fitness first

You Might Be Making At The Gym

As people begin to act on New Year’s Resolutions and Fitness Goals, you must remember just paying for a membership doesn’t guarantee the results you want.

While the first step to transforming your body is, in fact, deciding to commit to restructuring your lifestyle at the gym and in the kitchen, it is common for people to make mistakes that jeopardize their progress. These mistakes can chip away at their enthusiasm to work out and ultimately result in people giving up on their goals.

“As a trainer, my job consists of helping clients assess where they are and where they want to be. Giving them a clear pathway helps avoid mistakes that often cause people to quit too soon and forfeit their goals,” says Vince Sant, the co-founder and lead trainer of V Shred, the online training platform that has taken the world by storm in recent years. Vince says these are some of the most common mistakes people make when starting off their fitness journey.

1. Failing to Assess Your Body

“People who are new to working out and get a few workouts from a friend and head into the gym without analyzing their bodies with a trainer.” This becomes harmful because these people are not trained to pinpoint their body’s imbalances, where their weaknesses lie and how their body is compensating subconsciously. “They go to the gym pay for the membership and spend months doing exercises incorrectly and damaging their joints and their back.”

2. Failing to Set Realistic Goals

Nowadays a lot of people scroll through social media and try and mimic the amount of weight being lifted and want a six pack in two weeks. When you set major goals with an unrealistic time frame you are setting yourself up for disappointment. A lot of what a trainer does is manage your goals and give you honest timelines to get you there. “We cheerlead you through the rough times and the plateaus,” says Sant.

3. Consistency is Key

New gym goers lose their excitement over working out a few weeks in. They start skipping workouts and making excuses. This will add to the time it will take for you to reach your goals and may even hinder your enthusiasm overall. Push yourself through the first few months of working out and eating nutritiously. Make a habit out of working out. Consistency will become easier once you start seeing those desired results

4. Delaying Your Workouts Into The Night

“Here’s a pro tip: If you want consistency to be an easier hurdle to overcome… Plan to workout in the morning. The morning will always be more available than your night. We also tend to make more excuses at night and let things override our plans to work out,” says Sant.

5. Giving Up When You Hit A Plateau

If you hit a plateau it means you have consistently been doing the same routine for an extended period of time. Kudos for the consistency, but that is just one part of getting the results you want. “You need to learn or get guidance on how to effectively change your workouts to continue challenging your

6. Overdoing the Cardio

Don’t misunderstand, cardio is an important part of any fitness journey especially one that is centered around weight loss. However, in the eagerness of the first few weeks people who start going to the gym concentrate overwhelmingly on cardio and needlessly exhaust their body. You’d be better served to do a 30-minute cardio session followed by light weights and circuit training.

7. Unorganized Lifting

When you are working on weight training you have to educate yourself on what exercises belong in a superset together and how much is wise to lift when shooting for a certain amount of repetitions. It is important that you don’t lift too heavy out of vanity and that you don’t too light out of laziness. It is important that you learn about the movements that go together as one might affect your form for the other and open you up for injury.

8. Record Your Progress

Failing to record the amount of weights and repetitions per set that you can lift per movement easily leads to plateaus and lack of interest. Record what you are doing, perform it consistently and then increase intensity to avoid plateaus.

9. Stretch

For many, stretching is common sense. Many people still ignore the importance of it. Working out without stretching can lead to reduced muscle mind connection, poor form and muscle strain. Stretching helps your range of motion and aids in preparing you mentally and physically for the workout ahead.

10. Failing to take an Active Rest Day

Many people go all out the first few weeks of their fitness training looking desperately for quick results. This is not wise. Taking a rest day allows your muscles to heal. An active rest day is a day where instead of training at full power you incorporate some sort of low-intensity cardio or HIIT training. This way you keep your body active and don’t let any soreness settle in while still resting from your much more comprehensive workouts.

It is important that before beginning a fitness journey you assess where you are and where you want to be. Seek out help from trainers at your gym or through an individualized online program like V Shred.

Fitness Events

JANUARY

SATURDAY JANUARY 14

Frozen Gnome 10/K/5K. Crystal Lake. runfrozengnome.com

SATURDAY, JANUARY 14

Fat Tire Race. Lemont. forgeparks.com/fat-tire-race

SATURDAY JAN 28

F3 Half Marathon and 5K. Chicago. f3running.com

FEBRUARY

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 18

Universal Sole Valentine’s Trail Challenge. Chicago. universalsole.com

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12

Geneva Park District’s 13th Annual Super Shuffle 5K 10:00AM at Geneva Middle School South, 1415 Viking Drive, Geneva After-Race Game Day Party: 10:00am-noon at Stephen D. Persinger Recreation Center 3507 Kaneville Road, Geneva www.genevaparks.org/special-events/ super-shuffle-5k/

Tackle the Tri. Oak Brook. obparks.org

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 25

Cupid’s Undie Run. Chicago. cupids.org