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Stop Spinning Your Wheels Avoid Bad Habits to Maximize Your Workouts
By Tom Bonanti
Besides being fun and essential to your
health, there is a science to working out. With some planning, a
little skill and concentration and some good old fashioned
sweat, you can get one hell of a great workout in for less than
an hour. The trouble is most guys fall into ruts by wasting
time. Try leaving your cell phone and iPad in the car. Conduct
business and chart your social calendar when get back to your
car. Stay focused on what you wish to accomplish during your
workout and try to ignore other distracting stimuli. Save the
gossip for the juice bar or the water cooler at work. You can
cruise the parking lot, steam room and internet after you’ve
performed your sets in the gym. There are also other ways to waste time in the gym. Certain commonly used exercises and techniques are ineffective and just plain unsafe. Here is my list of some time consuming mistakes and bad habits to avoid in the gym: Jerking heavy weights on the leg extension
machine in an attempt to blast your quadriceps (the muscles on
the front of your thighs) is a recipe for a knee disaster.
Besides straining knee ligaments, this exercise can over-develop
your quads causing your hamstrings (the muscles on the backs of
your thighs) to become excessively tight and inflexible. Tight
hams in turn can cause low back pain and contribute to injuries.
Avoid all this lower body “drama” by sticking with squats,
presses, and lunges.
Doing cardio can be a boring waste of time
especially if you set your cardio machine too slow each and
every workout. Actually varying your pace and intensity during
your hour or so of cardio is a more successful fat loss
strategy. The best way to burn calories is by mixing fast and
slow speeds. This is also the best way to address the body’s
different energy systems and muscle groups. Sit-ups are as useless and ineffective as a
high school phys-ed teacher. Locking your feet under a rack or
bench and rolling up on your lower back as you pull for dear
life on your 7 cervical vertebrae will only give you a sore
back. Instead you must do crunches. Keep your feet flat on the
floor or slightly elevate your legs over an exercise ball to
stabilize your hips. Extend your arms and crunch your torso
bringing your elbows to your knees. You can feel the burning in
your abs already! When you go to the gym, your main goal is to
lift weights; so for God’s sake, use a weight that’s heavy
enough that your muscles feel worked by the end of a set of 8-12
reps. Pyramid your weights up with each set, but be careful to
maintain good form with each rep. For more tips on how to maximize your time
in the gym, contact TrainerTomB@aol.com  TOM BONANTI IS A CERTIFIED PERSONAL TRAINER AND OWNER OF PUMP’N INC GYM AT 1271 NE 9TH AVENUE FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 33304, www.pumpnincgym.com. |
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I’ve
said this before: any exercise where you push or pull a bar
that’s positioned behind the neck can damage the rotator cuff
muscles that attach your humerus (arm) to your scapula
(shoulder). Once you strain or sprain these muscles you can
expect a royal pain in your neck or back. When you do wide grip
lat pull downs or barbell or dumbbell shoulder presses, sit up
straight, point your chest outward and pull or press the weight
in front of you.