March 12, 2022
Madhura Mohan
10 Common Mistakes Women Tend To Make In The Gym
I
t is pleasing to know how modern-day women are showing a thing about being fit! Female presence is noticeably increasing in gyms around the world. Never late than ever, the ladies' community has accepted the fact that fitness is no more a guy's thing. Big applause for that!!
Getting a gym membership is one thing; being determined to achieve your fitness goals is the second thing but what counts the most, in the end, is whether you are stepping your game in the gym or not?
Heading to the gym making little or no progress should not be the thing with you ladies. If your workouts are not working for you, if you have been unable to achieve the body image that may have eluded you for some time, it becomes clear that you are making mistakes that might be crippling your fitness goals. What is stopping you from seeing good results from your gym workout? Let us learn all that in this blog…
WOMEN HAVE A FEAR OF LIFTING WEIGHTS DUE TO FALSE ASSUMPTION OF BULKING
In general, every woman’s fitness goal is to get toned but most women don’t understand the fact that to tone up means having increased lean muscle mass, with reduced body fat mass. In order to accomplish this, you need to lift weights. Many women shy away from lifting weights and gravitate towards cardio workouts due to fear that's borne out of a misunderstanding that lifting heavy weights will bulk them up.
Lifting weights will not cause women to bulk and look masculine as women don’t naturally produce enough testosterone which is the hormone responsible for building muscle mass and size. Another chief determinant of bulking up is consistently having more calorie intake.
Doing weight lifting/resistance training will help increase your metabolic rate, shed body fat, achieve a sculpted, firmer and toned physique.
Ladies, give the treadmill a break and pick up dumbbells, kettlebells, or barbells instead.
NOT DOING WARM UPS & COOL DOWN
Women need to fix the habit of jumping right into the workouts without doing warm-ups and cool-down.
A proper warm-up for 10 minutes before you head to the main workout prepares your muscles, heart, and lungs for physical activity, increases blood flow to the muscles, raises your muscle temperature for optimal flexibility, decreases muscle stiffness, chances of muscle injury, and increases the range of motion of muscles.
A cool-down after a physical activity returns the body’s condition to pre-exercise conditions like your heart rate and breathing rate return to normal, lactic acid gets dissipated away from the muscles (which can lead to muscle cramps).
Don’t ignore the warm-ups and cool down; spend some time doing warm-ups beforehand and stretching afterwards.
DISTRACTIONS
Getting distracted during your training sessions can lead to subpar performance. In the world of social media, one quick Instagram or Whatsapp cruise between sets can turn into 5 minutes of sitting around near an exercise machine. Sometimes, a quick hello to your buddy at the gym can turn into a 10-minutes long conversation.
Using a cell phone during workouts can lead to postural instability, and predispose you to musculoskeletal injuries.
Being concerned about what other girls are wearing, and taking selfies during workouts to collect proof that you uphold a certain lifestyle are all major causes of distraction.
Place your cell phones in the locker, be more focused on your performance, and remember the purpose of why you started.
OVERDOING CARDIO
When you exercise, you should make sure that you are not burning your muscle for fuel. Women with particular weight loss goals tend to overdo it with cardio. If you overwhelmingly focus on cardio, you will end up losing muscle mass. Running on a treadmill at a moderate pace for long hours will neither help burn body fat nor will it help you lose weight. Toning requires building muscle, and cardio will not help you accomplish this goal. You must make strength training your priority if you want to build lean muscle and burn more calories at rest. As told earlier, the more muscle you have, the more energy your body expends. Your cardio training should be coupled with resistance workouts.
The key to getting more out of your workout is strength training.
IMPROPER FUELING / INADEQUATE HYDRATION
Women pay less emphasis on quality protein intake post-workout. This practice could be counter-productive. Adequate intake of protein post-workout helps restore your energy levels, boost metabolism, maintain positive nitrogen balance, prevent muscle loss, and stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Poor nutrient intake pre-workout will cause you to become fatigued soon and show poor performance. You must eat a variety of whole food sources to obtain adequate amounts of macronutrients. Optimal hydration also plays a vital role in fitness. Proper hydration prevents metabolic strain, muscle cramps, dizziness, helps replenish fluid losses during training, and facilitates thermoregulation.
Your pre and post-workout nutrition with adequate water intake keeps you going.
INCONSISTENCY
Consistency is arguably the vital component for accomplishing any fitness goal. Whether your goal is to build muscle, reduce weight, bulk up, you should ensure consistency in the scope of your workout and nutrition. You go to the gym for a couple of days and then give up complaining of muscle aches, or you do workouts for a month in the gym and give up because of not getting the expected results. What you need to understand here is that our bodies adapt gradually to exercise and being consistent in our efforts alone can help us reach our goals. Taking leeway on the diet when the weekend spins, having unrealistic goals can make you be inconsistent at the gym.
Your workout routine should become a way of your life rather than something of the low priority that you may do when you find free time.
MAKING COMPARISONS
Frequently comparing yourself with other people can sabotage your success at the gym. Your gym-mate and you may be putting in the same effort, but she may be making more gains than you.
Comparing with others makes you feel discouraged, the mental distraction that you create yourself will throw you off your game. Everyone’s body is different, and their abilities are different.
Next time you feel like doing comparisons, do it with yourself, your ultimate competitor in the game should be you and only you! Always wear self-confidence and not self-doubt.
Comparison causes you to focus on others rather than yourself. Have patience in your path to progress.
IMPROPER RECOVERY
Ladies, you need to chase performance and not soreness. One of the most important contributing factors to enhancing; your fitness goals is recovery after exercise. If; you do workouts every day without giving your body the time to adapt to stresses it underwent, your body becomes susceptible to injuries. Spare two days in a week for recovery to allow your muscles time to repair; otherwise, your muscle tears will end up getting bigger which can cause inflammation in your body. The muscle soreness may give rise to inflammation, and may interrupt your sleep cycle, leaving you feeling exhausted and demotivated to go to the gym.
A proper recovery is a must to achieve good results of training.
NO PLAN / IMPROPER TECHNIQUE
Many women stick to doing the same pattern of workouts, if they are used to treadmill, they are seen hanging around it every day at the gym. Women are often found doing isolation workouts (which work for a single muscle group). As much as possible, stick to compound exercises that work for multiple muscle groups at the same time. Letting your knees fall out while doing squats, hunching your back while doing deadlifts, using your neck to rise to a sitting position, not maintaining proper seat height while cycling, raising your glutes while doing planks are some of the common mistakes that you need to fix.. If you are someone who has never trained before, you can’t suddenly start working out 5 days a week, then you’ll tend to give up in the end of the week.
Improper training form imposes to injury, and inhibits calorie burn.
WRONG DIETARY HABITS
A slice of cake, pizza, or sugar-stuffed doughnuts may find you more enticing but remember you must make conscious food choices if you want to be fit. Avoid eating packaged foods that don’t provide your body with any nutrient supply. Include more whole grains and whole foods in your diet. Again eating healthier food doesn’t mean you can eat them unlimitedly; you must also count on your calorie intake. If your calorie intake exceeds the amount you burn, you’ll add to your waistline. Conversely, if you are eating too little out of fear of adding pounds, or not consuming sufficient protein, you’ll have difficulties adding the muscle.
Always keep healthy food items around you so that you don’t get derailed from your healthy eating goals.
To get the results you want; you don’t have to be extreme; you have to be consistent, persistent & focused…
Ladies, don’t limit your challenges; learn to challenge your limits, because being strong is the new beautiful!!
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