Top Exercise Mistakes to Avoid if You Want to See Results

You shouldn’t waste your time. I want you to walk into the gym and know exactly how to get the results you want. Avoid these common exercise mistakes and I promise you will see results faster.

No one strolls into the gym and happily hands over a sign up fee plus first months deposit to the friendly desk clerk without having some reason, deep down inside, for wanting to get fit. If you currently work out, or you’re planning to workout in the near future, you have a goal. Maybe it’s not completely clear in your head, but you know you want to feel better/look better/move better. I want that for you too! I don’t want you to waste your time. I want you to walk into the gym and know how to do it right, and what exercise mistakes to avoid.

There are a lot of reasons that you go to the gym. To improve body composition (aka lose fat and build lean tissue). To get stronger. To build confidence. The endorphin rush. To live longer. To have more energy. To meet people. Whatever your reason(s), you’ve made a choice to exercise more in order to improve your life. I’m trainer-style happy dancing inside.

But if you’re out there putting in your best effort day in and day out and not getting the results you expect, then it’s time to assess your workout and make sure you’re checking all the boxes. Some of these you’ve heard before – but it’s worth hearing them again. Sometimes it takes experience, or just simple repetition, to really understand the idea. Fixing these mistakes will help you to see results, stay injury free and stay motivated!

Common Exercise Mistakes That May be Interfering With Your Fitness Goals

Do you ever think about how long it took you to learn how to drive? I mean at one point someone just placed you behind a meal and said “press the gas”. You (and every other newbie driver on the planet), made a ton of mistakes. Some of them your teacher probably anticipated – and let you know ahead of time. Some of them you knew already (green means GO). But some things you had to learn in the moment – after you’d made the mistake already and had a sense of what it all meant.

Same goes for working out. You aren’t born knowing how to build muscle. You don’t innately know how to go in there and do it perfectly every time. You have to practice. You make mistakes. You learn what doesn’t work and you learn what does. And if you’re still in learn mode, this article will help you push past lingering mistakes that might be hindering your results.

#1: You’re Only Doing Cardio

Of all the exercise mistakes out there, this is the one that I see the most often with my clients. Aerobic exercise provides a ton of benefits. It’s great for cardiovascular health and has been shown to reduce cellular aging. But it doesn’t hit all of the markers of a great workout – the markers that you need to hit if you want to see your body change. In fact, too much cardio and too little weight training can actually be detrimental to your look good/feel good goals.

Cardio doesn’t build muscle like lifting weights does. In fact, too much cardio can actually cause you to lose muscle mass – not a good thing if your goal is to get stronger, create muscle definition and boost your metabolism. And if you are doing the same cardio over and over, it’s more than likely that your body has adapted to the work and intensity. While adaptation is a great thing in the wild when you’re trying to ancestors were learning to survive in the jungle, it’s not great for getting results.

To get results, you need to challenge your body. Mixing it up, adding intensity, and/or consistently progressing your workouts is the only way you trigger your body to change. Change = results.

You don’t have to cut out all cardio. But if you’re doing a lot of cardio and cardio only and you’re not seeing results, it’s time to add in some weight training.

#2: You’re Not Lifting Enough Weight

The above being said, if you are lifting weights, are you lifting enough weight?

Ladies, lifting weights will not, I repeat will not making you big and bulky. You will not rip through your sports bra. You will not turn into the Michelin Man. Females simply do not have the physiology or hormone structure it takes to bulk up like that. Even males, who are more likely to have that physiology and hormone structure, have a hard time bulking up.

If you aren’t lifting progressively heavier weights (and remember, heavy is subjective, heavier is objectively based on what you currently do), you simply will not see the results you expect. Lifting heavier weights introduces a boat load of benefits, some visible and some under the radar. Here are just a few…

• Build strength. The most obvious outcome of lifting heavier weights is that you force your body to adapt, aka get stronger, to handle the load. The heavier you lift, the stronger you become.
  
• Gain muscle. The second most obvious outcome is that you build muscle. Not the Michelin Man kind, but the kind that makes you look better naked. The kind that you use the terms “toned” and “defined” for.
  
• Boost your metabolism. Muscle is more metabolically active than fat. That means that the more muscle you have the more calories you burn even at rest. The more calories you burn at rest, the more fat you burn in a day. That’s a really fun cycle.
  
• Gain Confidence. Weight training can reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, alleviate stress and release a slew of “happy” hormones. The moment you realize that you can see your muscles moving while you lift, or that you can lift something you’ve never been able to lift before, or that you feel stronger than ever, your confidence will sky rocket.

If you’ve been lifting the same dumbbells for the same number of reps and sets for months or even years, you’ve likely run out of room to adapt. It’s no longer work for you body to finish your workout! Add to the challenge but slightly increasing the weight you lift, adding reps or sets, decreasing your rest periods so that you decrease recovery time, or simply change the exercises that you do.

#3: Your Workouts are Unbalanced

Well-rounded results require a well-balanced workout routine.

We tend to plan our workouts based on our insecurities, interests, injuries, experience and comfort level. If you’ve always wanted a bigger butt, you’re going to do more glute exercises. If you want toned arms, you are probably going to focus on shoulder and arm movements. And while that’s fine to a degree, that kind of uber-focused workout structure can lead to muscular imbalances and ultimately, injury.

The best comparison I can think of is car tires. When you bring your vehicle in for maintenance, you have your tires rotated so that they wear evenly. If you don’t rotate your tires you risk uneven wear and your vehicle won’t handle the way it should and isn’t as safe as it should be.

Same goes for your body. If you don’t “rotate” your workouts, aka follow a balanced schedule of cardio vs. strength, lower body vs. upper body, etc., you risk wearing out certain muscles and joints. That wear places you at greater risk of injury and you’ll find it harder to achieve the results you want.

There are a lot of ways to design a balanced workout program: upper/lower, push/pull/lower, body part splits…But the best way to stick to a balanced workout program is to plan ahead. Schedule your workouts for the week before your head into the gym. If you know you can only workout 4 times, make sure that you are hitting every muscle group at least once, and not overdoing it on any one!

#4: You Aren’t Activating the Right Muscles

Do you ever do an exercise that is supposed to target a specific muscle group, but you feel it in an entirely different area? You do Hip Bridges to target your glutes but feel it in your lower back, for example. Well, now you have your reason: you aren’t activating the right muscles (or any muscles).

Activating the right muscles is a two-part skill.

The mental part is referred to as the mind-muscle connection. Mind-muscle connection is your ability to feel a muscle working, and to consciously be able to initiate movement from that area. It comes with practice, and repetition. And it’s easier to connect to muscles on the front of the body, like the biceps and shoulders, because you can see those muscles. It’s harder to connect to your back and glutes for example, because you can’t see them contracting and lengthening as your work.

The physical part is really about your warm up (that’s right, this is just a sneaking way to tell you that you’re making a mistake if you’re skipping your warm up!). A good warm up includes specific exercises that target your working muscle groups so that they are primed to put in real work and push weight around.

A great warm up includes:

• Low intensity cardio to gradually warm up your muscles, increase blood flow and breathing/heart rate. Ideally, this cardio utilizes some or all of the muscle groups you plan on working out.
  
• Dynamic stretching is a movement based kind of stretching that is perfect for your pre-workout routine. This style of stretching revolves around gentle, constantly moving stretches (as opposed to static, holding stretches) in order to warm up your muscles and prepare for more intense movement.
  
• Activation exercises to target the muscles that should be ready to work. Activation exercises increase your range of motion, balance and stability. They also trigger that mind-muscle connection I was talking about – you’ll start to feel those specific muscles warm up and it’ll be easier to “turn on” that area in your working sets. For example if you plan on squatting, you might start with light sets of banded glute bridges, clam shells and leg raises.
  
• Warm up sets are exactly what they sound like: a lighter weight or body weight version of the exercise you are about to do. You want to choose a movement that mimics whatever pattern your working sets will utilize. For example body weight squats before barbell squats, push ups before chest presses and body weight good mornings before deadlifts.

#5: You’ve Been Doing the Same Workout for Years

There are a few main reasons to vary your workouts: to avoid injury (see: Your Workouts are Unbalanced), to avoid boredom, and to break through a plateau.

A lot of my clients come to after they’ve been working out for months, or even years, without seeing results. When we dig deeper, we realize that part of the problem is that they’ve been doing the same workout, with the same weights, for…well…ever.

What’s happened is called adaptive resistance. Simply put, when you repeat the same movement with same resistance for a long period of time, your body stops responding to it. Why? Because it’s already adapted to that challenge. It no longer needs to exert extra effort to get the job done and so, it doesn’t. Changing up your routine every 4-6 weeks introduces a new challenge for your body. Your body responds to that challenge and *boom*, growth.

You can add variety in a lot of ways:

• Add weight to the exercises you already do.
• Increase your set or rep range. If you typically do 2 sets, do 3. If you typically perform 10 reps, shoot for 15.
• Decrease your rest/recovery time.
• Add variety to your exercise choices.
• Choose to use free weights instead of machines.
• Experiment with supersets, drop sets, or pyramids.

I recommend choosing one or two at a time and paying attention. When you see that your body has stopped responding (stopped seeing results), you know it’s time for another change.

#6: You Only Use Machines

Don’t get me wrong. There is absolute value in using exercise machines, especially if you are a beginner. Machines are often self-explanatory, and come with instructions and sketches explaining just what to do, and just what muscles you should be utilizing. They’re a great way to learn basic movement patterns and exercises.

That said, if you’re only using machines to strength train, you’re missing out. That’s especially true if you’ve been working out for a while.

Free weights such as dumbbells, barbells and kettlebells, have a long list of benefits. They improve your balance and stability because the weights are not set solidly to a piece of metal or in the ground. Your core will get stronger for the very same reason. You’ll increase your range of motion, engage more muscles for one movement which burns more calories, and you’ll be able to fix muscular imbalances that you couldn’t target well on a machine.

The easiest way to transition from machines to free weights is to start light, and work in movements that mimic what you already know from the machines. For example if you use a shoulder press machine, the dumbbell shoulder press is a good next move. If you are comfortable on the chest fly machine, try transitioning to a light weight bench fly with dumbbells. You should be able to utilize what you learned from the machine and transfer that to your new challenge.

#7: You Don’t Track Your Workouts

Say you take a 2-week road trip. When you reach your destination you want to know exactly how many miles you traveled. If you didn’t track your trip, every turn off, every missed turn, every spontaneous change of destination, you could guess at your mileage but you could never know for sure, and you certainly couldn’t retrace every step to make sure you don’t repeat what you’ve already done.

Now take that 2-week road tip and multiply it by years of workouts. If you don’t track your workouts, how in the world are you going to know that you are taking the right next turn? That you’re not repeating the same mistakes or getting stuck at the same roadblock?

Don’t get me wrong. Getting to the gym and moving more is better than sitting on the couch whether you track it or not. But you’re not reading this post because of the “better than sitting on the couch”ness of it all.

Tracking has been part of my journey for over a decade. Here’s why we all should track our workouts (and yes, the reasons go beyond the fact that I’m a Type A nerd):

• Progress. To continuously make progress you have to progressively challenge your body at each and every opportunity. Tracking your workout gives you an understanding of where you left off last time. You’ll be able to see “last week I did 3 sets of 12 squats at 65 pounds and it was fairly easy…looks like it’s time to bump that weight up to 75”.
• Motivation/track your success. It can often feel like slow-going progress at the gym but tracking allows you to see just how far you’ve come. Celebrate those results – they are often more telling, and far more important to life quality and longevity than what the scale tells you.
• Purpose and efficiency = faster progress. Tracking your workouts allows you to move with purpose through the gym and through your routine. Instead of wasting time working your way back up to where you left off last time, you can use your data to start out at the right weight and intensity.

#8: You Overeat Post-Workout

The data is out there: it’s super common to overeat post workout. Why? For one, we think of that post-workout meal as a reward for our hard work (will run for pizza). We see the calorie counter on the treadmill clock in at 500 calories and automatically, whatever we eat after the workout feels like free calories. But the thing is…those calorie counters are often just straight up incorrect. And not in your favor. On average, cardio machines over report calorie burn by 19%. We’ve heard about the importance of post-workout fuel over and over again and hit the protein smoothie counter before heading out the door.

And post workout fuel is important. But if you’re walking on the treadmill for 30 minutes and then buying a 500 calories smoothie with a scoop of protein, a whole banana and some peanut butter, you’re defeating the purpose. Yes, post-workout protein is key to muscle growth. And yes, the occasional treat isn’t going to derail your success. And YES, if you eat that occasional treat immediately after your workout your body is going to process those calories differently.

But…if you give in to that urge every single time you are probably doing more harm than good.

Instead of a willy-nilly post workout feast, keep these tips in mind. Schedule your workout before a meal. Working out just before lunch or dinner will satisfy your hunger, give you that sense of reward and put those calories to instant use in a healthy manner. If you can’t do that, bring your own scoop of protein powder and just add water at the gym. Unless your goal, and intensity of workout, is to put on major muscle, leave the powerlifters protein smoothie behind and keep that $9 in your pocket.

#9: You’ve Never Learned the Right Technique

There are some basic lifting techniques that you can master on your own by watching videos and doing some research. But if your goal is to get stronger and fitter for years to come it’s a good idea to invest in a solid foundation now.

A good trainer can help you nail your movement patterns and technique. And believe it or not, even though you’ve heard you should “never let your knees go over your toes when you squat”, there is no such thing as universally proper technique. Proper form depends on your body type, flexibility, mobility, strength, injury history, limb length and on and on.

Did you know that most experienced lifters who get hurt don’t injure themselves at the gym, they injure themselves doing something simply outside of the gym. They pull out their backs while moving a box from next to their legs to above their shoulders. They pull a hamstring chasing after their dog, not deadlifting. Why? Because they forget to maintain proper form.

Good form and proper technique prevents injuries. And believe it or not, they can lead to better results. Remember the activation portion of this article? Performing a movement with proper form helps you to engage the right muscles for the job. For example, squats with great form will help you grow your glutes. Squats with improper form could hurt your back, your knees, your neck.

As you get stronger you will want to lift heavier and heavier weights. And that loosey-goosey form you might have with 8 pound dumbbells (from when you pick up your weights, to when you load, to when you move, to when you de-load), isn’t going to cut it at 50 pounds or even 20. Learn now, before you are forced to learn after you heal!

#10: You Program Hop

We live in a world of instant gratification. You order a new rug and Bezo’s sends it to your doorstep tomorrow morning. You want take out and you can order any cuisine you want and have it delivered to you in a matter of hours.

But no one gets in shape overnight. And the process of getting in shape often requires repetitive motions, exercises and patterns. So it’s no wonder so many of us start a workout program, get bored and move on far too quickly to get real results.

Choose your goal.

Plan your method of attack.

And stick to it.

In the fitness world, consistency is king. While it’s true that variety in the form of progressive overload is important, bouncing from one program to the next is only going to delay your progress. You want to introduce change with purpose. A new exercise here. More weight there. An extra round of HIIT. A different style of bicep curl. These are all changes through which you can track your progress. You know that you’re doing more, instead of just doing different.

#11: You’ve Never Tried HIIT

HIIT gives you amazing benefits in less time. You’ll burn more calories overall. You’ll improve your body composition. You’ll improve your heart rate, blood pressure and power. If you’ve never tried HIIT (high intensity interval training), you’re missing out.

And while intensity 100% matters in a HIIT workout, keep in mind that it’s absolutely subjective. Your max effort is entirely dependent on your fitness level, strength, energy, etc. So even if you aren’t sprinting Usain Bolt speeds, if you’re giving it your all you will reap the benefits.

#12: You Try to Target Reduce Certain Areas

You CAN spot build. If you want to build bigger leg muscles, you load up that barbell to squat and deadlift until the cows come home.

You CANNOT spot reduce. It is physiologically impossible to target specific areas, say the belly area or underarms, for fat reduction. While there are certainly things that you can do to increase overall fat loss ang weight loss (strength train, HIIT, increase NEAT, eat for your goals…but all that is for another dozen articles), doing 1,000 crunches a day to decrease your midline is a fruitless effort.

The only way to lose fat/weight in a specific area is to lose overall body fat/weight. Fat is stored in your body as energy. When you burn energy your body pulls from all over the body to provide that fuel. Specifically where your body pulls from first is largely genetically defined.

#13: You Don’t Workout with Enough Intensity

Again, it’s far better to move at any capacity than it is to sit on the couch. That said if your goal is to achieve visible physical results…well that takes work.

The idea of progressive overload describes the need to frequently and pointedly apply new stimuli in order to trigger your body to make a change. If you lift a heavier load than you are used to, your body will adapt by growing more muscle. If you run faster next week than you did last week, your body will be forced to adapt cardiovascularly to become more efficient.

If you never introduce the kind of intensity it takes to be out of breath, or have difficulty completing a set, you aren’t working out with enough intensity. Sure, you will still benefit from some health benefits. But if your goal is growth and obvious change, intensity is where it’s at.

Signs that you aren’t working out with enough intensity include being able to hold a full conversation during a every cardio session, lifting the same weight for months and months, or never breaking a sweat.

Some of these exercise mistakes are common – and harped on all over the internet. But some aren’t as intuitive. If you’re working hard and you want to see results (I know you do), stay ahead of the game by avoiding these errors. You got this!