Fitness 101

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