Hey Gym Rats!!!!
Are you hitting the gym day in and day out sweating like a freak of nature but still not seeing any change? Are you tired of working you A** off and seeing nothing different when you look in the mirror? Are you in a plateau and feel like you just can't break FREE?Well my friends, chances are, you probably fall into the 90% of the population who is making if not 1, multiple of the mistakes listed below! The more and more I get into training others, the more I realize just undereducated people are about fitness, but even more than that, how misled they are about it.
The creepiest part about this, is it's not even your fault. We are bombarded daily with BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars of marketing. Each new ad and each new product promising to be the "magic answer" to our fat loss or fitness dreams. They put big buff men, or slim, sexy females on the screens and on the pages of magazines and they get them to hold up this bottle of "new magic" and tell you how it changed their world. How it made them lose 10lbs of fat in 3 weeks or gain 10 "new" lbs of lean muscle in just 1 month! All the while knowing dam well, they have been doing this for years and years! This game of fitness takes time! STOP setting unrealistic goals for yourself and start believing in the power that you CAN to change if you just set your mind to it. Please just realize that it took you your entire life to get to where you are at right now. Its not going to change overnight or even in a month. This is a life change that you need to make FOREVER!
Instead of relying on the "new magic", rely more on the POWER of YOU! Learn and study proper nutrition and exactly what your specific body will need to survive and feed itself. Make sure you are drinking plenty of WATER! Learn how to PROPERLY lift weights to benefit your body and not your EGO (MEN ESPECIALLY). Have a plan of attack and attack your plan. Whatever you do, once you set up the blinders, stay focused, stay determined, stay driven! Let NO ONE or NO THING get in your way! Be REAL WITH YOURSELF and YOUR EXPECTATIONS!
Listed Below are 10 Very Common Mistakes I see people making in the gym all the time and should be AVOIDED by all costs. They are holding you back from achieving your GOALS.
Mistake #1:
Warming up your Muscles with Cardio Training
This is a very common mistake people make because they think the sweat they create when performing cardio is a good enough warm up to weight lifting. Performing cardio before weight training will actually take away from the intensity when you lift. The best warm up is physical rehearsal. This means going through the motions you will be performing during your workout. You must warm up the joints, tendons, ligaments, and muscles that are involved in the exercise you are about to perform. Get the blood pumping into the cavity and get them ready to handle some heavier weight. I typically like to do anywhere from 3-5 WARM UP SETS alone before I go into my working weight sets. This is especially important for me personally when I am about to smash my legs or my shoulders. Legs for the reason of just pumping enough blood in there to handle what I am about to do to them, and shoulders as the rotator cuff is one of the easiest muscles to injur and for me its not worth the risk of what a simple 5-10 extra mins of warm-up could do.
Mistake #2:
Skipping the Dreaded Leg Day
Believe me boys and girls, I understand exactly how you feel when it comes to legs. Each and every Monday is my least favorite day of going to the gym. IT'S THE DREADED LEG DAY! I push my legs so hard that they literally hurt for almost a week afterwards! The legs are a massive muscle group that cannot be forgotten! Training them with compound movements like squats and dead lifts releases MASSIVE amounts of muscle building testosterone! There is not 1 single exercise that can outdo what a good proper squat can do for you. It is the ultimate FULL BODY exercise when done correctly. Problem is, NO ONE (at least 90%) does them correctly. Instead you are all to eager to lift with your ego. It kills me to see someone get all pumped up in front of the squat rack. They load up 315+ on the bar, strap it in to the shoulders and then they step back and maybe if they are lucky go down a 1/2 inch and then back up. They make all this noise, grunting and groaning like a dying animal and the worst part is, they should have just left it right were it was because what they just did was nothing besides make themselves look like idiots. But thanks for a good laugh! Needless to say, DON'T SKIP LEGS!!!!
Mistake #3:
Not Training to Failure
The last one to two reps before Failure and after Failure is where the magic happens. That gorge of blood that rushes into the muscle is full of the nutrients your muscle is looking for. Training to failure is critical if your goal is to add substantial amounts of lean muscle. Muscle does not understand weight, but it does understand Failure! You must force the muscle and give it a reason to grow. If not, you will always just remain the way you are. SPECIAL NOTE: to all of you like myself that are over the age of 25!!!! The ONLY way for you to grow "new muscle" is to recruit what's called Satellite Cells from the outside of your muscles fibers and give them a reason to come into the fiber. These new Satellite Cells will then act as NEW nuclei, which will then allow your fiber to grow larger than it was. Did you get all that Science gumbo? Basically, if you do not "stress out" each muscle fiber to the point that it needs to call for help from its friends, your muscle mass will NOT change! Control the weight you are lifting and focus more on making your muscle FAIL vs how much weight you are picking up.Mistake #4:
Not Training with a "Full Range of Motion"
You've all seen this shit before. - Average guy, 315lbs on the bench/squat and then a quarter rep! Training your ego is a huge mistake and unfortunately is a huge downfall of most men in the gym. For some reason guys always have to have something to prove. In this case though, avoiding full range of motion results in strength development at the top of end of the exercise. This can lead to serious injury from uneven strength developments in your tendons. Not to mention that your muscles will not grow in evenly and you will look all messed up (if you are even to grow in the first place). Make sure you use a weight that you can move through a full range of motion without breaking form. If you can't control the weight all the way through, you are using to much. Drop the weight and focus on the pump and the full range up and down. No matter what body part or exercise you may be doing. You'll get significantly bigger, and it's less likely to tear yourself apart.
Mistake #5:
Doing Shrugs to Build Traps
Large
traps are built from dead lifts and rows. Why? The traps have a
transverse origin and insertion point so raising the clavicle upwards
has no effect on the entire muscle. Yes you read right! Read it again
if you have, but all you big bad monsters who walk up to the rack, grab
those 110 lbs dumbbells and shrug, shrug away, you are just wasting your
time. Ever notice why they are really not growing that much. Save
your energy and put it towards something more productive.Mistake #6:
Following what "Pro Bodybuilders" Do
It's very easy to confuse talent with knowledge. Professional bodybuilders who take performance enhancing drugs and have elite level genetics can get away with almost anything in the gym. First and foremost, they are on DRUGS to help with this and you and I am not! Not to mention, that the majority of the training programs you find in popular bodybuilding magazines/on-line forums are usually ghost written and are not the pro's actual routine. Meaning some small, average person just like us, studied a book and now they think they are exercise God's or something. It goes without saying, but please, please STOP believing all the SHIT, BULLSHIT, LIES, NON-SENSE and any others you can think of that you read in these publications. Sure if you follow some of them, you will see results and you will get something out of it, but please don't believe that you are going to turn into Ronnie Coleman or Jay Cutler from doing the program that listed their pictures above it. If someone paid you $80,000 to say it was your shit, your would say it was your shit as well! Be smart people and use that brain of yours.
Mistake #7:
Locking Out
Locking out takes tension off the working muscle. It's very important that you don't lock out and do not pause at any point of the movement. Remember that a muscle will grow from time under pressure. your job while lifting is not to lift the most weight, but instead to force the most blood. The longer you can keep the muscle under pressure, the better your chances are of incorporating satellite cells from the outside of your fibers to come into the fiber and act as new nuclei, which in turn would then make that muscle fiber grow. What matters is not how fast you move the weight, but how fast the muscle moving the weight contracts.
- When working your triceps, locking out does not pertain. When hitting the triceps, locking out is actually a huge benefit and you need to hit those upper heads. All the way up and ALL the way down when it comes to triceps. Keep those elbows in tight and locked and do not let your shoulder get involved with the lifts. I see this all to much as well.
Mistake #8:
Not Doing Cardio
Building
a lean and muscular body needs more than heavy lifting. Cardio is an
important part of your overall conditioning, even on a mass gaining
program. Cardio keeps your body fat in check and your metabolism up! The
goal of the overall "ultimate" body is to be a fat burning, muscle
building machine. You must incorporate cardio into your plans. It is
best to either do cardio right after lifting weights, or as I prefer to
do, first thing in the A.M. I prefer this way for me as I am able to
exercise on an empty stomach which will allow my body to pull energy
from my fat vs the food in my belly. If you throw in a good old strong
cup of black coffee about 20 mins before, you can jack your fat burning
systems up even higher.- Note: When I am on an overload week and I am trying to add size, I do not go crazy with the cardio, but still keep it to at least 3 days a week for about 30 mins. I dial down the intensity quite a bit and just go for a morning stroll to get the blood going and wake up. On deplete weeks when I am trying to shred up, I go for 5 days a week for 45 min sessions. This really helps strip my body of the junk and gets me really cut up. Plus I am able to prep my body for the overload phase and really take advantage of the anabolic window you have when this is done properly.
Mistake #9:
Zero Intensity
Showing up to the gym is the fucking easy part. I know for some of you, it is hard, but trust me when you train like I do, getting to the gym is like second nature. Showing up with no energy, a bad attitude, and no desire to lift will simply lead to a terrible workout! You are honestly better off to just go home and let your body rest. Come back later on or the next day when you are ready to go. Intensity is what separates the men from the boys – and it’s what guarantees results! Next time you go into your gym, count for me how many people you see truly grinding it out. How many of them are dripping sweat all over the floor and look like they are going to die. I know in my gym, its always me. I usually get lots of people talking and looking at the crazy shit I do, but all that's doing for them is NOTHING! They take 5-10 mins between sets, talk on the phone, walk away to see a chic or guy and flirt and many other things. Are you kidding me? Do you understand why you have been coming to he gym for over a fucking year and have not changed at all? Do you honestly think the HOT girl or guy in the gym is going to make your muscles grow? Well maybe one if your lucky, but I'm sure its not gonna happen if all you are doing is standing around looking like a yo yo that has no clue. Step up to the plate each and every time you hit the gym. IT'S THE ONLY WAY!!!
Mistake #10:
Showing up with No Plan of Attack and No Heart/Passion
This is by far the # 1 thing that I think is going to make or break people. I cannot stress to you enough about planning ahead. Take the time to find a good program for yourself and then print that SOB out and make yourself a workout binder! I can literally go back almost 2 yrs ago and see exactly where I was at. I have kept track of the weights I used and the # of reps I performed. If you don't have a plan, you are just planning to fail! Trying to make up a program to follow as you go is just going to waste time. You will lose your pump, focus and intensity if you give yourself time to just stand there and look around the gym like an idiot as to what you should do next. I see this all the time and all I can do is shake my head. Again folks if you don't keep the intensity up, don't expect to see results. Not only will this help you as you work out and keep you focused, you will be able to look back weeks at a time and see just how far you have come. Right along with this is heart! I am not going to go to deep into this, but without heart, belief and passion, you might as well just stop and give up before you waste your time!
I hope this helped some of you out. Please feel free to leave your questions or comments. We look forward to helping you the best we can reach your true fitness goals.
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