If you’ve never gone to the gym before, it can be pretty intimidating. You don’t want to look foolish or make a lot of mistakes. Don’t worry. Just do it. Everyone makes mistakes when they workout, whether it’s their first time or their one thousandth. You don’t have to be a newbie to make some of these common mistakes at the gym. Other people won’t notice. Just identify the mistake and correct your course. Chalk it up to a learning opportunity.
It’s all about the intensity.
Finding the right level of intensity and balancing it is a challenge. If you aren’t working at peak performance part of the time, you won’t get the results you want. That doesn’t mean you have to lift as much weight as possible and work to failure every day. That can reverse your progress. You have to tax your body sometimes with a heavier weight or boost your heart rate higher for a while. Push yourself a little farther every week until hard workouts are easy. If you’re building muscles, you shouldn’t lift to the maximum daily. Strength-building makes micro tears in the muscle that require 48-72 hours to heal and get bigger. You’ll lose muscle mass if you don’t give them healing time.
If you’re discouraged because you spend hours in the gym and don’t see the progress you want.
Just spending time in the gym won’t give you the body you want any more than spending three hours on your exercise mat will if you only spend 15 minutes of it exercising and the rest of the time watching TV. Taking long rests between sets or extra time talking to others doesn’t keep your heart rate elevated. That’s necessary for improving endurance and burning calories. Cut the time between exercises and sets. Eliminate wasted time and see how long the workout takes.
Don’t forget to warm up or cool down.
If you do warm-up stretches, it warms the muscles and makes them more flexible. You can do a wider range of motion and work the muscles on several planes. It enhances your workout and can protect you from injury. Cooling down helps prevent blood from pooling in your extremities. When the muscles are loose, it’s also easier to do flexibility—cool down—exercises to increase the range of motion.
- Change your workout frequently. Using the same exercise routine for too long makes your body more efficient so it burns fewer calories. That can cause plateauing or slow progress.
- Focus on your workout. Make sure your form is impeccable. Just going through the motions won’t get you the success you hoped to achieve. It can also lead you to a sloppy form and injury.
- Eat a pre and post-workout snack if you’re doing an intense workout. The pre-workout snack will fuel your workout so you don’t hit the wall. The post-workout snack starts the process of recovery.
- Track your progress. Tracking your workout helps determine whether your workout is effective or if you need to change it. Show the workout, the number of reps and sets, or the amount of weight lifted. You’ll have a visual record of your improvement.
For more information, contact us today at ProWeightLoss