Getting into an exercise habit is one thing, but sustaining it for a life time is another. As you might have guessed, I am addressing how you can sustain the momentum and ensure that you see some amazing progress in your wellness area.
Ample experience, has given me an insight on how to ensure that one need not commit “common mistakes” in the gym and outside as well. Mind you, these are my own experiences & acquired knowledge and in no way the ultimate gospel for fitness.
You do more of what you like: Addressing weakness is the quickest way to scale up your progress. In my opinion addressing and strengthening your weak areas will help you in the long run. Each one of us has something which we favor and we tend to do more of this, than required.
Falling into this trap of doing what you like & not doing what you need is far too common. Therefore ensure that you focus on your weak areas and work on them. Your core might be weak or flexibility might be an issue. Once you overcome this, you will see drastic improvements.
You are not including compound movements: Very few people include Squats, overhead press, pull-ups etc in their workouts. Most of the people I come across are more than happy doing isolation movement exercises like bicep/triceps curls. These are great but the real growth is in compound movements, because they use more muscles and lead to more lean mass.
These exercises are metabolically demanding and release more body composition improving hormones, than any other exercises. When you take the effort of hitting the gym, you need to maximize the benefits of compound movement exercises.
Your eye is on everything else but the clock: Time is the most important factor you need to consider once you step into the gym. I come across far too many people who spend time, talking and socializing in the gym. In their book, they are working out but it is of no use. You need to keep a hawk’s eye on your rest periods.
Start a set before the appropriate rest period and you may be sacrificing strength. Wait too long to start your next set and you could be killing any metabolic effect. Keeping the muscle under tension for a specific amount of time in the gym, is critical to deliver the desired long term effect of hitting the gym.
Recovery is a new word: If you have been a regular reader of my Blog, then you would have read this before – “you build muscles & burn calories outside the gym and not in & during the workouts”. Therefore not focusing on your sleep and food intake & timing, is the surest way of going down the path of No progress. Refer to my previous posts on the similar topics.
Familiarity breeds contempt: Well this logic seems to work when it comes to your workouts. Your muscles tend to get used to the same exercise and will stop growing. If you have been sticking to the same type of workout for more than 45 days, then it is time to move on and speak to a professional trainer.
He/She will get it realigned to suit your goals. There is no one way of putting a finger on this though. I generally keep changing my exercise regimen every 3-4 weeks just to keep the tempo going.If our muscles do get familar with certain kind of exercise then they do tend to stop growing.
See what does fit you and customize accordingly. I will be more than happy to hear from you, on this on my mail id coach@satishrao.in or on my FaceBook Fan Page.