Hey guys, I hope all of you have been smashing it in the gym the last few weeks and months.I wish you lots more progress! Undoubtedly there will be some of us who have recently embarked on our fitness journey. There may be feelings of excitement to make progress but also nerves mixed in too. Will people judge me while exercising? Am I muscular enough to wear this t-shirt? How many days do I need to train? Should I be going out tonight with the lads but I have a legs session tomorrow? Do I need to train every day of the program? Well, I am here to answer some of those questions as it turns out I have also made those same mistakes! Let’s get into them, 5 beginner workout mistakes you may be making and what to do instead!
- Comparing yourself to others.
- Not knowing where to start.
- Not living a lifestyle concurrent with your fitness goals.
- Momentarily going off plan,undoing your progress.
- Not putting in the effort required to reach your goals.
1. Comparing yourself to others.
There is probably a high possibility you saw some jacked, strong, and lean individual online or in your own gym and thought to yourself “I wish I could look like them”. So you begin your fitness journey, maybe a few months in all guns blazing but you may be getting underwhelming results. You start to question yourself “Why am I not looking like this person?” you begin to feel demotivated and unimpressed with your results so far. Seeing a person or role model that you would like to look or perform like is not a bad thing. It gives you some drive to start your fitness journey. But to think you will look exactly like them is setting yourself up for failure. Every person on this planet is unique. We have different genetics and body proportions. Some of us are genetically predisposed to being stronger, more powerful, and starting with higher levels of muscle mass compared to others. Some people have narrow shoulders, others have wide shoulders. Some people have long limbs, others have short limbs. Bone structure and body proportions influence how muscular 2 people may look even though these 2 people may have similar amounts of muscle mass. A lot of these people reach high levels in sports such as rugby, American football, powerlifting and bodybuilding due to more favorable genetics. That’s just the way life is! We all start off on our own starting lines but we can follow our own paths.
Run your own race, be satisfied with your progress.
Instead of comparing your results to another person’s, especially someone who has genetics better suited for muscle building and strength look to focus on your own progress. Look at where you started versus where you are now. I would find it hard to believe that you have not made any progress with your fitness goals. Enjoy your journey, the process and instead of looking purely at the end goal, savor the journey. Be happy with every small win, every 1kg added to the bar. It takes time to build muscle and strength and we all start off from different starting lines. When you start to be grateful with the small victories and focus on your own race you will enjoy your fitness journey all that more. It should be about enjoying your wins no matter how “small” they may seem. Don’t be forever miserable that that guy or girl has a bigger squat or bench than you.
2. Not knowing where to start.
Let’s be honest, unless you have started with good genetics, most people never make much progress or get underwhelming results when it comes to fitness. Maybe for some a part of the results you get is down to genetics, but the other part is what you are doing in the gym, your lifestyle,, and knowledge of topics such as nutrition, training and recovery. Some people come from sports backgrounds and may have some knowledge due to having nutritionists and S&C coaches working with their team. Their lifestyle is better set up to making progress in the gym or transitioning to training in the gym as their main fitness pursuit. Then you have people who come from different surroundings, maybe they want to improve their fitness as they don’t like putting on extra weight or would like to gain some muscle to look and feel better about themselves. These people may have no prior experience with sports, or in the gym and could have poor eating habits. When they come to the gym, they may not know exactly what to do. The whole experience of coming to the gym can be daunting. “Is everyone looking at me?” “I hope I’m not making a fool out of myself.” It’s quite normal to think like this, but you shouldn’t be scared.
Just start.
Just start. Start making fitness and healthy eating a habit, a part of your lifestyle. Join a class for the first few weeks. Come with a friend. Work with a coach. A coach can offer you advice on what to do and where to start. They will be understanding of your concerns and will only be willing to help you out. They will offer you a helping hand and words of encouragement and advice when needed. You will feel more sure of yourself, you will have a plan of action and you will see progress. Instead of spinning in circles and becoming more and more disillusioned with your fitness journey. One of the best things I had starting was a coach to help me, give me a program to work from, and someone to show me proper lifting techniques. If I had not had a coach, my progress would have been underwhelming and I wouldn’t have fallen in love with fitness, souring my own experience. Work with a person knowledgeable in training and nutrition to invest in yourself.
3. Not living a lifestyle congruent with your fitness goals.
Like achieving any goal, it will require effort, commitment and sometimes sacrifice. Goals are worthwhile working towards because not everyone can attain them. If you want to squat 200kg you are going to have to train hard consistently for a period of time. You will have to make do without some things and do things other people won’t do to achieve that goal. You can’t be eating junk, sleeping poorly and doing half-assed training and expect to reach a 200kg squat. Yes, some people will get to this point quicker compared to others because of starting with better genetics. But if you’re born with great genetics for strength a 200kg squat may not be that impressive relative to how much you could be squatting. What’s more impressive is putting in consistent work over time and seeing noticeable improvements. Or lifting near to the limits of what your body is capable of whether that is 100kg or 250kg.
Everything should work like a well oiled machine.
If you have been training for a while, you will know it is very fun but there can be a lot of fatigue generated from training. Times of rest are going to be needed and you will need to have sleep dialed in. At least 7 hours per night. You’ll soon discover that if you’re not resting and sleeping well fatigue is going to catch up with you very quickly. You won’t be able to keep progressing with your lifts because of a lack of energy to train. Training and recovery which includes nutrition all work in tandem together. One needs the other to see gains. Try to sleep and wake up at the same times each day. Have some relaxing hobbies you can do such as reading or going for a walk to lower stress. It is probably a good thing to be around people who also have the same goals or at least understand your training goals. They will understand why you can’t be drinking too much beer or why you need to get an early night’s sleep because you have a big legs session the next day or a fat loss target to hit.
Choose your path wisely. Be happy with your results.
If you walk into the gym, you’re going to see different types of people there. Some will be making progress, losing fat, getting stronger, building muscle, and improving flexibility. There will be others who are happy to turn up and do the same thing each time, not trying to progress or maybe they are inconsistent with their training. The difference between these 2 groups of people is that the first group knows that constant effort will be required to increase performance in each session. They are not afraid to push their bodies and minds further to surpass old numbers. They know recovery, sleeping well, and eating nutritious food are going to help with this. They are living a life that is congruent with their fitness goals. The other group is not making much progress if any. Some have vague fitness goals “I want to look slimmer”, “I want to get stronger” and “I want to put on some more muscle mass”.
Be responsible.
Yet the way they live their lives is not helping their goals whatsoever, only stunting them. They wonder why they are not making any progress and become disappointed. Or question “How is that guy making so much progress and I’m not?” “He has good genetics”. In some cases, these people do have good genetics and maybe can get away with poor recovery and still make progress. But don’t worry about them, think about your situation. If you are not dedicated and doing what’s needed like pushing past old records with greater effort or you’re going out for a night of beer with the lads but you have fat loss goals you are going to be disappointed with your results. There is no hiding. Either you put in the work required or you’ll stay the same. You should expect the results you get which are a result of your daily habits.
4. Momentarily going off plan,undoing your progress.
This is a frustrating one and it can happen as it has happened to me but it can undo your progress depending on how far you let yourself go. I remember I had a fat loss goal I wanted to achieve. In the weeks prior I was making great progress and on track to hit my target in a few more weeks. But one night I was being social and food was involved. If you know with a fat loss goal, your going to need to be in a calorie deficit, so your daily calorie consumption may be quite low. Consuming above your maintenance calories will lead you to gaining weight and you could find yourself right back where you started on week 1. If you really let yourself go you could be heavier than before you started the diet. On this particular night, I was a little tired, and a little stressed, my willpower was low and I ordered a pizza. Probably not a good idea. I had told myself I would only eat half and take the rest home. But I ended up eating the whole thing and then the cake came. I didn’t want to be rude and not eat it if everyone else is right? Well, I ended up putting on 1ib just from that overindulgence and undid a week of fat loss progress. I had been tracking food and being disciplined sticking to my calorie target except on that occasion. It was frustrating and I was not happy with myself.
Turn hindsight into insight.
What I should have done is have a chat with myself about why my goal matters to me and what am I going to do to see it through. I should have been responsible. I should have planned ahead, brought my own food, or ordered something that is not going to set my pleasure senses on overdrive. The things you can be in control of make sure you own them and take responsibility for them. Dieting is going to require some sacrifice in the form of eating reduced calories and being stricter with food choices. But it won’t last forever and you’ll soon be back to being able to eat what you usually eat. You need to find a way to look at the goal as being more important than eating that pizza.
5. Not putting in the effort required to reach your goals.
The last point I will make is that some beginners may lack the effort required to see progress to reach their goals. It could be because you are not used to training with intensity and pushing both your body and mind. It may be easier for a person who has a background in sports to be able to train with greater intensity as they have conditioned their body to be this way. They may have been paying more attention to their nutrition and are used to eating to reach a goal whether that is fat loss or muscle building. If you used to read a lot of books or play video games you could find it difficult to train hard and stick to behaviors that will help you make progress. So I will say it again…you need to put in some work, even when working with a coach. They will give you advice and will be able to keep you heading in the right direction. Just make sure you give your part too, at the end of the day they can’t lift the weight for you or consume how many grams of protein you need to build or conserve muscle mass. Even if you find it challenging at first, stick to the program and what your coach is telling you. You will eventually adjust and you will become a more resilient and stronger person for doing so. The results will come and you will experience true happiness with real results, not being happy for eating that cake you wanted but at the same time not getting any closer to your goals. Pull your own weight, work hard and reap the rewards afterwards!
1 step closer to achieving results.
So coming to the end of the article, I hope you have a better understanding that to achieve your fitness goals no matter how big or small, you will need to behave in a way that helps you to make progress. You can do some positive things like training hard but not do yourself any favors by sleeping poorly which are within your control. The things out of your control such as genetics don’t worry about those. Do what you are capable of. If you enjoyed the article and would like to find out some more about training check out this article which goes over strength training for beginners https://www.theavgguysnutritionandexerciseguide.org/exercise/strength-training-for-beginners/ If you would like some more personal help with your own training and nutrition feel free to reach out to me by going to my contact page. I’d be happy to have a chat and see how I can get you on track to achieving your fitness goals.