4 GYM MISTAKES THAT ARE KILLING YOUR PROGRESS
I am super excited to share this blog with you guys today! So many times, I see and hear about these mistakes happening everyday either working out at the gym or even at home. Making these mistakes can have a drastic effect on your fitness journey, and can stifle your gains or can even play a part in a fitness plateau! The good news?! All these mistakes have easy fixes!
- TOO MUCH CARDIO
I know this sounds rich coming from me, someone who is constantly boosting cardio and talking about how great it is for you. The difference is, the cardio I am talking about now and the cardio I talk about on the regular are 2 different kinds of cardio! The cardio that I am referring to now is Low Intensity Steady-State Cardio - aka LISS cardio. This is the type of cardio refers to any walking or jogging on the treadmill, rowing or biking at a steady state; in other words, your heart is not working more than 40%-60% of its max. LISS cardio does not have nearly as good of an effect on your body as HIIT cardio, and can actually put you in jeopardy of adapting! If you adapt, you can easily plateau, as your body will be in a fairly comfortable state, and you need at least 30-60 minutes of LISS cardio to even begin to see results!
The solution?! HIIT CARDIO! One study found that it took around 6-8 weeks of LISS to achieve the same amount of aerobic endurance (VO2 max) improvement seen in just 2 weeks of consistent HIIT! With only 20 minutes of HIIT on a regular basis, you can achieve amazing results! By keeping the body moving at max intensity for shorter periods of time will not only save you hours at the gym a week, but it will also guarantee that you get better results!
- TOO MANY ISOLATION EXERCISES!
I also like to refer to these isolation exercises as MIRROR exercises - I bet you’ve either done this yourself or SEEN someone else doing this before! Standing in front of the mirror, doing bicep curls, then tricep extensions - these are isolation exercises!
Instead of isolation exercises, I focus on doing compound movements! By compound movements, I am referring to exercises that are working multiple areas of my body with one exercise. Some examples of this are squats, mountain climbers, and push presses. These compound movements help to evenly develop muscles throughout your body without having lopsided muscle development.
- MINIMAL INTENSITY
I talk about this point A LOT! Making your workouts INTENSE is super important! The reality is, most people do not train at the proper intensity! It all starts with Intensity - if you are not working out intensely enough you are not gonna see results, you are prone to plateauing and you are not getting the most out of your time! When you workout with intensity, you can be in and out of the gym in a short period of time while maximizing your results!
To make sure you are performing at max intensity, you should contonually be upping the weight & upping the challenge. This means I want you sweating, your heart is racing and it’s hard to breath - this is what you NEED and these are the signs that you ARE working out intensely as you should!
- OVER TRAINING!
This is one I fell victim too when I was a professional rugby player. I would train so so hard, even off season, and I began to see my progress diminish! This is from effect called over training! Over training can have negative effects on our bodies. We are overworking the muscles and are over stressing our muscles. In turn, we are not giving our muscles the time they need to recover, which means we will not be able to perform properly in the gym, and we will feel tired and lethargic throughout the week.
There you have it Squadies! By following my tips and avoiding these common gym mistakes, you will see a drastic difference in your results!