Hi everyone, so I’m back this month with more to say! This month it’s the most common mistakes I see in the gym, and believe me there are many!
Too many times I’m training myself or with a client and see some horrendous stuff! Now a lot of the time it’s down to poor education I guess but also the lack for want of learning and understanding the correct way of training and getting yourself outside of that comfort zone. And I’m sorry to say but 99% of the time… Yes it’s you MEN. If we could all just leave our egos at the door every goal would be reached. But alas no, it’s all about how cool we look, how heavy we can lift, what we’re wearing, if our hair is done, man the other day I saw someone in Jeans and Ugg boots!!!
I generally work late on a Monday and if I’m not I’ll be at my other gym David Lloyd training or playing tennis. What do I see on this night? EVERYBODY training chest. Everybody. This is what I mean about going outside of your comfort zone, there ARE other days in the week, why not train your Legs on a Monday?? All that’s gonna do is help you on your quest to reach your goal as the legs are the most neglected body part (ever see the huge guy in the gym then look down and see his Sparrow legs?) If you train them regularly your body will release more growth hormone for overall body development resulting in a fuller more functional physique.
So back to the chest mob on a Monday night, all scrambling for the bench press in their tight wife beaters, gloves on, phones in hand ready for anything BUT to train their chests! Then on go the weights piled on to each side 50, 60 kg a side. Then comes the horrendous bad form with lifting 5 times more than can be handled, the huge grunts and then what follows as 3 partial reps and back on the rack to then rest 10 minutes, send a few texts, do your hair and breathe heavily. This is becoming so common it’s scary. The whole point is to challenge yourself and slowly develop through progressive overload, forget about what you read on the Internet or what the guy next to you is lifting. If you don’t know what you should be lifting for what goal, ask a pro, they’ll only be too happy to help you. So many of my clients have reached their goals in 6 months after 10 years of trying because they swallowed their egos and asked for help, man I still do myself every day!!
Check out my quick video on how to correctly execute the bench press and be on your way to a better you.
So next up I see all too common is the good old using humungous weight whilst swinging to work a tiny muscle. Yes the bicep curl. Such a small muscle yet 50% of gym goer’s time are spent on the biceps, yes 50%!!! And it’s time spent doing everything but work the muscle. What i see is AGAIN the ego doing the training, 25kg Dumbbells being used to swing up with the whole body working everything but the bicep. It takes small stimulus to hit the biceps, slow isolated correct form 25-30 mins a week and that’s it! Have a look at this video and see what I mean:
And now to the Squat. When legs actually ARE being trained, the reason why no results are ever seen is because of terrible form, too much weight and bad diet. Simple. The amount of weight I see people loading on the squat rack is incredible! What are you trying to achieve?? How quickly can I compress my spine and knees into mush by the age of 40? Keep going because you’ll definitely get there!
It’s about Stimulation not annihilation. Start light, fully understand the muscles being trained, get you form correct, get the exact reps for the exact sets for the weight, then and then only move up. Please see my vid for the Squat.
Ok so those are the top 3 I most commonly see but very close behind are a thousand other gym faux pas I see every day.
