Nobody’s perfect. We all fuck up every now and then, but as long as something is learned from them, then it’s possible to turn a negative into a positive. Sit and observe an even half filled gym for any given five-minute period and you will be able to pick out at least a handful of terrible mistakes.
Making an error on a math test will just take points off your final score. But in the gym, you can really fuck yourself up. Blow out a knee; tear a pec or break a bone and you will be sitting around waiting to heal.
Hopefully you will not read this list and say, “Oh, yeah…I do that” for most or all of them.
1 . INFREQUENCY AND DISORGANIZATION
The number one mistake that people make is a two-fold one and the main part is that they do not get their asses to the gym enough. They’ll go twice one week, three times the next and then once. You’ll never get your body accustomed to what you’re trying to do and this will not only lead to soreness, but perhaps a minor injury such as a pulled or strained muscle.
And when you are doing this haphazard type of workout “schedule,” chances are that you’ll be skipping body parts or doing a push or pull part back-to-back. In a perfect world, you want to mix these days up as to not hit a secondary muscle the day after you just worked it.
If you only have three days to commit to the gym, think about what you want to do before getting there – with the next time you’ll train in mind, as well. You can work the entire body in three days when planned out properly. It’s not ideal, but doable.
2. TOO MUCH WEIGHT, SHORT RANGE OF MOTION, IMPROPER FORM
All three of these go hand in hand and usually all stem from the ‘too much weight’ part. Someone will grab a set of dumbbells for standing alternate curls on bicep day and right away they are doing more bad than they are good.
Their intentions may be good but as soon as they try to do the first rep, it’s apparent that the swinging motion and momentum is doing the work rather than the bicep muscles. Stopping short at the top of the rep, letting the weight fall back down during the negative portion with no control and then preventing the elbow from opening up are all detrimental to the rep.
Some of these people have done their homework and viewed You Tube videos of Ronnie Coleman and Jay Cutler throwing up 60-pound dumbbells like they are toys, using a swinging motion and not the best form. But these are IFBB pros and guys that have been training for decades. They may be doing these ‘power curls’ for the camera and the wow factor. But they did not build their biceps by dong this earlier in their lives.
3. FLUCTUATING REST PERIODS
This one is very common and it difficult to control at times. If possible, try to keep each rest period in the one-minute range. But there will be times when a friend will ask you a question in between sets and you don’t want to look like a dick, so of course you’re going to engage in a little small talk. It’s going to happen and you’ll have to live with it. But that one and off rest time periods can really kill your pump and make you start back at the bottom by the time you pick up the weight again.
Another reason is when you get affixed with something on the gym television set and this happens a lot to the early morning workout crowd catching up on the sports highlights from the previous evening after they went to sleep.
Just try to be cognizant of it and do the best that you can. Not the end of the world if you spent three extra minutes taking in that fourth quarter comeback from the Clippers game.
4. LEAVE THAT FUCKIN’ CELL PHONE IN THE LOCKER
If you are even somewhat serious about working out, there is no reason to have your cell phone on the gym floor with you. Outside of your wife being nine months pregnant or some other kind of family emergency, that text or call can wait until you get back to the locker room.
The douche bag leaning his face on the phone while trying to do cable triceps pushdowns not only looks ridiculous, but is doing nothing for his body. If you have no choice but to take that oh-so-important call, at least take it into the locker room of outside the gym. Don’t sit on a bench that someone else could be using to make your plans to get laid that night.
5. DOING THE SAME EXERCSIES IN THE SAME ORDER
Even if you make sure to not make the above four mistakes, you may be doing this last one and not even realizing it. People get into a routine in all walks of life and this frequently happens in the gym.
You go through a trial and error period and find what works best for you. These four movements for each body part give you the best pump and you are making nice gains. Months go by and although you’re still feeling great after each workout, you also feel that you may be hitting a wall and your gains have curtailed.
It is a simple solution and happens to the best of them. All you need to do is mix it up and start with a different order of exercises. After a while, replace one or two of them with different ones, maybe even the kind that didn’t work great for you in the past. Maybe now you will feel it better and actually want to make them a steady component of your workout.