It happens far too frequently.  A person starts up a new exercise program with the intention to lose weight and get fit, but at some point ends up getting too much pain and not enough gain out of their workout.  Exercise can be beneficial for your health and fitness, but if it is done incorrectly you can miss out on these benefits and possibly hurt yourself in the process.  Here are several common exercise mistakes to avoid:

Stretching before warmup.    It used to be a common practice to stretch first before exercising, but studies have now shown that stretching cold is more likely to cause injury instead of preventing it.  Your body needs a chance to warm up to get the blood flowing, improve muscle elasticity, and spread fluid in the joints to lubricate and cushion them.  Warm up with 5 minutes of light cardiovascular activity and then carefully stretch the muscles.  The best time to stretch is at the end of a workout when the muscles are still warm, which can help reduce muscle soreness later.

Not enough recovery time.  Working out everyday sounds like a great idea, but if you are trying to build muscle through weight training you need to give your muscles time to recover, recuperate and rebuild.  Most muscles recover within 24-48 hours, so you need to give them a day off to recover or work a split routine (legs on one day, upper body the next).  Abdominals recover quickly so you can work on that six-pack every day.

Frontally focused.  Many people only work on building the muscle they can see in the mirror (abs, chest, biceps) and neglect the muscles on the back side (back, triceps, hamstrings).  This can lead to postural imbalance, limitations to flexibility, and potential injury.  Try to work opposing muscle groups such as chest and back, biceps and triceps.

Bad technique.  It is a far too frequent sight:  the guy in the gym swinging the weights around awkwardly with the best intentions but no clue what he is doing.  Read up on proper technique or hire a personal trainer to avoid some of the bad techniques that can cause injury or slow down your progress.  Avoid jerky motions, locking out the joints, and using momentum.  Concentrate on slow, controlled lifts through a full range of motion, using an appropriate amount of weight.

Doing the same thing.  Your body adapts to the challenges you give it, so eventually it will adapt to a regular exercise program.  To make further gains you need to change up your workout regularly.  Try different exercises that work the same muscle, use different angles or grips to emphasize specific muscle areas, add a balance component to work stabilizing muscles, or simply try to increase the duration, intensity, or frequency of the workout to make further progress.

Neglecting to weight train.  Losing weight involves reducing calories taken in (proper diet) and increasing calories expended (exercise and metabolism).  Many people focus on dieting and burning off lots of calories with aerobic exercise, but they tend to neglect weight training as part of their program.  Weight training not only provides functional benefits of improved muscular endurance, strength, tone, and posture; but also helps boost your metabolism.  Muscle burns more calories than fat, so building muscle helps you continuously increase the calories expended side of weight loss.

Lack of focus.  To make progress, you first need goals.  Plan out an exercise program based on your specific goals and be efficient with your time in the gym.  Avoid wasting your time wandering around the gym aimlessly or halfheartedly walking on a treadmill while reading a book.  Exercise with purpose and increase the quality of each movement.

- Darin Smith, PE/PFT Instructor, Highline Community College

Many people understand the benefits that exercise has to offer and know they should exercise regularly to maintain their health and fitness.  Some of these people may take the initial steps necessary to get started and join a gym, hire a trainer, and start an exercise program with the best intentions of improving their fitness.  Unfortunately, 50% of people that start an exercise program will quit within 6 months.  It turns out that just having the intention to exercise is not enough to stick with it for the long haul.  The good news is that there are some easy ways to help improve your exercise adherence and keep your new piece of exercise equipment from becoming a coat rack.

Do something fun!  Exercise doesn’t have to be a pain.  Whether it is kickboxing or pilates, boot camp or bellydancing: if it’s something you enjoy doing, you are much more likely to keep at it.  (See the A-Z’s of cardio for a few creative ideas).

Set it in your schedule.  Too often we say, “I’ll try to fit in a workout later if I have time”.  Unfortunately, when “later” does arrive, we are usually to busy or tired to exercise. Make exercise an important part of your regular schedule, and don’t make excuses.  Even better, sign up for an exercise class with a set schedule. 

Work out with a partner.  Get some support by finding a workout partner or group to exercise with.  People who work out with a friend or spouse are far more likely to stay on track.  Another possibility would be to work with a personal trainer.  Personal trainers provide valuable information on proper workout form and help motivate their clients to reach their fitness goals. 

Find a convenient place to exercise.  Having access to fitness facilities that are convenient and close by makes it easier to stick with your exercise plan.  Interestingly enough, if the exercise location is too convenient (i.e., buying a home gym) it can actually backfire and cause you to get distracted and forego the workout when you are already comfortable at home.  Sometimes making the trip to the gym gives you the focus and motivation needed to get a good workout.

Have meaningful, health-related goals.  People who exercise to improve physical fitness and health tend to stick with exercise more than those who simply want to look good in a swimsuit over spring break or fit into a wedding dress for one day.  In addition, it is very motivational to define these goals and write them down so they are more concrete.  “Ink it, don’t just think it!”

Provide cues for exercise.  Put up motivational signs, posters, or cartoons that remind you to work out.  Place your running shoes in front of your door or your workout bag in your car seat for further encouragement.

Do it in short bouts.  You don’t need to exercise all day to see benefits.  Research shows that moderate-intensity physical activity can be accumulated throughout the day in 10-minute bouts, which can help squeeze some exercise sessions into a busy schedule.  Take the dog for a walk in the morning, go for a stroll during your lunch break, and go for a scenic bike ride after work and you’ve accumulated enough cardio to gain some benefits.

Focus on intrinsic rewards instead of extrinsic ones.  Intrinsic rewards are things like fun, social interaction, health benefits, fitness improvements, and good feelings that provide some personal, internal benefit.  Extrinsic awards are things like money, prizes, trophies, free t-shirts, and other material items that come from external sources and provide some small enjoyment.  What is often the case is that extrinsic rewards may be initially attractive, but intrinsic rewards are what keep people involved in an activity over the long haul.  That free t-shirt may have got you to join the gym, but feeling good about yourself and enjoying the health benefits of your exercise program are what keep you coming back.

Use dissociation strategies.  What people focus their attention on during exercise actually has a big effect on adherence.  When the focus is on internal body feedback or association (e.g., breathing, how the muscles feel), exercise attendance and adherence is lower than for dissociative strategies which focus on the external environment (how nice the scenery is).  The idea is that people who focus on the external environment may reduce a person’s boredom, discomfort, and fatigue.  For this reason, many people select a stimulating environment to work out in and also listen to music or read magazines on treadmills to take their minds off the internal, associative aspects of the exercise.

Improve self-efficacy.  Self-efficacy refers to “situation-specific self-confidence” or your belief in your ability to successfully perform a certain task.  If you increase your self-efficacy for exercise, you are much more likely to not only stick with it, but also get a great deal of satisfaction from your accomplishment.  You can improve your self-efficacy for exercise by setting yourself up for positive experiences.  This means starting slow with a focus on doing the basic movements correctly instead of jumping into difficult, complex exercises that may leave you feeling overwhelmed or intimidated.  Personal trainers are experts in building their client’s confidence early on with encouragement and a safe, structured approach to increasing the training difficulty.

Alternate activities to prevent boredom.  Some people don’t stick with exercise because they say it is boring.  “All I do is run and it gets repetitive”, they might complain.  The good news is that there are hundreds of different exercises and training techniques to choose from.  When you are weight training in the gym, try different combinations of free weights, weight machines, resistance bands, bodyweight exercises, and plyometrics exercises to keep things interesting and to give your muscles more variety of stimulation.  You can also use cross-training to avoid boredom.  Cross-training involves using different modes of exercise to reach your goals.  For instance, bike one day, swim the next, and then do martial arts the following day.

Darin Smith – PE/PFT Instructor, Highline Community College

People often tell me that they want to work out and improve their cardio, but they hate to run.  I am often baffled by this statement and reply, “Well, why don’t you try something else?”  They often seem confused by my answer and ask what else they can do to enhance their cardiorespiratory fitness.

Certainly running, jogging, biking, and swimming have been around for many years and all of them provide the necessary repetitive large-muscle movements and continuous oxygen use that defines aerobic activity and enhances the performance of the heart and lungs.  What many people don’t realize though is how many fun and creative new forms of cardiovascular exercises are now available in 2009.  We have come a long way since running, biking, and swimming were your only choices.

There are so many new and interesting forms of exercise available today that I bet I can name at least one for each letter of the alphabet.  Let’s give it a whirl.

Aerobic step – These are aerobic exercise classes that involve routines (usually along with upbeat music) of stepping on special platforms. 

Bellydancing – Believe it or not, this form of dancing has become a popular group exercise class in some gyms and it works on your core (abs) as well as your cardio.

Cardiokickboxing – The cardiovascular benefits of martial arts are well known and utilized in a simplified format of kicking, punching, and blocking done to music.

Dancing – Dancing is a great form of cardio and can be done in traditional dance classes or in a group exercise setting as an aerobic dance class.

Elliptical machine – This is a cardio machine that involves gliding foot movements and long handles that work the upper body.  It is a great low-impact alternative to the treadmill.

Forza – Think cardiokickboxing with wooden swords.  If that seems too obscure, how about Field hockey, an outdoor variant of ice hockey.

Gymnastics – Tumbling, jumping, rolling:  what better way is there to have fun and work out?  Kids and adults both can enjoy taking these classes.

Handball or hockey – Either one of these sports will get your heart beating faster.

Interval training – This isn’t so much a particular mode of exercise than a training method.  Start at a low intensity (running, biking, etc) and then go for a couple of minutes at high intensity.  Continue to work alternating periods of high and low intensity intervals for a period of 30-60 minutes and you will have the benefit of pushing those higher limits of your target heart rate without the downside of early fatigue.

Jump rope – This piece of equipment is not just for boxers and little girls anymore.  Grab a speed rope, a rope with weighted handles, or even a digital jump rope and try some fun tricks (double jumps, crossovers, single leg hops).

Kung fu, karate, kickboxing – These traditional martial arts involve extensive use of the arms, legs and entire body that will boost your cardio and give you a new skill.

Lacrosse – This physically demanding team sport is guaranteed to push your cardio to new limits.

Mixed martial arts (MMA) – This combination of boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, and groundfighting has become very popular and has inspired many innovative new training methods. 

Nia – An eclectic mix of yoga, dance, tai chi, and martial arts with a focus on breathing techniques and body awareness.

Orienteering – A family of sports that involves using navigational skills to race against the clock to reach specific points on a map, typically hiking or biking through unfamiliar terrain.

Parkour – Often known as “free running”, this urban sport involves efficient manipulation of the body over, under, and around obstacles using a variety of jumping and climbing movements.

Quidditch (Muggle version) – I know you didn’t think I could find one for Q, but here it is.  Fans of the popular Harry Potter series have loosely adapted the wizarding sport into a fun version for muggles (non-wizards) that utilizes a creative mixture of hula hoops, tennis rackets, volleyballs, and nerf balls. 

Recess classes – Recess isn’t just for kids anymore.  Some gyms have group exercise classes that throw together some old favorites from childhood (dodgeball, floor hockey, obstacle courses, tag, jump rope, and a variety of games) to trick adults into having some fun while they exercise.

Spinning – Imagine biking in an aerobics class.  That is spinning.  The participants adjust the difficulty of the stationary bikes using a braking mechanism to simulate biking through hills and valleys while the instructor gives commands to stand, sit, or vary the speed and resistance.

Trampolining – Whether you are just bouncing or flipping continuously on a trampoline in your yard or doing a hard-core aerobic jumping workout at a large trampoline facility the size of a football field (there is one in Las Vegas that UFC star Randy Coutre frequents), you will quickly see the benefits of this bouncy form of cardio training.

Ultimate Frisbee – Kind of like touch football and Frisbee combined; this sport is fun and one of the most demanding cardio workouts I’ve run into.

Volleyball – This classic team sport involving a ball and a net can be played indoors, or for a real cardio challenge, played outdoors in the sand.

X-treme sports – I know I cheated on this one, but come on.  Extreme sports loosely refers to adventurous, somewhat dangerous activities that usually includes skateboarding, snowboarding, surfing, skiing, snowboarding, and rock climbing to name a few.

Yoga (flow) – A form of exercise and physical/mental discipline that has been around for hundreds of years, yoga involves a system of postures that emphasize flexibility, posture, balance, body awareness, relaxation, and proper breathing patterns.  Flow yoga (Vinyasa yoga) involves continuously moving (or flowing) from one posture to another.

Zumba – A dynamic fitness program involving aerobic dance moves to a Latin rhythm.  A very popular way to dance your way to cardio fitness!

Although this list is by no means complete, I think you get my point.  Cardio is much, much more than just running.  So have fun exploring the many options that are available and maybe you will come up with your own new exercise alphabet!

- Darin Smith, PE/PFT Instructor, Highline Community College

Human beings are capable of accomplishing great feats, but often we first have to overcome some sort of obstacle or barrier to get there.  Sometimes these barriers may be self-imposed limits on what we think we are capable of.  Unfortunately, the power of expectations can have very negative effects on a person’s performance or beliefs regarding their abilities.  These psychological barriers are all too common in both sports and exercise.

Too often when someone is thinking about starting an exercise program they might make statements like “I am too out of shape/overweight/old to start working out”, “If I work out, I’ll hurt myself”,  “I’m not an athletic person and I don’t belong in a gym”, or “Weight training techniques are too hard for me to learn”.  If a person says these things often enough, that person begins to believe that these limitations are real.  At that point it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A self-fulfilling prophecy is what occurs when the expectations of some outcome (positive or negative) actually helps cause that outcome to happen.  This is considered a negative event when it sets up a psychological barrier for a person that leads them to expect failure and, in turn, causes them to fail.  In short, if you believe you are going to fail, you probably already have.

An interesting example of someone who overcame a negative self-fulfilling prophecy is a man named Roger Bannister.  For a long time it was assumed by most people that it was not possible for a human to run a mile in less than 4 minutes.  Many runners came close at 4:03, 4:02, and 4:01, but most runners accepted that a 4 minute mile was physiologically impossible.  Then in 1954, Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile.  What is most interesting about this feat is that the year after he broke the record, more than a dozen other runners broke the 4 minute mile.  Since then the time has dropped by 17 seconds and a 4 minute mile is now considered a standard for all professional middle distance runners. 

So what happened?  Did all these runners suddenly get faster?  Did their training techniques rapidly advance in the year after Bannister broke the record?  More likely what happened was that the psychological barrier of the 4 minute mile was removed when Bannister showed that it was possible.  Runners finally believed it could be done and stopped placing a self-imposed limit on what they could do.

A personal example of this phenomenon occurred when I was running a plyometrics (jump training) program for a girl’s softball team. They had a group called the “5 club” where people who could jump up and down on a series of 4 boxes of increasing size 5 times in 30 seconds would be listed.  Most people in the group had managed to make it 5 times through this rabbit hop drill in 30 seconds, but only 1 girl was fast enough for the “6 club”.  The coach and many of the athletes figured that more than 5 times through was not possible for almost everyone on the team.  Late in the semester I gave them the challenge that if 1 person made the route 6 times through I’d get rid of the exercise for the rest of practice.  They were suddenly motivated to push themselves harder and 3 people did it.  I offered this same bargain during the next practice and 3 more people made it.  By the end of the semester, everyone in the class made it into the “6 club”.

One final example that comes to mind is the self-fulfilling prophecy of age and physical activity.  While the aging process does have a deteriorating effect on your physical and mental abilities through the life span, many older adults allow their abilities to degrade faster through negative expectations that result in negative self-fulfilling prophecies.  You might hear some older adults explain their condition by saying “I am too old to exercise”, “I am supposed to get fat and lose muscle as I age”, or “I can’t maintain my muscles as I get older”.  Exercise (cardio and weight training) are very effective in older adults and can help them maintain their physical abilities for quite a long time.  However, many older adults believe in those expectations I just stated and stop being active, which causes them to get weaker.  Then as they get weaker and their muscles atrophy from disuse, they assume it is a result of the aging process which further perpetuates the self-fulfilling prophecy that “old people get weak with age and shouldn’t bother with exercise”.

The lesson here is that belief and expectations can be powerful forces for good or bad.  If you lack confidence and are unsure of yourself, you can easily talk yourself out of exercising and can even impose imaginary limits on yourself that hold you back from your full potential.  However if you have confidence, believe in your abilities, and are willing to try, you can create a positive self-fulfilling prophecy with statements like “I will stick with my exercise program”, “I will lose those 20 pounds”, and “I will get my heart in better shape”.

- Darin Smith, PE/PFT Instructor, Highline Community College