4 Most Common Mistakes of New Lifters

4 Most Common Mistakes of New Lifters

Fix these lifting missteps and watch your muscle gains skyrocket.

Understanding and preventing these 4 common mistakes most lifters make when they begin to regularly lift weights can help you reach your goals faster and make the gym a regular part of your every day life. Sticking to the basics and training consistently are the keys to achieving long-term results and will help you avoid the pitfalls of doing too much, too soon.

1. Early Specialization

 When you first start at the gym, your goal should be to get better at using your body the way it was mean to be used. Your body acts as a single integrated unit and your training should reflect this. The simple way to do this is to focus on full body workouts utilizing a variety of upper and lower body basic compound exercises – such as squats, deadlifts, military press, bench press, chin-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, and goblet squats.

This will teach you how to move under control with external load through a fixed movement pattern, develop full body strength, increase your overall muscle mass, and develop a good foundation for more advanced training in the future. Save the upper body-only workouts, the lower body-only workouts, and isolation exercises for down the road after you develop a good base level of strength.

2. Going Too Heavy, Too Soon

Stop worrying about what others will think of you if you don’t have a ton of weight on the bar when you lift. Focus on your goals and using good form with everything you do. If you load up too much weight for an exercise that you can’t handle, your form will go out the window and you’ll be more susceptible to an injury. Start light and master the technique for each lift - and the weight will come.

3. Starting with Barbell Lifts

Too many lifters are in a rush to grab and barbell and start training. Unfortunately, barbell exercises require a base level of strength, precise form and technique, and good mobility and stability specific to the lift.  Before you ever touch a barbell, you should master the basics first. To develop the primary muscle groups and drill the movement patterns specific to the bench press, squat, and deadlift – the fundamental exercises - push-ups, goblet squats, and hip hinge drills - must be initially practiced and perfected. (Reference: Strength system:www.strengthdvd.com)

Once you learn the proper techniques for these basic exercises, they can be progressed further by overloading them with extra weight. This will provide you with a simple and easy transition to the barbell lifts.

4. Too Much Volume

Most every lifter goes from zero to 100 mph when they first start training. While this is admirable, it can delay your overall gains.  Doing too much volume too soon will create extreme soreness and microtrauma in your muscles – which can affect your ability to train optimally for each successive training session and leave you not wanted to even go back to the gym.  A way to ensure success and excitement for each training session is to start slow and make consistent progress by following a structured workout plan that is programmed into 3-4 week blocks - instead of the ‘going all out’ approach. Instead of hitting every exercise you’ve ever seen for every workout, stick to 2-4 basic compound exercises and 2-4 accessory or supplemental for each training session.

Thank You.

Source: Google, MuscleandFitness.com.