Common Gym Mistakes and Simple Solutions to them

hamzatm

What a nice write-up! Thanks sir.

Want to mention a thing or two that may be beneficial (not sure if it's been brought up yet) for those of us who want to surpass. Disclaimer, this advice is probably not massively relevant to someone just wanting to be healthy, and get a little bigger and stronger. It is more aimed at people who want to be what others would consider amazing.

1. Regarding "3. keep it specific": As you said training for more reps at a lower intensity works better for building mass and upping the intensity (with a naturally lower volume) is more suited to building strength, but it should be noted for long term progress that the two cannot be separated.

Doing low rep high intensity training constantly will only build your strength up to a point. At that point you need to get bigger in order to get stronger and neglecting your volume will lead to a stall in progress. This is especially true for skinny, underweight clients (of course diet plays a role).

(As alluded, for most people who just want to be somewhat bigger and stronger the guidelines are sound)

2. Regarding "6. avoid overtraining": Your advice for training no more than 2-3 times a week for an hour at a time is, again, adequate for the average person. However, again if someone trains with a passion and actually wants to surpass average people then he/she would be well advised to train more than that. A lot more in fact.

Wardy257

This guide is for beginners, or people not looking for extremes. There are just too many variables to write a guide for powerlifters, bodybuilders etc.

hamzatm

Makes sense, great guide!

deeno65

Got  money from   bensons beds       going to bank it      xx

Naomijshaw

What do you recommend for petite women? I have used different activity tracking devices and exercise daily and my total calorie burn is between 1200-1500 calories! I workout really hard but only see 300 calorie max burn. I am 5'2 and weight 108 pounds! I want to be able to burn more in order to eat more!

Wardy257

Firstly, calorie tracking isn't all that accurate so concentrate on general trends, not specific readings. Secondly, you are small so unlikely to ever burn huge amounts of calories per day, yes it sucks. Lastly, get stronger so you can perform more work per workout and don't spend to much time doing cardio at a constant pace (no 30 min jogs).

stoomc

Why would you advise against doing 30 minute jogs?

Wardy257

A 30 min jog won't achieve much in terms of fitness gained nor calories burned.

stoomc

But surely something is better than nothing?
The way you have worded it above sounds like you're recommending her not to do jogging, forgive me if I've picked you up wrong.

Also, small females tend to get it worse off with dieting as their calories needs are already so low, so decreasing calories through diet is not the best suggestion (not saying your are specifically suggesting that). Hence why cardio can become more of a necessity the lower on the scale you become, I certainly wouldn't be recommending less of it.

reiteration

I run 35 minutes on the treadmill (5k) and the machine says I burn ~500 calories..!!