Have you been making these mistakes?

For the most part, everyone’s goals are about the same. Lose some body fat, increase lean muscle mass. Now to what extent? Some more than others, however the idea is the same. Below are 5(ish) of the most common mistakes people make when trying to reach their goals!

#5 Time: Either too much, or not enough.

Time it’s the one thing we can never get back. Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.

With that being said, one mistake people often make in their training is the amount of time either spent, or not spent training or in the gym.

Spending too much time in the gym is often due to either a lack of time management, or an ineffective program (or a lack of program and direction all together). Now don’t get me wrong, if you like hanging out and socializing at the gym, that’s great. But understand that, that doesn’t lead to progress in your level of fitness.

Playing on your phone doesn’t lead to thumb gains.

On the flip side, someone that doesn’t spend enough time in the gym is also as guilty. Working out half assed once a week simply won’t cut it.

Think of it this way, if you only workout 3 times a week (which is plenty), that 1.7% of your week. EVERYONE HAS 1.7% OF THEIR WEEK TO DEDICATE TO THEIR HEALTH AND WELLNESS.

Closing thoughts on time…No one “has” time, you have to “make” time. Put it in your schedule, write it in your calendar, do whatever you have to do; because something will always come up if you don’t.

#4 Poor Nutritional Choices

I believe whole heartedly that each and every one of us intrinsically knows good food choices vs. bad food choices. I have an extremely hard time believing that someone can think that deep fried chicken is a good food choice because it’s “protein”. Or that honey buns are a good source of honey. Zebra cakes don’t have zebras in them, and are not a good source of protein.

No seriously, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that an adult would think that the cheese product in a spray can, that has a shelf life that could survive a nuclear winter; would be a real, health option for dairy.

I do however believe that the market has been intentionally misleading people into believing certain foods are “healthy” or beneficially to eat. If a bar or food product has to tell you that it’s a good source of protein, then it probably isn’t.

Here’s a good rule of thumb for picking snacks. Whatever you eat, for every 100 calories, make sure it has either 10g of protein or 10g of fibers.

This little rule of thumb is going to greatly reduce the amount of BS you can shovel into your face.

Another poor nutrition choice is drinking calories. Many time you’ll see fitness enthusiasts drinking sports beverages after a hard training session or class. Look, for the most part, everyone is more or less trying to achieve the same goals. Reduce the amount of body fat and increase the amount of lean muscle. The differing factors are the extent. For the average person, a sports beverage will be contributing more towards your daily caloric intake, than it would be to fueling your performance or recovery.

Am I saying sports drinks are “bad”.

Not at all. There’s just a time and a place. Drinking a sports drink in the morning before a training session wouldn’t be a bad idea, especially if you have trouble digesting food, or you simply didn’t wake up early enough to get something in your system. But for the average person, in a intra-training, post training scenario, you’d get more benefit drinking water (which you probably don’t drink enough of anyway).

#4.5 Fasting

Piggy backing off of the previous mistake, if you’re doing this in an effort to lose body fat, then maybe you should think again. All diets work the same, by operating in a caloric deficit. When you fast, especially the newest trendy diet craze “intermittent fasting”, you’re simply reducing the time window you give yourself to shovel food in your mouth. If you’re not actually checking your macronutrients, then all you’re doing is hedging your bets that you can’t eat in a caloric surplus in an 8 hour feeding window (or however long you choose). Think of it this way, if there were truly something “special” about intermittent fasting, then you’d be able to eat literally whatever you want, eat in a caloric surplus, and still lose body fat.

But it doesn’t work like that does it?

No it doesn’t.

You simply don’t like to wake up and eat breakfast.

I’d go even further and say that it’s not even that you dislike breakfast, you just don’t want to get out of bed.

And as for the effects of fasting on training, i’d be utterly shocked if your work capacity wasn’t lower from a lack of fuel prior to your training session.

This is where, as previously stated, sports drinks actually aren’t a bad idea. In fact, anything that’s easy on the stomach is better than nothing at all.

#3. Exercise Selection

This is for the person that gets in the gym and runs the machine gauntlet. With no rhyme or reason, you’re bouncing from machine to machine without any specific set/rep range, goal, etc. And that’s ok, because you don’t know any better and you’re trying. So more power to you. And truth be told, it’ll work for you, for a very short period of time. Then it won’t.

What’s worse is when someone spends all day working on one specific body part with the goal of general health and fitness.

That style of training is suitable for bodybuilders who actually need to work and develop certain muscles or groups of muscles.

If your goal is general health and fitness, then you’re better served doing compound lifts.

Lifts that don’t work in isolation.

For instance: squats, deadlifts, presses, pulls, lunges, etc.

From a metabolic standpoint, theses will be way more taxing and will help build more muscle, faster, than working muscles in “isolation”. These type of lifts are the best “bang for the buck!”

Not to mention that our body doesn’t work in isolation, but rather muscle groups working in unison. Focusing on, and targeting specific muscles will more than likely produce more imbalances than anything (who actually likes to work on the things they’re bad at, right?).

Proper exercise selection is vital when choosing a workout plan or program. This is what’s going to help ensure you have long term success and progress!

#2. Zero Patience

Now I believe that proper exercise selection is essential for having, and maintain long term success and progress in the gym. However, having unrealistic expectations, and/or no patience will lead to failure much quicker than having a poor exercise selection.

My reasoning? Well everyone knows that anything and everything you do, WORKS AT FIRST. So even if you have the worst exercise selection, OF ALL TIME, you’ll still experience some success, AT FIRST.

However, if you jump into fitness with unrealistic expectations, along with zero patience; well it’s safe to say that you’ll be on the fast track to failure.

From either program hopping or people that give up merely weeks after starting. Having too many expectations and no patience is a recipe for a dumpster fire. Remember that time you got fat and out of shape in a matter of just a few weeks? Yeah, me neither. It’s because it took time. Well, guess what?! So will getting back in shape and/or improving your current level of fitness.

Remember that time you read something about the Bulgarians, so naturally tried that “program”. Then a couple weeks later, read something about 5-3-1? “Oh yeah, let’s try that too you thought!” Oh don’t forget about squat every day! Gotta do that!

Before you know it, you’ve tried every program that you could find on every strength and conditioning or bodybuilding website.

News flash.

You’ll get nowhere fast.

Programs are a specific amount of time for a reason. If you choose one, finish it. The best plan or program is one that you can be consistent with.

#1. Complete disregard for the “Overload Principle”.

Also known as “progressive overload”, this is day 1 exercise science. Simply put,

The overload principle states that body system adaptation fails to occur without an overloading stimulus. Muscles experience overload when exposed to a stimulus greater than normally accustomed to, as stated by the American College of Sports Medicine. In comparison, activity below habitual level causes detraining, while continuing an accustomed lifting intervention maintains your current muscle strength and size.

The smart, systematic planning for overloading one’s training, is known as “periodization”. Overload and periodization are of extreme importance if your goal is to gain, and maintain progress throughout your training!

As Coach Dos cover in his article, overload should be applied to not only resistance training but also in your “cardio” sessions! So even if you’re an endurance athlete, your training should also include periodization principles!

Without these components, you’ll have a little bit of success in the gym, especially as a beginner; as stated above, ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING WORKS AT FIRST! However, that’ll quickly lead to a plateau. The overload principle along with periodization will ensure you’ll have constant progress and long term success in your training and fitness endeavors.

At The Fit Facility we help guide your nutrition, completely take over your programming, and coach every moment in the gym. You’re not left alone with a coach that’s standing in the corner of the room. All of our coaches are very hands on, constantly coaching every movement in every training session! If you’re looking to change the way you train up, and or need help with your programming, give us a shout here!

This article was greatly inspired by Coach Robert Dos Remedios’ article that can be found here.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_periodization

https://www.livestrong.com/article/325244-the-overload-principle-of-strength-training/

https://www.coachdos.com/top-10-things-people-do-wrong-in-gyms/