The whole reason you’re taking time out of your life to head to the gym is to workout to reach a fitness goal that you have set yourself, often to build lean muscle mass.
But there are a large percentage of gym users that fail to get the full effect from their workout as they often fall for these common pitfalls:
1. Make the gym a social meeting ground
There are so many gym users that have the best intentions to workout when they get to the gym, but they are frequently distracted by other users that they know, breaking their concentration.
You will have seen groups of gym goers stood around chatting about unrelated gym matters and this is exactly what you need to avoid, the time that you are in the gym is for training not conversing, so arrange to meet them after your session.
2. Overworking your muscles
Having the desire to improve your muscle mass will spur you on to wanting to head to the gym and put yourself through the mill but you have to remember that for your body to be able to effectively build muscle, it has to recover.
Resist all temptation to work any muscle group two days in a row as this will simply add stress to the muscle area and slow down the recovery and repair, something needed to strengthen them.
3. Skip cardio and go straight into heavy lifting
There will be a number of people that will disagree with this point but it comes down to what sort of goal you have set yourself, if you’re looking to gain lean muscle mass then it’s an absolute necessity.
If you are trying to convert fat into muscle, you simply can’t afford to skip the cardio aspect of your workout as this is the form of exercise that is going to build your metabolism up and increase the ability to burn your body’s fat stores.
4. Leave a set incomplete
So many bodybuilders have pushed themselves so hard that they don’t feel that they are able to complete all their sets for a certain exercise, but this isn’t the point in which you give up, even if you lift an incomplete set you still get the benefit.
In this situation you need to be looking to take a short 60 second break and resume your set where you left it, even with the gap between the reps, your body will benefit from the completion on the set.
If you try to lift the weight and fail to hit your reps for that set 3 times in a row coupled with rest, then it’s time to consider lowering your weight the next time round.
5. Compare yourself to another gym user
If there is anything that I have learnt from my own personal experience in the gym, you can generalise people around you, as you are likely to get a huge shock when it comes to them lifting weight.
Remember that to be strong a person doesn’t need to have huge biceps, instead they could have strengthened their muscles that they have without the push to develop muscle mass.
You should be looking to push yourself to the limits that your body is able to handle, not that of someone else. Trying to push yourself to someone else’s limits could result in a serious injury that could put your workouts firmly on hold.
Although, I do recommend trying to workout with someone who’s of a similar build and who lifts the same weight as you, this is provides a bit of healthy competition between yourselves which ultimately leads to better performances from the both of you.
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Author Bio
Jordan is a 23 year old personal trainer from Leeds, UK. When not smashing it hard in the gym he currently writes for a UK bodybuilding supplements website.
For more articles of his head over to http://supplementshack.co.uk/blog/
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