5 common mistakes affecting fitness goals

Many people who come into the fitness lifestyle and start workouts make some common mistakes which can hamper their overall fitness goals. 

The truth is that most of the people including me make some or the other mistake as beginners. But we should never stop learning from our mistakes, and what is good than a chance to prevent them?

Today I will share the 5 most common mistakes beginners make during their fitness journey. These are from my personal experience, and I will try to explain them in detail along with the tips so that the person reading it can avoid it.

NOT WARMING UP

Warming up and making your body ready before any exercise or heavy physical activity is the most important thing one should do. Proper warm ups and stretching before workouts help to:

• Prevent injury
• Ensure proper blood flow
• Prevent muscle cramps
• Boost the lifting capacity
• Make the body used to the activity
• Improve joint health and problems
• Reduce soreness

It is one of the mistake that I made during my beginner times. 

Leave gym, warming up is important before any kind of intense physical activity or sports including running, playing sports like cricket, football, swimming, etc.

Improving the blood circulation to all the body parts also helps to gain the energy needed for the activity along with injury prevention.

How to warm up?

Start with some dynamic stretching. Some examples:-

• 5 mins treadmill
• Arm rotations
• Spot jumps
• Body twists
• Neck rotation
• Toe touches
• Leg swings
• Shoulder rotations

You can check other dynamic stretches on google or YouTube.
After this, it is best if we workout the same muscles we are going to train next with some lighter weights.

Example:-

• If you are to do a bench press, do a few lifts with very light weights or just empty rod.
• Before weighted squats, always do some sets of normal squats.
• Doing pushups to warmup chest, pullups for back.
• If you are a runner, it is best to do light jogging.

It is always better to make the body used to the tasks or activity which we are going to perform at an intense level. For example, cricketers always warm up up before their actual match.

OVER TRAINING

Over training is something that 70% of the beginners do. It is due to the unawareness and lack of proper training. People think they will benefit from more and more training and achieve their goals fast. 

But unknowingly, they are hampering their fitness goals by over exerting their body. Proper recovery is must for the body to grow or develop. If you will over do your workouts, the muscles will not be able to recover themselves.

Tip:
Do not train a muscle more than twice or thrice a week. Do not exceed your workout time more than one and half hour. Arms training should not take more than 45 minutes to 60 minutes.

Signs that you are over training:-

• Excessive fatigue

If you are feeling extremely low on energy, not able to do other daily tasks and feeling tired is a sign of your over training. You have to keep in mind that fitness is a lifestyle. You have to do other essential tasks too. Fitness should never hamper your other tasks of life.

• Insomnia

If you are over training in the gym, your body's stress hormones will rise resulting in restlessness and improper sleep. Sleep is very essential if you want your body to recover from the intense workout sessions. If you will not get proper sleep, your muscles will not recover affecting growth.

• Decreased performance

Due to inability to recover, your body will not be ready to train again the other day which will decrease your performance.

SKIPPING LEG DAYS

We just love to train our biceps and chest etc. But we often ignore leg days as a beginner. Never skip leg days. It helps to boost the testosterone level in the body. Testosterone is the hormone that helps in muscle building. 

Also, if you will just train your upper body ignoring the lower body, the overall structure and upper-lower body's proportion will not match. You must have seen lot of guys with a huge upper body and stick-like legs. Does that look good? This is the reason behind that.

Benefits of leg day:

• Cardio benefits

Leg day workouts like squats, leg press help to get your heart rate up for some cardio and intense activity. A great time saver as it is giving the benefits of both resistance training and cardio. Stop running for hours on treadmill, try some leg workouts.

• Development of core (ab muscles)

Compound movements like squats help to engage the core. It helps your ab muscles to develop. So, it saves time and efforts to train them separately sometimes.

• Helps lose weight

Leg days are intense and super taxing. It is really beneficial for those looking to lose some weight. The workouts help to burn the calories at a very great rate. A research says that an average 70 kgs person can lose 133 calories per 30 minutes during a leg day. So, make the math yourself, running endlessly on a treadmill, or leg day?

• Helps other movements

Legs act as a great support while generating power for your heavy compound lifts like benching etc. You can drive power from your leg to lift heavy weights. Also, stronger legs means more power while running, cycling, swimming etc.

NOT FOCUSING ON DIET

Diet is the key to any of your fitness goal. People just focus on their workout and often ignore diet. This is the reason your growth slows down. As I have said earlier, it is 70% diet and 30% exercise. So, you have to make and follow a proper diet plan to meet your daily nutrition requirements. Protein, among which, is the most important.

Protein is the macro which helps in muscle building and recovery. Try to consume 1.5 to 2 grams of protein per kg of body weight. 70 kgs guy must consume 120-140 grams protein daily. If you are training hard and intense, but not consuming proper diet, you will never progress.

Those trying to gain weight must eat in a caloric surplus while the ones trying to lose should be in a deficit.

If you are trying to maintain your current weight, focus on your maintenance calories.

IMPROPER FORM (EGO LIFTING)

As beginners go to the gym, they see people lifting huge loads which affects their ego. They are like, Why can't I? 

One thing one should see is that as a beginner, our body is not used to such heavy and intense training. 

Also, you should first practice and master the form of various exercises. Lifting heavy with improper form will result in nothing but injury. 

It leads to involvement of many other muscles rather than the one which we are actually training. 

Remember, an ego lift can lead to some severe injury which can stop your fitness journey even for whole life.

Keeping your ego aside and ignoring others, first learn and practice the moves with proper form. Once the form is mastered, try to increase the weights gradually. 

Never do ego lifting. It has benefited none. Always try to perform the exercise with a proper form and a weight that you can handle. 

The word "heavy" is different for everyone. 50 kgs on a bench might be heavy for someone and light for the other. Lift heavy, but according to your own capacity and not by seeing others.