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Get the most from your workouts by avoiding these common mistakes! I love fitness training. Not only is it my job but it’s also my passion. I really can’t imagine doing anything other than help people get and stay in shape. However, while helping people reach their fitness goals makes me as happy as can be, I hate seeing people waste their valuable exercise time on ineffective, unproductive or even dangerous workout routines and exercises. Whenever I see someone making a training mistake I do my best to step in and offer some helpful advice to ensure they are quickly back on the path to improved fitness and health but as I’m not always there, here are a few of the most common training mistakes I see and how to fix them! Lat pull downs/shoulder presses behind the neck Lowering a bar behind your neck is a great way to totally trash your shoulders. Very few of us have the necessary flexibility to perform this manoeuvre safely and instead end up pushing our heads forwards instead. In addition to flexibility issues, pulling anything behind your neck is very unnatural. When was the last time you climbed a ladder and put your head between the rungs as you went up? It’s just something that we don’t do. So, lowering a bar behind your neck increases wear and tear on your shoulder joint and has no practical carry over to real life activities and offers no advantage over lowering the bar to the front of your neck. Bar behind the neck? Unless it’s just resting there when you do squats or lunges; just don’t do it! Never changing your workout routine Exercise is a form of stress and once your body has been exposed to the same level of stress more than a few times there is no stimulus for increased fitness or strength development. For example, if you only ever run two mile in 20 minutes, that’s exactly as fit as your body will ever get. To improve your fitness you need to do a little more; run two mile in 19 minutes or run a little further. The same is true for strength training. If you only ever do 15 repetitions with 45lbs in the bench press, that’s pretty much as strong as you are going to get. If you want to get stronger, you need to do 16, 17 or 18 reps or try 47.5 or 50lbs. However you do it, you need to challenge your muscles a little more to force them to get stronger. Einstein said (and I paraphrase) “The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”. If you want to improve your current level of fitness, you need to push yourself out of your comfort zone a little and make your workouts slightly more challenging week after week. Sit ups for abs I like sit ups but as an ab exercise they aren’t always the best choice. Sit ups use your hip flexors almost as much as they use your abs and because most of us spend the vast majority of our time sat down, many people have very tight and disproportionately strong hip flexors anyway. This means that, for many exercisers, sit ups don’t even qualify as an ab exercise as those happy hip flexors take over and do all the work. In addition, your hip flexors attach onto your spine and as they take over from your abs when you are doing sit ups, they pull on your spine and this can lead to back pain. Not only can overactive hip flexors cause acute back pain, they also pull your pelvis forwards which a) makes your lower abdomen protrude and produces a nice pot-belly affect and b) causes the natural curve of your lower back to disappear which further increases lumbar spine pain. Sports like football, sprinting and soccer need strong hip flexors but the general exerciser, needs to increase ab strength without making the hip flexors even stronger. Instead of performing lots of sit ups, stick with bracing exercises such as the plank which train your abs without involving your hip flexors. This way your abs can “catch up” with your hip flexors and you can get a flat stomach without risking hip flexor-related injury. Always using resistance training machines Resistance training machines are designed to provide a safe and guided workout but are they actually that effective? In many cases, the answer is no. A resistance machine guides your limbs so that all you need to do is focus on pulling or pushing the load rather than balancing the weight and keeping your body properly aligned. Think of it like this; a locomotive train is on tracks and virtually steers itself whereas a racing car isn’t and the driver has to direct the car. That’s the difference between resistance machines and other less guided forms of exercise. Life isn’t like a train journey. The physical challenges we face every day come from all directions and when we are least prepared – not just when we are sat down and fully supported with our limbs being guided into the correct place by machinery. Lifting your groceries out of the trunk of your car and then carrying them up flights of stairs to your apartment being a good example of being able to operate in more than just a straight line. Instead of relying exclusively on resistance machines for your strength training, try using some alternative methods for making your muscles stronger; free weights, body weight exercises, suspension trainers like TRX, kettle bells and even resistance bands. Each one will train your muscles in a far more natural way that will have a very positive impact on your day to day fitness levels. Resistance machines are okay but building your workouts around less guided forms of exercise will provide you with far more exercise bang for your buck! So now you know how to avoid a few of the more common exercise pitfalls and what to do instead. If you are taking the time to exercise and putting the effort in, it only makes sense to try and get the best results you can. Think of your time as you would your money and invest it wisely, seeking the best return possible. Mark Darco is a professional personal trainer with 15 years experience and has worked with hundreds of clients. He has successfully completed multiple certifications and continues to provide fitness training to clients of all ages in the NYC area.
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