Top 12 Fitness Mistakes by Exercise Beginners

Sometimes we wonder why the workout is not working out. At times we exercise too much or do it the wrong way and end up being injured. Those who have never exercised before or those who start exercising at the gym without consulting a trainer may make some mistakes that hurt rather than help. Here are a list of wrong things that could make your exercise sessions ineffective.

1. Using Machines With Improper Adjustments: Gym equipment are not custom made and are designed for people of all kinds of builds and sizes. As a new user, you may not know how to adjust it to your height and size. You might injure yourself by using a  machine adjusted to someone else's size. If you have purchased a machine, which would be set to a universal standard, take the help of a trainer or expert to adjust it to for your size.
2. Improper Stretching: You must know when to do stretching exercises and when not to. Stretching before warm up can lead to injury or pulling of the muscle tissue. You should stretch only at the end of the exercise session or after warm up. In case you feel pain in the middle, you can stop your routine and stretch your muscles. Similarly, you should not bounce during a stretch as you can strain your muscles. Rather, the stretch should be static with no movement at the joints. If you feel pain while stretching, you are probably stretching too much. You should stretch till your body feels lengthened.
3. Doing Outdated Exercises: Exercises such as leg lifts and wind mills are not recommended by many fitness experts these days, as many newer and more effective routines are taught. You waste a lot of time doing old exercises that only use up your energy and could also cause injury. It would be better to learn newer workouts that give you the desired result.
4. Doing the Same Routine the Same Way: If you spend exactly the same time on the same routine, only on those particular set of muscles that you use, they would become more efficient and would begin to spend fewer calories. Your metabolic rate would stagnate and you will stop losing weight. If you do a variety of exercises, you have a better chance of losing weight.
5. Doing Too Many Exercises Too Soon: You may become over enthusiastic about losing weight and try doing all the exercises on the very first day. Over exercising would exhaust you, and your body would be unable to bear the strain. Increase your sets of exercises gradually under the supervision of a trainer and begin to push yourself only when he feels you are ready to do more exercises.
6. Skipping the Warm up: Warm up makes your muscles flexible and reduces risk of injury. When you skip the warm up, your heartbeat starts to increase rapidly and this will reduce the flow of blood and oxygen to your muscles. Your limbs will get tired soon. It would be better to spend 5 to 10 minutes in warm up, raise the body's temperature and be able to workout more. Particularly, if you lift weights all of a sudden without relaxing your muscles sufficiently, they may get torn and you cannot exercise till you are healed, which may take a long time.
7. Skipping Cool Downs: Just as you increase your heart beat gradually, you should slow it down at the end of the session. When you workout very hard and stop it suddenly, your heart beat will slow down quickly and this can be traumatic for the heart. It will also make your muscles sore. Cool downs help in the gradual slow down of the heart beat and aid recovery from exercise.
8. Not Drinking Sufficient Water: As you sweat a lot during workouts, you have to stay sufficiently hydrated by drinking water before, during and after workouts. You feel thirsty only after you get 1 to 2% dehydrated, so it's better you take some water that would assist in the proper contraction of your muscles, even before you feel like taking some.
9. Slouching While Working Out: Sometimes when you are tired, you lean on the treadmill, the cross trainer or the cycle. This way many muscles in your body are resting and not getting exercise. Also, when your back is rounded, your spine doesn't get enough support and feels much strain. So you should never slouch when you use the treadmill or other machines.
10. Doing Only Cardio Exercises: Cardio exercises definitely help you lose weight quickly, but for maintaining correct weight, you need muscles that constantly burn up the calories that you add to your body. In order to have a high metabolic rate, you must start having a revolving routine, consisting of all types of exercises for muscle building as well as weight loss.
11. Rushing Through Repetitions: Rushing up between repetitions, particularly if you are lifting weights can cause injury to your muscles and raise your blood pressure, both of which will disrupt your workout routine for the next few days. Many exercises require proper inhalation and exhalation techniques to be followed and the routine becomes complete only with them.
12. Gripping the Equipment Tightly: Some of us grip the treadmill or other cardio equipments too tightly, not realizing that this would make the readings increase automatically without our having walked at a faster pace. The cardio readings would also rise making us believe we have exercised more than we actually have. This amounts to cheating yourself. Use the bars for support. They are to help you avoid accidents, which means you should place your hands or fingers on them with a light grip.

Do you sometimes make a few of these mistakes? It is possible that you did not realize you were making them. Avoiding them will make your exercise routine a lot more effective.