Strength training is not rocket science but it’s not something you can become proficient in overnight. It takes focus, persistence, and desire to learn proper training techniques and put them into practice. When you start, you’ll find yourself making mistakes that get in the way of progress and increase your risk of injury.
Ask any fitness trainer, and they’ll tell you that beginners tend to make the same mistakes. By being aware of these errors when you first start and correcting them early, you can avoid some of the pitfalls and make faster progress.
Let’s look at some of the most common mistakes beginners make that delay progress.
Too Much Focus on the Amount of Weight and Not Enough on Form
One mistake beginners make is obsessing over how much weight they’re lifting. You don’t need to maximize the weight at first. Doing so will only increase your risk of injury. The first goal should be to develop sound strength training habits and learn proper form in the beginning to avoid unhealthy habits and injuries. The bad habits will stick with you and cause problems as you progress, and injuries are an inconvenience, too. Once you adopt a bad habit, it’s hard to unlearn. Start by doing each exercise with no weight or light weights, so you can focus on the mechanics of the movement, not the weight. Then slowly increase the weight you’re working with as you get stronger. There’s no rush. You’re only competing against yourself.
Too Little Attention to Nutrition
To build more muscle and strength, you need to consume more calories than you burn. Strength training puts stress on your body, which burns energy (calories). To recover from the stress of training and build new muscle tissue, you need more calories and protein than you would if you are sedentary.
What happens if you undereat? You’ll feel drained and sluggish during your workouts. You also need a sound nutritional strategy that provides your body with adequate amounts of protein, healthy fats, fruits, and vegetables. Most novice lifters don’t realize this or don’t take it seriously enough. You can have the lifting component of your training in place but if you’re not addressing your body’s nutritional needs, you may not make progress. Nutrition is that important.
Not Having a Strategy
Why are you training? Are you trying to lose weight? Get stronger? Gain muscle? Be more flexible? Every one of these goals requires a different training program. First, you must decide your longer-term goal and then break it down into smaller goals. Only then can you design an effective training program to meet those goals.
For example, if you’re trying to maximize your strength, you’ll lift heavier than if you’re trying to boost muscle endurance or build functional strength and mobility. The least-effective approach is to pick random exercises, do some sets and reps, and hope you made some progress. You need a strategy and a plan. Without a roadmap, you won’t reach your strength-training goals.
Not Tracking Your Progress
If you don’t know how much you’re lifting or how many reps you’re doing, it’s impossible to know if you’re making progress. It’s a mistake that’s all too common — doing a workout and not documenting weight, reps, sets, or even the exercises. You need this information to fine-tune your workouts. So, keep a fitness journal and use it to track your workouts. Write down your workouts with the exercises, sets, reps, and weights used. It might also help to document how you felt before, during, and after the workout.
Strive to increase the number of reps or weight lifted slightly each week. That’ll ensure you’re pushing your body hard enough to get stronger and more muscular, but not so much that you get injured or exhausted.
Lifting Too Light
As discussed, you should not lift too heavy. Yet, it’s also common to make another mistake — lifting too light and not increasing the weight over time. This violates a fundamental principle of muscle gains called progressive overload, the gradual increase of stress placed upon the body during exercise training.
Without a progressive overload, your body will adapt to the training and stop making progress. Progressive overload is important for building muscle because it provides a constant stimulus for growth and prevents the body from reaching a state of homeostasis. Without progressive overload, your muscles have no reason to grow bigger or stronger.
Forgetting About the Importance of Rest
More training isn’t better. There’s a certain “sweet spot” for muscle growth where you stress your muscles enough to encourage them to grow without exhausting them or giving them inadequate recovery time.
Inadequate rest and recovery come in two forms: not getting enough rest between sessions and not taking enough rest days. For example, if you don’t get at least 48 hours of recovery between strength training sessions, your muscles won’t have time to repair and rebuild themselves. If you train the same body part two days in a row, you’ll be working on weak muscles. During rest periods between workouts, your body repairs damaged muscle fibers and creates new ones to make you stronger for your next workout. If you don’t give your body enough time to rest and recover, you will wear yourself down instead of building yourself up.
Also, don’t underestimate the importance of getting enough sleep at night. If you’re not getting seven to eight hours of sleep, you’re not getting enough rest to recover from workouts. This can lead to decreased performance, increased risk of injury, and a less than optimal recovery time. Sustained loss of sleep elevates cortisol, a stress hormone that breaks down muscle tissue. Don’t skimp on slumber.
The Bottom Line
Start right with strength training and don’t make these common mistakes. Be patient, too! Strength training is a long game. If you’re consistent with your exercise regimen and don’t give up, you should see continued improvement over time.
References:
- “The Ten Rules of Progressive Overload – Bret Contreras.” https://bretcontreras.com/progressive-overload/.
- “Progressive Overload Explained: Grow Muscle & Strength Today.” https://blog.nasm.org/progressive-overload-explained.
- Leproult R, Copinschi G, Buxton O, Van Cauter E. Sleep loss results in an elevation of cortisol levels the next evening. Sleep. 1997 Oct;20(10):865-70. PMID: 9415946.
- Mullington JM, Simpson NS, Meier-Ewert HK, Haack M. Sleep loss and inflammation. Best Pract Res Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2010 Oct;24(5):775-84. doi: 10.1016/j.beem.2010.08.014. PMID: 21112025; PMCID: PMC3548567.
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Beyond Progressive Overload: 5 Strategies for Maximizing Strength
Strength Training: Avoid These 5 Mistakes When Lifting Heavy
Does Exercise Order Impact Strength Gains?
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Related Cathe Friedrich Workout DVDs:
STS Strength 90 Day Workout Program
All of Cathe’s Strength & Toning Workout DVDs
Total Body Workouts
Lower Body Workouts
Upper Body Workouts