Common Fitness Blunders

This is from SPARKPEOPLE.com:

There are numerous fitness blunders that everyone—beginners and experienced exercisers— falls into occasionally. Some may even become a regular part of your fitness routine. But, to get the best results from all your hard work, it’s important that you don’t find yourself creating a fitness routine filled with mistakes. This can set you up for injury, lack of results, boredom, plateaus, and just an overall lack of success. Analyze your fitness routine on a regular basis and ask yourself if you fall into any of these common blunders.

Blunder #1: Skipping the Warm Up, Cool Down, and Stretches

This may be one of the most common habits of exercisers! You finally committed yourself to a fitness routine, and you don’t want to waste any time. Often individuals jump right into exercise full bore. After all, warming up and stretching seems meaningless and a waste of time.

NOT TRUE! Warming up and stretching should be the foundation of your exercise. They should be viewed as a transition into exercise, allowing your body and mind to prepare for running, jumping, endurance, etc. Here is what you gain from a proper warm-up/stretch and cool-down/stretch:

Your muscles and connective tissue loosen to prepare for the stress of exercise
Oxygen and blood flow to your muscles and connective tissue increases, providing fuel for better muscular performance
Tension in your body decreases
Breathing patterns establish, helping relax the body during exercise
Joints are lubricated to allow for better performance
Muscle soreness is prevented and/or reduced during and after your workout
Better body awareness
Quicker reaction time
Improved posture
Improved coordination
You’ve probably exercised without warming up and stretching properly, and maybe nothing horrible happened. It may seem unnecessary, but consistently skipping it will limit your gains and put you at risk for injury. You could even be injured without even knowing it since you may not feel any pain right away

Fix it Tip: Try to warm-up with a low impact exercise for 5-10 minutes. A light sweat is a good indicator of your body temperature rising. Follow your warm-up with 5-10 minutes of stretching, head to toe. A cool down and stretch is just as important, following the same guidelines. Most of your flexibility benefits will come from your post-exercise stretch because your muscles are so warm.

Blunder #2: Looking For Instant Gratification

We are a culture of instant gratification seekers! Expecting fast results from a new diet and fitness plan is very common. Unfortunately it is one of the worst mindsets a beginner can create. You know about all the great benefits of exercise, like increased energy, weight loss, and better health. You exercise for a week straight, wake up the following Monday completely wiped out, a couple pounds heavier (because the exercise made you so hungry), and you have a cold. What gives?

Exercise definitely provides many great benefits, but the results are often seen weeks or even months after you begin. When you are consistent:

Your metabolism speeds up to allow for weight loss
Your body will adjust to the stress of exercise and you’ll feel more rejuvenated
Your immune system improves to help prevent sickness
Your strength and endurance improves, making exercise (and daily tasks) easier
Your mood and energy levels stabilize throughout the day
You sleep better at night
You look and feel better!

Fix it Tips: Don’t throw up your hands if you don’t see what you are looking for. Analyze what you are doing and try to make adjustments. It’s worth it.
Try to focus on other improvement besides weight loss- how you feel, how much you’ve learned, how you have more energy, etc.

Keep in mind that progress may be slow in the beginning. It probably took you many years to gain the weight you are trying to lose. You can’t expect to take it off in a fraction of the time. Plus, slow and steady weight loss (about 1-2 pounds per week) is healthier- AND you’re more likely to keep it off when it happens at this rate.

Get support and encouragement from a buddy, your friends and family, or on the message boards. Sometimes a kind word is all you need to stop you from giving up.