Have you ever felt confused when walking into a gym? You’re unsure of what to do, where to go, and how to use the equipment. After a few weeks of going, a question keeps bouncing around in your head: is this helping?
But you have no clue.
You don’t know if what you’re doing is helping you reach your goals. You’re busting your butt week in and week out–but is it working? Since you’re new to the gym it’s normal to crave answers, to desire knowing what to do.
You want to be successful.
Unfortunately, there are some common mistakes made in the gym that limit people’s progress. That make it harder for them to be successful. Fortunately, this blog will address three of those mistakes (and share how to fix them).
Ready to learn what those mistakes are? Let’s dive in.
The three common mistakes are:
- Skipping the warm-up, which means you won’t be as prepared for the workout as you could be
- Not having a plan, which means you’ll constantly be confused about what to do, won’t be able to judge your progress, and you won’t learn movements as quickly
- Crushing yourself every workout, which means you’ll be too fried to train hard the following session you come in, so you’ll hurt your progress in the long run
Training Mistake #1: Skipping The Warm-Up
Your alarm starts blaring. It’s 5:30 am. Time to roll out of bed and get to the gym by 6:00 am. Unfortunately, your dog won’t go pee and that extra time walking her makes you late.
“Gee dang it,” you think. “I don’t have time to warm up now. I’ll just jump into it.”
Skipping the warm up because you don’t have time (or for any other reason) is common; common, but not ideal. A good warm up not only prepares you for your workout—from an injury prevention standpoint–but also improves the quality of the workout itself.
A good warm up increases your heart rate, which pumps more blood to your muscles. This increase in blood flow—and oxygen—to your muscles helps you to perform better during your workout. Your body is better prepared to handle the rigors of exercise.
Also, the warm up is a great place to improve your range of motion, or mobility, which means you’ll more easily move through full ranges of motion during your workout (and move better in your daily life).
As a last bonus, a good warm up also gives you the chance to practice the movements that you perform in the gym; for example, the BSP NOVA warm up has squats in it which allow our members to practice the skill of squatting. This allows them to learn the movement more quickly over time.
Now, I said “a good warm up” a few times already. But maybe you’re wondering what that might look like. Well, wonder no more—click here to view the BSP NOVA warm up.
To put this all together: a quality warm up raises your heart rate, improves or maintains your mobility, as well as gives you opportunities to practice movements to become more skilled at them.
Take five to ten minutes to warm up, and your workout, and body, will thank you for it.
Training Mistake #2: Not Having A Plan
A few weeks ago I was chatting with a new-ish member of BSP NOVA, who I’ll call Keith. We were discussing how his first program went—he had just finished it that day, and we were chatting about it so I could get feedback to create his next program.
He mentioned a situation we all face when going to the gym for the first time.
“When I went to the gym in the past I had no clue what I was doing,” he said. “There were so many machines and equipment, but I wasn’t sure how they worked. It was overwhelming.”
Then, he said, “That’s why I like having a program here. I don’t have to think. I just need to make it to the door, and if I do, then I know exactly what I need to get done that day.”
Keith wanted what we all crave: certainty.
A program gives you certainty. You know which exercises to do; you know how many sets and reps you’re doing; and you know how many workouts a week to do. You don’t have to attempt to figure out what you’re doing when you get to the gym that day—you already know.
This is great! Want to know what’s even better? Programs that are tailored to you and your goals.
With an individualized program you know that, since it was written for you, it will help you move towards your goals and be a good fit for you.
Here’s a quick caveat: programs aren’t permanent. Programs aren’t perfect. They’re a “best guess” at what will be best for someone. At times, exercises will need to be tweaked or modified, and that’s okay. This is part of why working with a coach is so beneficial, because they can further tailor the program to you after seeing how you do with it.
Without a program though, you have no clue what is working and what’s not. Maybe you made progress doing random things…and that’s great! But eventually progress will slow and it will become harder to make further progress if you do something different each day.
Random workouts aren’t ideal because—if you change exercises constantly—you don’t have a chance to learn the movements. Movements are skills. Skills are learned with practice. If you vary your movements all the time it impacts the frequency of that practice which, in the long run, impacts how quickly you learn them.
When you start out training, find a program—or get one written for you by a coach—so that you won’t have to keep guessing what you need to do each time you get to the gym.
Training Mistake #3: Crushing Yourself Every Session
When most of us start our fitness journey, we want to get “there.” This “there” varies: it might be fitting into a suit we can’t anymore, deadlifting a certain amount of weight, or being able to run around with our kids. And we want to get there as quick as possible.
We figure, if we have a long journey to reach our goals, we should sprint to get there. This looks like jumping into a diet full force and immediately changing all our nutrition habits; it looks like training as hard as possible every time we walk into the gym, often leaving nothing in the tank; and it looks unsustainable.
To get from where we are to where we want to be—takes time. A lot of time.
Let’s say we’ve had trouble sticking to consistent exercise in the past. We get started—by buying some new clothes, signing up for a gym membership, and showing up the first day—but it doesn’t last. Often because we crush ourselves day after day pushing as hard as we can.
We do all the exercises and things and stuff hoping we get results, and that those results come fast. Hard workouts equals fast results is what we believe.
This usually isn’t the case.
In fact, at BSP NOVA we talk about training relatively easy. We say this for a few reasons:
- We change best by feeling good, so when we crush ourselves in the gym with grueling workouts that we hate—well, we’re not putting ourselves in the best position to be successful (doesn’t mean workouts are easy, but they aren’t puke-inducingly hard either)
- Doing relatively easy workouts means we leave a little in the tank so we can come back in a day or two to workout again
- Crushing ourselves in training often means going to failure, which means pushing ourselves until we can’t do another rep, but this isn’t helpful in the long run (if you’d like to read more about why this isn’t helpful, then click here).
So. Push yourself some. Leave a little in the tank. Live to train another day.
What Now?
Starting off at the gym can feel confusing. You want to hit your fitness goals, but uncertainty about what to do makes you, well, feel uncertain. You doubt you’ll get there.
When we understand things that negatively impact our progress though—like the three mistakes above—then we are more likely to be successful.
Warm up, follow a plan, and don’t crush yourself every workout. Doing so will help you make quicker progress towards your goals.
And, if you’d like some help with achieving your fitness goals, then click below to claim your free week at BSP NOVA.