Get the Best Return on Your Workout Investment

Already dedicated exercisers make small but costly mistakes regularly in their workouts, and one tiny change can have a huge impact on their results. Time is valuable, and for each precious moment invested you want to ensure the best possible return. If your body is not yet as lean or toned as you would like, it is likely that you are committing some key training mistakes. These errors can sabotage the efforts of even veteran exercisers. By learning about the most common fitness faux pas and their fixes, you will mistake-proof your exercise and see tremendous payoffs. Six of the biggest fitness faux pas are…Faux Pas #1 Skipping Over Your Warm-up The Facts… Warming up prepares the body to work efficiently: longer, stronger and more safely. Skipping your warm-up may cause you to tire more easily, preventing you from realizing your full potential. Perhaps more importantly, warming up drastically decreases your chance of injury. The time spent in a warm up is much less than the time required to heal a muscle strain or joint injury.

Smart Fix… Invest 5-10 minutes in performing a toned-down version of your fitness activity or perhaps instead something like walking or cycling at an easy pace. Some gentle range-of-motion exercises are always encouraged. Save the deep stretching for after your workout. Faux Pas #2 Racing Through Your Reps The Facts… Racing through your repetitions when strength training uses momentum instead of muscle power. You just won't get the same stimulus for muscle building, and you won't burn nearly as many calories. You also make yourself more susceptible to training injuries such as torn muscles or connective tissue.