Working Out Smarter Not Harder

You dedicate yourself to your workout. Wake up early every morning to hit the local Kenner gym and work yourself as hard as you can every day. However, for some reason, you are not seeing the results that you expect.

There are some critical workout mistakes that many of us make that are hindering our progress and keeping us from reaching the goals that we set out to achieve. We are going to look at some of the most common workout mistakes that can be an easy fix to your daily or weekly routine.

Vary Your Workout

Human beings are creatures of habit. We wake up at the same time, eat at the same time and go to work at the same time. Our daily routine spills over into our workout, leading us to performing the same exercises or the same routines repeatedly.
The problem with always performing the same workout is that our body gets bored. If you are not seeing the results that you were expecting after several weeks, this is one of the most common mistakes that we make when working out.

You might do bicep curls because you want big arms. To reach this goal, you have decided to include a set of curls in your workout every day. You do the same weight, the same reps, and at the same pace each and every day. However, you body is becoming accustomed to this exercise and there soon becomes no challenge in performing this exercise. You see great results from this early on, but soon notice that your progress has stopped. Your arms are not getting any bigger.

Try introducing some variety in your routine. Instead of doing the same 3-4 exercises each day, week after week, plan to introduce some movements that you may not always be familiar with.

• Cardio
• Full-body lifts (such as deadlifts or squats)
• High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
• Circuit Training/Bodyweight Exercises

Kettlebells or a dumbbell system like the Powerblock Set 70 Stage1, are great to keep in your home and can offer a variety of uses. If you supplement your gym workouts with some work at home using your home fitness equipment, you will see better full-body results in no time!

Include Rest and Nutrition in Your Routine

While hard work is imperative to reaching your fitness goals, there are two other aspects that are just as important, or even more so. Think of your diet and your rest as part of a three-legged stool with your workout when striving for what you consider to be the perfect body. Without proper rest and nutrition, your body cannot grow muscle, or even burn fat at its most efficient rate.

Rest

Working out is an act of breaking down the muscle in your body. When you do not get proper rest, these muscles won’t get the opportunity to heal themselves, or grow.

Overworking your already tired muscles also leads to injury. This can sideline you for weeks from the gym and cause you to take a step back in your progress towards your goals.

If your goal is to lose weight, constant workouts to the point of burnout will increase your Cortisol levels, causing fat retention and your metabolism to go in a sort of “power saving” mode. This leads to fewer calories being burned and a retention of the fat you are working so hard to get off.

Nutrition

Like rest, proper nutrition is important to achieving your workout and fitness goals. If your body has no fuel to burn, you will not get the maximum work from your muscles to perform an optimum workout. You will also not effectively recover from your workout, leading to a slowing of the muscle growth and fat loss that you are striving for.

Many times, our goal is to both burn fat and build muscle. So, we lift heavy weights and take on a diet similar to small mammals. The problem with eating a low-calorie, low-fat diet is that it is usually also very low in the proteins needed for muscle growth.

Make sure that your diet includes the essentials:

• Slow-burning carbs – Cottage Cheese and Sweet Potatoes are great sources
• Protein – Lean meats such as sirloin and chicken breast
• Some Cholesterol – This encourages testosterone growth in men, eggs and bacon are good sources

When you allow some flexibility in your workout plan and your diet, you will see better results and feel healthier. Overworking your body can make you feel more run down and tired. While you should be tired after a good workout, you should not feel this way all the time. If you are trying to be healthier, this would be the opposite effect of what you are trying to achieve.

Closing Thoughts

While this post is intended to highlight some of the common mistakes that many people make when planning their Kenner workout routine. The more you know about your routine and designing a proper workout using the best fitness gym equipment from Fitness Expo, the more successful you will be!