Workout No No's!

I hope everyone is having a good week. I got behind a little bit on my training this week with a long weekend of eating and staying up too late. Hey...it happens! Anyway, I am right back on track after a great training session yesterday. While I am sitting here in my down time of the day I usually sit around and watch things people do in the gym. What I usually see people do are what I consider "Workout No No's." Now I have never told anyone what they do is wrong, but I would say what 99% of the people you see in your gym do are classified as my "Workout No No's"

What my services are set up to do these days are to provide people with solutions and answer for what they have been trying to accomplish for so long. So essentially I am just showing people a "better" way of doing things. Mainly my clients are trying to achieve some sort of fat loss goal, so that is the area that I will mainly be speaking about. I don't mean to offend anyone, but here are the "Workout No No's" that you are going to want to change.


- Weight Machines- My wife asked me the other day when we were going to stop seeing machines in gyms. Well, I said once people get the hint that these isolated single joint machines "don't" do anything then we will stop seeing them. Weight machines were designed for the muscle bound steroid freak body builders back in the day. They is no logical explanation for us to be using them in the form of physical fitness. My advice get off the machines and use you own body.

- Long Slow Traditional Aerobics- Get it through your heads. This method again will only make you slower and fatter. You are not demanding enough from your muscular/energy systems for this to change your body. Yea you might burn a couple of calories, but it will not elevate metabolism. Fat people perform marathons so it tells you right away that it will not do a whole lot on changing the way you look...next question. PS- take a look at the cardio area in your gym...I would guess that you don't want to look like those people.

- Single Set Exercises- Traditionally we were always told to do one set of an exercise and then wait a good minute to perform the next set of an exercise. Again, not good enough. Why rest when you could be performing another movement while another part of your body is resting. Performing alternating sets while allow more work density.. Giving you more bang for you buck in your workout. Example...Front Squat followed directly with a set of Chin Ups or Lat Pulldowns. Get something accomplished and don't be like the person sitting next to you.

Train Movement., Not Muscles- Probably the biggest mistake people make is not training movement first. By developing a quality movement pattern you are only going to set yourself up for success. If your squat pattern sucks then your only going to set yourself up for injury, lack of strength, lack of muscle growth, or lack or fat loss. Again, people want to start training muscles before movement. Ass backwards concept. If you neglect to train movement you'll end up like an immobilized body builder who can barely touch his toes. Another reason why machine and isolated exercises are not going to get you stronger and leaner.

-Not Having a Game Plan- People walk into the gym and say to themselves. Today I might do some of this, this and this. Not a good idea. Have something in written down with a daily goal. If your goal is to lift a certain amount of weight have that written down and make it happen. When you people try to wing a training session that's when you'll find yourself heading right to the treadmill.

-Stick To The Recipe- I love the guys that have these awesome new routines they found in Muscle & Fiction magazine that they do for 3 days. I suggested to a guy awhile back to buy the "The New Rules of Lifting" by Alwyn Cosgrove. He read the book and I helped clear some things for him with some of the questions he had. He proceeded to add in extra arm work and cardio sessions in there and said that he thought it would help him out. I'm pretty sure if those extra things were suppose to be in the program, they would have been written in the program. Stick to the recipe and allow the program to do it's job. Programming is meant to followed step by step for the duration. If it's not followed then you are not doing the program.

-Movement Prep (Warm Up)- A couple of minutes of walking, jogging, or biking is not going to cut it. It is not good enough to prepare the body for load. A calf or hamstring stretch will not prepare you for anything. Stretching is meant to relax a muscle if it is too tight. If you stretch cold muscles you will actually tighten your body up. Get moving with skips, hops, squats, lunges, or inchworms and prepare the body for load in a more dynamic fashion. You must improve the quality of your tissue to help the mobilizing process. Flexibility is mobility at the joints. The best way to become more flexible is to improve mobility through dynamic movement. Also, get a foam roller!

Split Body Part Routines-Probably the most ridiculous ideas people came up with are split body part routines. Do this....lay flat on the ground...then proceed to get up off of the ground and stand tall. You tell me if only your biceps are working! Get real. This method makes no sense. Why is it that our triceps and shoulders need two hours of attention each week? If this is the case then we should designate another two hours of working on our muscles in our hands and feet. You probably asking yourself why would you need to train your muscles in your hands and feet? Same thing,why do you need to spend hours on training your arms and shoulders? It doesn't make sense. Training one or two body parts a day is simply illogical and people don't even realize that less than one percent of the population this method works for...guys who are pumping needles in their asses.  Perform everything all the time...Push,Pull,Lift,Squat, Twist,Lunge, Single Leg Stance.If you want bigger arms...do more deadlifts. If you want bigger shoulders...do more front squats. Muscle growth is a systematic response. It happens all at once. If you decrease your volume you should then increase your intensity and your frequency in your workouts.


Word Up!
JP