Don't Make These Rookie Mistakes When Working Out

Keep in mind these tips if you're just starting to work out. Being in a rush to reach unrealistic goals tends to backfire when you're just starting out on your fitness journey.

So, you finally found the motivation to start exercising? The results you get from being active and following a healthy diet, especially if you want to lose weight and stay healthy, are known to everyone. But when you’re just starting with a new workout regime, not knowing what you’re doing, can lead you to make ‘rookie’ mistakes. These mistakes may give you the exact opposite of your goals. Do you want to know what these mistakes are? Keep reading!

The most common rookie mistakes when working out

Going from zero to one hundred

When you’re beginning your fitness journey, the first three days are difficult because your muscles will be sore. After this time, you might have the temptation to go from zero to one hundred in no time. Doing advanced exercise or intense courses is not the best thing to do for a beginner; your body and muscles need to progressively become familiar with all of the effort involved.

Do a progressive workout that gives your muscles a period of time to grow and rest, so that you’ll prevent injuring yourself.

Not lifting weights

Those who buy a gym membership in order to lose weight, often think that lifting weights will make them more muscular and consequently, gain weight. Nothing could be further from the truth: lifting weights are the most effective way to burn fat and therefore, lose weight. The weight on the scale is not really important, and instead how you look, and how your clothes fit you, is what matters.

You may drop a size and still not lose any weight, because the muscles gain volume as you lose fat. Moreover, weightlifting makes your body work to its fullest potential, which consequently speeds up your metabolism and tones your whole body. This helps with toning the excess skin that results from significant weight loss.

Eating anything

Many people think that they can eat anything they want when they’re working out, which isn’t true at all. Although, it does depend on your goals. If you want to tone your body and maintain your weight, you can still eat as you usually do, and get the results you want.

However, if you’re looking to lose weight, you’ll want to reduce your caloric intake. Also keep in mind that a healthy diet, low in fats and sugars, that’s well-balanced, and allowing for carbohydrates to play a fundamental role, is essential to get good results.

Not persevering

When we start to see results from the combination of exercise and healthy eating, we get excited and motivated to visit the gym four times a week or even more. However, with time, there’s the risk that we can become bored and slowly reduce our workout days, until we give up entirely and lose our progress. Perseverance is the key to reaching our fitness goals.

Always doing the same

Picture this: you just found the perfect machine to tone the area of your body that you particularly dislike and you use it every day. Bad news! Even though at first, it gives you the results that you want, your body will eventually become used to it. Ultimately you’ll become ‘immune’ to the same exercise. 

Remember that you can’t lose localized fat, but instead, you’ll burn fat in all areas of your body, which is why you should also do other exercises and change your routine. You could, for example, do legs and back on one day, and arms and abs on another day.

Not warming up and not stretching

Don’t think that because you conquered the first few days of exercising, and your muscles no longer hurt, that you’ll be able to work out without taking care of your muscles. Remember, warming up with cardio, and stretching after each workout, is essential to avoid injuries. Warming up and stretching will lead to success in your fitness journey.

Consider all of these tips so that you don’t make ‘rookie’ mistakes when working out. These mistakes will lead to the opposite of what you want to achieve or even increase your risk of injuries . Nobody said it would be easy, but it’s not impossible, you can do it!