Following on from the tips regarding new year’s resolutions, here’s some more advice specifically for our gym members. It’s great to have so many new members join us recently and we want you to make the time you spend here with us as productive and as good for your health as possible. So read 5 common mistakes below I see people making in the gym and make sure these don’t apply to you!  

1)    Not warming-up effectively

So are you someone who gets changed, walks through to the gym, jumps on a CV machine for 5-10 machines, shakes their arms and legs a bit and then think you’re warmed up? Or maybe you’re someone who enters the gym and goes through 20+ minutes static stretching every muscle you can think of until you run out of stretches you know?  You can do better. So how do I suggest you warm-up?

Soft tissue work (foam rolling / self-myofascial release)

In modern life (e.g. with the amount of hours sitting down and the repetitive nature of certain tasks we do) I would say the vast majority of people would benefit from doing some tissue work using the foam rollers (the black cylinder things by the red mats). I know its uncomfortable when you first start doing it but just like a lot of things in life if you persevere, it gets easier and you’ll really feel the benefit. Try your I.T. bands and calves as they are often tender – don’t swear when performing though!

Activating ‘lazy’ muscles

Using the previous example of sitting down, we regularly see people who have really poor glute activation most likely due to the huge number of hours we sit these days. The glutes are also some of the largest and strongest muscles in the body so if they aren’t firing properly then you’re creating problems for yourself. Often the hamstrings or lower back will have to take the slack if your glutes are lazy. So activating certain muscles at the start of your warm-up, every warm-up (be consistent!) should bring these muscles back to the land of the living – try 10x Two Legged Glute Bridges and 15x Clams (each side).

Mobilise those joints and get those muscles moving: dynamic stretching.

There is a rationale for doing a specific, limited amount of static stretching in the warm-up but I think most people these days know dynamic exercises or mobilisations are the way to go primarily here. This is more specific to the nature of the work you’re about to do and if done correctly at the right tempo dynamic stretches will elevate the heart rate and bring about a light sweat. So what do I mean by dynamic exercises? Here are 5 good ones:

-Squat – simple, go as deep as you can.

-Split squat – keep that balance

-Lateral Squat - go as low as you can

-Stiff legged (Romanian) deadlifts – don’t round your back

-‘Torso Twists’ – people very rarely use rotation exercises but in daily life we rotate all the time.

All done with just your bodyweight, they work multiple muscles and joints and multiple planes of movement – not a bad start to get you going.

Note: If I were going to do some hard intervals on a CV machine I would then proceed to do a warm-up on that specific machine interspersed with some more dynamic stretches. If I were lifting I would do some warm-up sets with a light to moderate load before a working set.

2)    Training what you like and not what you need

I like pizza, I like chicken and mushroom pies and I like mint chocolate ice cream… a lot. However it’s doesn’t mean I go home every night and tuck into a large pepperoni, my favourite Delia puff pastry recipe and a tub of Ben and Jerry’s. Likewise when I go to the gym I like training certain muscles groups more than others, but what I actually do in the gym is what I think my body needs and not just what I like doing. This way you will make more progress, you will limit discrepancies between areas (muscle imbalances) therefore hopefully having less injuries. So next time you see your friend doing his 5 different chest exercise – give him a nudge and tell him to do some back work to fix those rounded shoulders and open out that chest.

3)    Lifting the weight up anyhow, any means

Some people don’t care how they get that weight up…. just as long as they get that weight up. But long term, that lifting style is not going to work, and you’re increasing your chances of injury too. So remember never compromise good technique for just completing that set using any means. Specifically, if you start any new exercises focus on technique and groove that form and long term your body (less injuries) and your ego will thank you (plus your PB’s will be much higher).

4)    One paced cardio workouts

There can be a time and place for steady state exercise but if you're someone who can comfortably do 20-30 minutes steadily on a CV machine think about switching up to some high intensity interval training (HIIT). This has been pretty big in the mainstream media for a while now so I’m sure most of you will have heard about this but whether you actually do this is another matter. Vary the time intervals you ‘work’ and ‘rest’ to keep things fresh and be honest with yourself, if you’ve set yourself a workout where your work intervals are ‘very hard’ – are they really very hard or are you just telling yourself that? These are tough sessions taxing your anaerobic system and your aerobic system but once complete you can feel proud that when you’re asleep that you’ll be burning more calories due to the EPOC* effect. (*Excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, informally called afterburn, is a measurably increased rate of oxygen intake following strenuous activity intended to erase the body's "oxygen deficit".)

5)     Doing the same thing you’ve always done

Maybe you're someone who has recently joined us at the centre but you’ve previously been a member of another gym years ago. You’ve naturally gravitated to the exercises and machines that you know because the unknown is scary. Well, time to beat that chest and be brave and try some new machines and new exercises. There’s a whole new world out there of exercises and our staff are on hand to help you learn new exercises so you can challenge yourself and improve. I almost guarantee that you’ll enjoy your workouts more doing different things that you can feel the benefit of even if they are hard at first. Try and learn a couple of new exercises every month to build up your knowledge and exercise repertoire.

If you don’t know how to foam roll, have no idea what on earth a ‘clam’ is or anything else in this post look out for a future posts which will go into more detail on these areas. In the meantime speak to staff in the gym who will be only too happy to help and show you. Good luck!

- by Tristan Coles