The 5 biggest fitness mistakes you are making…

gym-mistakeThe purpose of this article is to outline the 5 biggest mistakes you are making with your training and nutrition. The purpose of this article is not to belittle anyone who exercises but to help you reap the progressions and outcomes you want…after all, any exercise is far better and positive than not exercising at all.

During our Personal Training qualifications at FLM Training we spend a lot of time discussing and outlining strategies to help clients change their behaviours and also how to improve their current practices for the better. Below are 5 of the most common and possibly biggest mistakes we make when we first start training. Please let us know what you think about this article on social media or comment below…

 

  1. Exercising for too long: Quite often when clients first start training they base the quality of the training session on duration rather than the intensity and relevance. As I mentioned above, any form of training is far better than not training at all but, the key to success in the gym is the quality of what we do and not the quantity. Our tip is to focus on intensity rather than the duration: after all we could all spend two hours in the gym but not break a sweat.

 

  1. Only doing one type of exercise: Not only can this become boring and cause a plateau in your progress, it can also cause injury. Repeating the same training session, style or method every time you train can cause strains on muscles and joints. As well as this, after a period of time of doing the same thing your body will adapt and progress will slow down if not stop altogether. What’s even more important for beginners is that the same thing day in day out can become boring which will result in them potentially giving up or losing interest.

 

  1. Fad diets: Those of you who know us at FLM Training are aware just how nutrition minded we are and how we like to focus on natural, wholesome and quality orientated foods. We strongly advise our students who complete our Nutrition qualification to stay away from the ‘magic pill’, ‘shake diets’ and social media fads such as intermittent fasting. There’s no doubt these methods and others have had success with clients, but at what cost? If the results you see or hear of from individuals recommending these quick fixes seem too good to be true then in most cases they usually are. *Tip – For nutrition advice please visit a qualified and reputable nutritionist or dietician.

 

  1. Not eating enough!: Whilst we are discussing nutrition, one of the biggest mistakes I see when beginners first start training and exercising for fat loss is that they stop eating or drastically reduce what they’re eating to help illicit fat loss. The main concerns and considerations for this are: Lack of energy to train, these types of diets only last so long before the client gives up, lack of social aspect to dieting like this and also metabolic and physiological issues such as the down regulation of the Thyroid gland (which results in fat loss becoming more difficult). With this in mind, most clients would benefit from simply swapping or improving their food choices initially along with adopting a more active lifestyle – thus creating an energy/calorie deficit.

 

  1. FUN: If exercise becomes a choir or is not fun, then why would anyone stick with it? If you are thinking about becoming more active or joining a gym, make sure what you do is fun and something you look forward to doing. I’ve often come across clients and friends say things like “Ucchh I’m going spinning again tonight and I don’t actually like it, I just want to lose weight”. In cases like this the new behaviour (exercise) will cease and revert back to the original behaviour which was sedate… so make sure you have FUN!

 

Recap: Don’t evaluate your training session on duration but rather focus on quality and intensity. Be smart and alternate your training as well as make it fun so it doesn’t become boring or a choir. In regards to nutrition, don’t starve yourself, be smart and stay away from any fad style diets but focus on wholesome good quality food.

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