10 fitness training mistakes to avoid (part 3)

In part 1 and part 2 we covered some of the common mistakes I have seen trainees make when trying to get results from their fitness programs. This week we will cover three more common training mistakes.

Not warming up correctly

Most people recognise that warming up before training is a good idea. However, if you read all the articles on the internet or in books on the subject of warming up, you may come away confused because there are a lot of opinions out there.

Today I will give you some tips that can save you time, and also get you warmed up in the right way for your training session.

• Use movement warmups or "dynamic" warmups for multi-directional or speed activities - For example, skipping, walking lunges, leg swings, are excellent before activities that require changes of direction and speed such as soccer, rugby, and sprinting. A short video example is here.

• Use static stretching for tight parts of your body before all trainings - For example if you are tight in your calves and hips, some static stretching (holds of 15 seconds or more) can be useful. The increased movement you get will allow you to squat, run or jump with better mechanics, reducing your risk of injury.

• Use warm-up weights. For example if I were to do squats in the gym today, and I was trying to lift 100kg 10 times, I would warm up with weights up to about 80kg for a few reps. During these warm up sets I would use the exact same speed and movement that I would be using for the working sets.

Not progressing correctly

Your body will not get stronger, fitter, or leaner without progress.

Progress can come in many ways, but it has to be measurable. For example progress could mean an increase in weight lifted, a reduction in rest time required or an increase in the number of reps performed.

If you go two workouts without progress, you need to change your program, take more time off or go for a period of lighter training to recover better.

Changing your workout too often/doing random stuff

There is a kind of fine line to be walked here.

On the one hand, if you don't change your training methods often enough, you risk overuse injures and lack of progress once your body has already adapted to the stimulus of the training.

However, if you change your program too often or too randomly, your body has trouble adapting to anything at all.

For example, if you did heavy squats one day, light bench presses the next day, and ran a marathon on the day after that... your body would be confused as to what to get better at. In the end, it is possible that you will hardly get better at any of the three exercises. What a waste of time.

So, in general, you should change workouts after about six of the same workout. This is highly individual, but from my experience it varies from as many as 8 workouts for a total new trainee, to as few as one or two workouts for a gifted athlete.

Change your workout once you see stalled progress for two sessions.

There we have it! Three more mistakes to avoid for maximum results.

For the best fitness boot camp program, ExpressFIT program in the CBD, and personal training in Singapore visit www.genesisgym.com.sg or the Genesis Gym facebook page. Or visit Coach Jonathan's homepage and blog at www.coachjon.com