Top 5 Weight Room Training Mistakes

Anybody who goes to the gym regularly has encountered others who make you scratch your head and wonder what it is they are trying to accomplish during the course of their workout.

While these individuals tend to stand out like a sore thumb, plenty of others are making subtle mistakes that can (and will) diminish the effectiveness of their workouts.

Here are 5 of the most commonly identified training mistakes found in commercial gym settings.

1. Skipping the warm-up

Preparing your body for the next 30 to 90 minutes of exercise is vital when you are looking to get the most out of your workout. When performed correctly, a good warm-up accomplishes two things: it enhances your performance and serves as a safeguard to prevent injury.

A proper warm-up consists of more than just bending over to touch your toes, holding your arm across your chest, then pulling your foot up behind your backside to stretch your quads. Current research has shown that a dynamic warm-up (i.e. a series of sport-specific movements that are designed to prepare the muscles for performance) combined with mobility drills and foam rolling at the beginning of a session leads to increased levels of performance across the board, regardless of age, gender, or ability.

2. Performing too many isolation exercises

How many of you were teenage boys at one point in time who wanted nothing more than to have big arms to impress the ladies? I know I was. How do these folks typically go about their business? By doing bicep curls. Lots and lots of bicep curls.

Here’s the irony – the bicep isn’t a very big muscle, so this approach won’t do a whole lot to help.

What should you do instead? Bench press. Pushups. Pull-ups. One-arm rows. Any exercise that works primarily your chest or back, which happen to be the largest muscles in your upper body. Not only are they the largest, but they are the strongest as well. Which means it will be easier for you to increase the level of resistance in a relatively short period of time when compared to isolation exercises such as bicep curls, tricep pushdowns, or overhead shoulder presses.

The same thing goes for your lower body. If you want bigger calves, start by performing lifts like squats and deadlifts that work the largest muscles. There’s nothing wrong with doing a few calf raises, but those alone won’t be enough to help you reach your goals.

Tip: Always perform chest and back exercises on a 1:1 ratio. If all you ever do is bench presses and push-ups, your shoulders will begin to round forward over time, making you look like a hunchback. This problem has become more prevalent with the increased amount of time people spend sitting hunched over in front of a computer or slouching in their cars. If you already exhibit symptoms of this posture, perform chest and back exercises on a 1:2 ratio (one chest exercise for every 2 back exercises).

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3. Sacrificing form for weight on the bar

What’s the easiest way to get injured while working out? By trying to lift more than you should with inadequate (and sometimes downright ugly) form.

No exercise should ever be associated with injury. However, problems tend to arise when people attempt exercises they’ve seen on TV or in a magazine without understanding the proper way to set up and/or perform the movement.

Even worse are the gym “experts” who think they know what they’re doing. They continuously increase the weight on the bar in an attempt to impress their workout buddies or others nearby, increasing the likelihood of an injury.

4. Training to failure too often

There is a time and a place for pushing your limits and testing yourself to see what you’re capable of, but it isn’t once a month (or even once every 3-4 months).

Too many people make the mistake of maxing out too often when studies have shown no added benefits associated with lifting until you just can’t lift any more.

The general consensus among industry experts, including Mike Boyle, one of the foremost experts in the fields of strength and conditioning, and functional training, is to always leave enough in the tank for one to two good reps at the end of each set. Boyle adds: “A surefire way to avoid training to failure is to pick the right number of sets and reps for each exercise. Big, heavy exercises like Squats and Deadlifts lend themselves to fewer reps and more sets, while lighter exercises like Push-Ups and Pull-Ups work best with more reps and fewer sets.”

How often is training to failure acceptable? There’s no hard and fast guideline, but keep it to about one or two times a year.

5. Doing too much cardio

The cardio needs of athletes focused on enhancing their performance are different than the needs of the general population – most with an interest in fat loss.

Cardiovascular endurance is important to sports performance. But, the degree differs from sport to sport. A baseball player in the first month of his offseason is going to have different needs than a soccer player who is gearing up for preseason camp in three weeks.

A baseball player could be performing cardio activities such as a rowing machine once or twice a week to begin building up his anaerobic threshold after a long season and help increase his body’s capacity for output throughout the remainder of the offseason.

A soccer player would need a fast-paced, up-tempo workout (that can still potentially include elements of strength training via timed intervals) to ensure her aerobic energy system is performing at its best heading into the season.

As for fat loss, research has shown overwhelming evidence that walking on the treadmill or using an elliptical machine for half an hour at a steady pace does not result in quantifiable levels of fat loss.

But, crank up the intensity by performing sprint intervals on a treadmill for as little as 30 minutes a day and you’ll increase your metabolic output for anywhere from 24-72 hours. I recommend 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest. Repeat for a total of 8 rounds. Rest one minute and repeat the sequence 4 times for a fat burning, high efficiency, 20-minute workout.

And there you have it. Just because you’ve been going to the gym and doing your own thing since college probably hasn’t prevented you from being guilty of one (or more) of these common mistakes.

From personal experience, #1 is the toughest for me to abide by. Under the constraints of a busy schedule, it can be hard to make room for a thorough and comprehensive warm up. But when I do, I feel a noticeable improvement in the quality of my workout.

Next time you get a workout in, try thinking about these five things and see how they impact your results. Be sure to let me know how it goes.

If you have any questions about exercise, sports performance training, or anything health-related be sure to call AYC Health & Fitness today at 913-642-4437, click to book a consultation or contact David Justice, AYC Health & Fitness personal trainer at 913-642-4437 #113.