done by the muscles. When using free weights, the muscles are forced to balance and stabilize the weight throughout all planes of motion, making the muscles work harder. Using free weights is more effective and efficient when it comes to building muscle.
Also to be considered, machines are made for the average gym goer. Most of the machines are adjustable but they aren’t ideal for those who are very short or very tall which could negatively effect the execution of each movement. This isn’t to say machines are useless, but they should only make up a small portion of your overall training program.
9. Improper Rest Between Sets
This can go one of three ways. You don’t rest enough between sets. You’re excited to be in the gym and amped up for the next set but your body hasn’t recovered enough in the 20 seconds you rested between sets. Or you rest too long. You just finished a heavy set of squats and now you go sit down on a bench, scroll through Instagram, skip through your shuffled playlist 25 times, go get a drink, check the clock and 7 minutes have gone bye.
I recommend you rest 60 seconds between sets. You can shorten it a bit to 45 seconds if you’re pressed for time or trying to up the intensity of your session. If you are lifting particularly heavy you should rest somewhere between 90-120 seconds to give your body enough time to recover an adequate amount of strength for the next set. During this rest period you should remain standing and focus on getting your breath back under control, composing yourself for the next set.
10. Training Inconsistently
To see results from your training you must work out consistently. That doesn’t mean you have to work out every day, but you must follow a training program and do your best to not miss a single session. Of course you shouldn’t train if you’re sick or if a family emergency occurs, but making your training a priority is critical.
It takes consistent effort to see results from your training, but once you are able to make it a habit and start noticing improvements you’ll look forward to each workout. When you’re new to training it generally takes 12 weeks before you start to see noticeable changes. If you can consistently put in the effort, remain disciplined, and be patient you are guaranteed to achieve the results you desire.
Consistency is key.
Avoiding the 10 pitfalls mentioned above will bring you to another level with your training. As noted before, if you’re interested in early access to my training programs fill out a contact form below.
Talk again soon,
Shane