My brother and I go to the gym quite a lot together and we spend a lot of time pointing out the faults of other people’s workouts. I noticed the other day, however, that while we were sitting around gossiping we were wasting a whole lot of time!
Here are the top 10 tips to make your exercise at the gym more productive:
10 - Don’t forget to warm up
If you don’t warm up you not only run the risk of injury, but you also make your workouts less effective as your muscles aren’t ready for the exercise. Spend a bit of time stretching, doing light cardio and maybe some weights so that when your workout begins you can jump right in to the intensity.
9 - Don’t eat a meal before going
So often my friends will be at the gym with me and then after two sets of bench press say, “RT, I think I’m gonna vomit!”. The only reason for this is that they had a huge meal before they came because they cannot organize themselves. If you need to eat before going to the gym make it small and light like some fruit or a smoothie. Leave your big meal until after the workout.
8 - Leave the hotties alone!
Don’t worry about the hot girl or guy on the treadmill with the tight butt and the amazing sweaty body. You will see them again and they probably don’t want to talk to you anyway! Get on without your exercise.
7 - Change your workout program
If you have been doing the same exercises in the same order with the same reps for more than about three weeks then you are not going to be progressing. Make sure you change your workout every single time you go to the gym. You could do this by:
•adding more weight;
•doing more reps;
•changing the speed of the reps;
•changing the exercise;
•changing the order of exercises
6 - Go often
If you don’t go to the gym often enough then you won’t see much progress. Going twice a week and working out for three hours at a time is going to get you no progress whatsoever! It would be much better to go for 45 minutes everyday and workout different muscle groups each time. Or, have day of cardio and then a day of weight training. Your body responds well to this kind of thing.
5 - Don’t rest for too long
Many people think that the rest inbetween sets needs to be four or five minutes. I reckon this is lazy and I never rest for more than about 45 seconds. However, on the big exercises (deadlift, bench press, squat) I usually rest for about a minute and a half otherwise I tend to pass out!
4 - Stay hydrated
If you don’t drink every now and then, especially during weights and cardio, then you are going to find you are weaker and less able to push through the hard moments. I try to take a sip of water after every set but not so much that I feel sick and bloated.
You can generally judge how much water you need by the amount you are sweating and how hot the temperature is. Make sure you keep an eye on it.
3 - Tell the trainer to get lost!
If you are doing a workout that you know is working and you know it is effective and the gym trainer comes up to you and tries to get you to do one of their overl-complex, machine orientated, bull routines then tell them to get lost.
However, if they are offering you advice about your technique then you should listen. Often someone else can see mistakes you are making a lot better and you should adjust accordingly because weight training injuries can last a lifetime. Trust me, I know.
2 - Keep track
If you don’t keep track of what you are doing at the gym each time then you are bound to stay in the same spot. You should keep a dairy of how each set felt, how much you lifted, how many reps you did and then each month take a photo of yourself in the mirror and compare it to last month. Make sure you know where you are.
1 - Don’t gossip!
As I said, I waste a lot of time talking to my brother about all the fools in the gym. Don’t engage in too much gym chat with all the gym rats. Keep it to a friendly “hello” and move on.
No comments:
Post a Comment