Ten Tips to Avoid Gym Slips and Lift Your Workout Results

SO you think your body is a temple: you make sure you get five portions of fruit and veg a day, drink a gallon of water and never miss your three-times-a-week exercise sessions. You’re doing everything right aren’t you? Well maybe not if you’re making one of these ten common exercise mistakes. Here’s how to avoid them and achieve results:

Exercising early in the morning

It seems the truth is that our bodies are not geared up for a 6am jog, so you might as well have that lie-in. “It is quite an individual thing in some respects, but exercising when you get up can be bad for your back,” says Jody Hawley, physiologist with Stirling’s Institute of Sport. “As you’ve been lying down sleeping for hours, all the discs in your back are very cushy because you’ve not been on your feet. So immediately trying to do some exercise like running – especially on concrete which has no give in it and can jar the bones – can do some damage.

“Also body temperature and cardiac output are low and the nervous system is sluggish. Exercising at this time makes the body work harder, but is less likely to give good results.”

Instead exercise mid-morning or between 4pm and 6pm, she suggests.

Relying on an active lifestyle to keep you fit

If you think that walking to work or taking the stairs as opposed to the lift is enough to keep fit, then think again. “The recommendation is that you should try to get 1000 kilo-calories of exercise a day. This is the equivalent of walking about an hour a day. This is the minimum requirement for health benefits,” says Jody. “What people don’t realise is that this is not a leisurely walk, but at a brisk pace. You need to get you’re breathing above a resting level. Your heart rate needs to go up too.”

Lifting light weights to build muscle

If you want to build muscle, rather than just tone, then low- weights, high-reps are useless. “Muscles develop when you overload them,” says Malcolm McPhail, from Next Generation in Leith. “You have to work them harder than the level they are used to for them to grow stronger. Using shorter reps with the heaviest weights you’re comfortable with will help build muscle more quickly.”

Not stretching seriously

The general viewpoint is you should stretch as part of a good steady warm-up, to get your heart rate going. “But research suggests that stretching really plays a very, very small part in the performance aspect of sport,” says Malcolm. “Developmental stretching, though, makes you more flexible, and this involves certain stretches where a partner can help you. You need to hold developmental stretches between 20 and 30 seconds so you have to be careful, as you can overstretch.”

Sticking to a routine

Having planned, structured workouts can help you stick to a programme, but it can hamper progress. “It takes about four weeks for you to get used to a routine, then four weeks of high benefit,” says Malcolm. “So you should be changing your programme every eight weeks. People who stick with a regular routine will be bored very quickly and will not get the results they require.”

Giving up on flabby arms

Perhaps one more for women, but batwings are one of the most stubborn areas to improve. The lack of firmness in the upper arms is the result of excess fat rather than untrained muscles.

“Unfortunately just exercising this region won’t help, because during any exercise all the body’s fat storage deposits are used, not just those close to the exercising muscles,” says Dr Bryant Stamford, who has investigated the problem. Targeting the triceps – the muscle group at the back of the upper arm which doesn’t get used as often as the biceps – can help.

Loads of sit-ups will flatten your stomach

Nope. Sit-ups only focus on the “six-pack” muscle at the front of the stomach. “There are four layers of abdominal muscles, criss- crossing the body over the front, sides and back,” says Pilates instructor Anna Selby. “The six-pack is just the top layer. The deepest muscle is often neglected. Strengthening it will create a strong, flat stomach and give your lower back support.” Even if your trunk muscles are strong though, love handles will only disappear with cardiovascular exercise.

Finding your “fat-burning” zone

The idea that you only burn fat when your hit a particular zone of intensity is a fallacy. “You burn fat 24 hours a day, all that changes is the percentage of overall energy expended that comes from fat,” explains exercise physiologist Gary O’Donovan. “This is determined by the intensity of the activity. More fat is burned during low-intensity exercise, so it’s easy to make the mistake of thinking this is the best way for weight loss, but it is overall calories burned that counts so you should work as hard as you can for as long as you can, as often as you can.”

Wearing the wrong trainers

Your sporting ability can be hugely affected by the bad footwear – and can also cause injury.

Adrian Stott, manager of Run and Become, advises: “Don’t skimp on footwear. When you’re running, you’ve got two and a half times your bodyweight hitting the ground. The most important things are shock absorption, fit, stability and support.

“A lot of people come in with too tight shoes. If you take a size five you need a five-and-a-half running shoe. Your feet expand when you run and can push against the front of the shoe and cause blistering if they’re too tight.”

Exercising when hungry

The theory is that this burns more fat, but it can backfire. “If you perform cardiovascular exercise on an empty stomach, insulin levels are at their lowest, while another hormone, glucagon, is at its peak,” says sports nutritionist Anita Bean. “This encourages your body to draw on its fat reserves for fuel. However, since metabolism of fat requires carbohydrate, when carb stores are low, this is compromised. This makes exercise feel harder, so you may tire sooner, and burn fewer calories and less fat. Worse still, you could start losing muscle as you burn protein for fuel.”