Avoid The Mistakes I Made
Looking back over the last 7+ years of my personal lifting experience after all the knowledge and experience I've gained...
I realized there were many mistakes I made that made the process much harder than it had to be
I hope if you can relate to any of these topics they help you to avoid making the same mistakes I made
#1. Ego lifting
Don't sacrifice your form to lift more weight. It is the easiest recipe for injury and the risks are not worth the rewards. I see so many young people who feel like their bodies are resilient to injury. I promise you it's not. If you don't care about your form and lift heavy weight you will get injured sooner or later and it will not be fun. Even if you don't get an injury while you’re young, this type of workout style will make it much easier for you to get injured when you get older.
I used to be the same way in high school. I just wanted to lift heavy because it was cool. Now I do not care how much weight I use, as long as it is challenging to me and I can sustain good form.
To be clear you can definitely still lift heavy. If you focus on improving your form and be smart about the way you lift you can go a lifetime without injury.
#2. Only lifting for looks
Have a deeper meaning besides just what you see. This is such a superficial way to measure your growth and progress. Are you an athlete wanting to improve in your sport? Are you a parent wanting to keep up with your kids? Do you want to drop a medication you're taking? Do you want to reduce the amount of depression or anxiety you have? Do you have an injury you want to heal?
Once you find more things to focus on besides the mirror your workout journey will change forever. Sooner or later once you get in great shape it will be so easy to lose motivation if you do not have other goals.
The biggest reason today I love working out so much is the mental health benefits. It helps so much with stress, anxiety, depression, sleep and so much more. Being a Type 1 diabetic it also helps me regulate my blood sugar much better.
#3. Doing non-functional workouts
You should focus on lifts in the gym that carry over in your day to day life. There is nothing wrong with switching things up or having some fun every now and then but you should focus on things that will make your life easier outside of the gym.
It's fun to always squat, bench, and deadlift but there are so many other movements we do as humans depending on our jobs and lifestyle. Find common movements you perform and look for ways to integrate similar movements in your workouts
Being a personal trainer focusing on bodybuilding and corrective exercises my workout variety is big. Yours can be also but it does not have to be. Find movements you enjoy and find benefits from, keep those as your stables.
#4. Being overly obsessed
The gym used to be my purpose. I loved lifting weights so much and I still do. Calling me a gym rat would be an understatement. I used to look forward to going to the gym every single day. I would spend several hours there where it would almost become social time with friends. If you make the gym a place where you go to focus and give it your all where you are 100% locked in you will feel much better and see much more results mentally and physically.
As mentioned in our last post, don't try to lose a ton of weight in a few months or build a ton of muscle by summertime. Focus on being healthy for the rest of your life. It's not a race to lead you to burnout it is about longevity and habits.
#5. Thinking I knew everything
Before I became a personal trainer and got my bachelors degree in Kinesiology I thought I knew everything simply from working out a lot. Fact is the more you learn, the more you realize how much you actually don't know. After being a trainer for over 4 years I feel now like I barely know anything. Open your mind and become a lifelong learner. Learn from your mistakes, learn from my mistakes, learn from social media, learn from people who are further down the path than you are, and learn from people who are where you want to be. The minute you believe there's nothing more to learn is the minute you close to door to mental and physical growth.
#6. Not warming up
Do not be the person who walks into the gym and goes straight to the squat rack to grab the bar and start loading up weight. This is silly and essentially begging to get hurt.
Most movements people do in the gym are called "prime movers" which refer to big muscle groups like the quads, pecs, lats, deltoids etc. Majority of people neglect what are called "stabilizing muscles" which refer to areas like the rotator cuff, glute medius, and core.
No wonder it is so common for lifters to deal with pain. If you do not train the smaller stabilizing muscle groups your larger prime mover muscle groups will dominate and take over. This is exactly how injury occurs for many people. When a muscle becomes too weak to do its job problems occur.
If you follow us on Facebook and Instagram we post daily content on exercises focusing on these common weak-links for many people
If you have pain or an injury, or are looking to get in the best shape of your life and would like to work with Platinum Training to solve your problems fill out our form below to get started
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Keep up the hard work 💪