You may be exercising regularly but maybe you are not achieving the results you desire or think you should be achieving for the amount of time you are investing in your exercise routine. Fact is you can have the best of intentions and do a lot of things right in your exercise routine, but you also could be failing to do some very important things that could well impair your overall results.
Here are three of the biggest mistakes that can be made with your exercise program and the solutions on how you can get back on the path to awesome results.
Mistake 1: Not including strength training in your workout - All too often, people gravitate toward cardio type exercise such as walking, jogging, cycling etc and shun strength training. This is particularly true of women, who often avoid strength training because they think they are going to get too bulky or because they don't want to add toned muscle tissue until they reach their ideal body weight. This is a huge mistake.
Without question, strength training is the most important thing you can do for your health, wellness and appearance - hands down, without question, end of story. It improves your posture, shapes your body, increases strength and tones your muscles- things that aerobic type exercise can never ever do.
It is also the best activity for losing excess body fat and maintaining your ideal body weight. Muscle is metabolically active tissue that increases your resting metabolism so you are burning calories throughout the day. If you can put on five pounds of lean muscle tissue - which anyone can do within several months - you can burn in excess of an additional 1,000 calories a week. Cardio type activity only focus's on what calories are burned during the exercise session. Strength training exercise increases the rate you burn fuel every minute permanently. A very big difference.
Mistake 2: Not training with adequate intensity of effort - You now have a strength training program in place, but are you training hard enough to make a difference?
Human nature is to seek pleasure and avoid pain so it is understandable not to enjoy feeling your muscles burn while struggling to finish off those last few repetitions of an exercise. But the fact is, if you aren't struggling, you never ever going to see the results you desire. The idea is to make your body stronger and to do that you have to make it work harder than it has done before.
Those little pink dumbbells are just not going to do the job. In order to bring about a change in your physique you need to tax your muscles. No two ways about it. This means the last few reps of your set need to be difficult, if not impossible, to complete. Only by sufficiently challenging your muscles beyond their present capacity will you set the stage for muscle toning and development. Translation: Lack of intensity (lack of effort) leads to a lack of muscle tone.
Mistake 3: Not having a game plan - When it comes to getting great results from your exercise program it is all about strategy. It is a waste of time showing up at the gym and not knowing what you are going to be doing that day. Walking around aimlessly doing a little of this and a little of that accomplishes very little.
If you need some help hire a fitness professional to set up your program and teach you correct exercise technique. They can also teach you correct exercise intensity so you do not waste time on ineffective exercises or on how you perform them.
The important thing is to know exactly what you are going to do and why before you start each workout. It is a good idea to keep a workout log and monitor your own progress over a period of time. If you implement these strategies you will be able to look forward to getting the maximum results in the minimum amount of time.
