Top Ten Most Common Mistakes in the Gym
I started my bodybuilding journey in my late thirties. It has been six years since I started and I have been able to pack on a lot of lean muscle mass, but I realize now that I could have been a lot further along in terms of progress had I not made a number of critical mistakes along the way. In retrospect, much of my time was wasted chasing every imaginable rabbit trail. These are the mistakes I made and, based on my own personal experience and observations in the gym, these are the crucial errors plaguing the progress of far too many.
1. Lifting Too Heavy
I lifted weights that I should not have been lifting. It was unsafe and progress in terms of the development of my target muscle was virtually nonexistent. Far too many people lift to impress. Consequently, they risk serious injury and make no progress on the muscle they are targeting while trying to lift a house. I see far too many people doing one rep maxes on all manner of different exercises. This is a serious mistake. Not only could they rip something, but by struggling to lift a weight that is entirely too heavy they tend to jettison proper form and they end up using every imaginable muscle, but the target one. As a result, their ancillary muscles become inordinately huge while the muscle they were supposed to be contracting remains relatively tiny in comparison. The resulting muscle imbalance over time becomes unsightly at best, comical at worst. There is nothing quite as odd and peculiar aesthetically as someone possessed of massive shoulders and triceps, while their chest remains woefully underdeveloped. Wreck-it-Ralph bench pressing 400-500 pounds is actually the opposite of impressive.
Jay Cutler, one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time, made the insightful point that in bodybuilding the judges do not ask the contestants on stage how much they can bench press. Aesthetics is king and rarely is that achieved when people focus entirely too much on the weight that they press. Unless you are a powerlifter, the numbers should mean very little. Contraction of the target muscle should be the goal and that is best achieved with weights that allow us to focus, rather than with weights that transform our mindset in the gym to: Move the barbell from point A to point B or die trying.
2. Not Lifting Heavy Enough
I went through a phase early on in my bodybuilding journey where I did not lift heavy enough. I harbored the badly grounded misconception that volume, and volume alone, was the critical component to muscle growth. I spent way too long in the gym and I exercised to cardio exhaustion, rather than to actual muscle failure. I see far too many people in the gym lifting weights that are not heavy enough. They do one set of 15 reps with a certain weight. They take a break. Then they do another 15 reps with the same weight. Then I see the same people in the gym the following week doing the exact same rep scheme using the exact same weight, wondering why they are not making any progress.
Muscle growth is an adaptation to novel stress. The body does not want to grow muscle because it thrives on equilibrium. We have to force the body to grow muscle and the only way to do that is to put the body under pressure it is not accustomed to. We have to progressively overload the muscle with a novel stimulus it is not used to in order to force the body to adapt and to grow. Using the proper technique, always with an eye to safety, we have to lift with greater intensity than the last time we were in the gym in order to introduce the type of stress that will give the muscle the incentive to grow. This may mean heavier weights or more reps with the same weight. But, over time we should be progressively overloading the muscle and if we are not getting stronger, chances are we are not growing.
In the immortal words of Ronnie Coleman, “Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but don’t nobody want to lift no heavy-a** weight.”
3. Relying Too Heavily on Machines
I incorporated far too many machines early on in my bodybuilding career. They are safer. They are certainly easier. But, unfortunately, they are not as effective as free weights. I see far too many people in the gym using machines almost exclusively. Unless you’re elderly or at risk of injury, free weight exercises should be primary as they are much more effective for muscle growth when done safely and with proper form.
The eccentric portion of any weightlifting exercise is perhaps the most important part of the movement. Free weights allow a person to focus on that portion of the movement thereby recruiting more muscle fibers and ultimately doing more damage to the target muscle. Machines, by and large, eliminate much, if not all, of the stress in the eccentric portion of any movement.
4. Following the Wrong Advice
Before I began lifting weights, I first watched several YouTube videos. I then incorporated the advice of fitness gurus and influencers I found on the internet. I slavishly adhered to their exercise routines because they were based on “science.” But, after months of this with very little progress, it finally dawned on me that many of the fitness gurus I found on the internet did not look that much better than I did. My muscles were comparable in size and shape. Why was I following the advice of someone who looks just like me? I don’t need advice on how to look like me. I already know how to do that. Further, I don’t want to look like me, that’s the whole point.
I also noticed that there were several huge guys working out at my gym who I’m certain never cracked open a book in their entire lives. They probably couldn’t even spell “science,” gun to their heads. Eventually, I asked myself why I was following the advice of someone who looked just like me and not emulating the weightlifting routines of the meatheads in my gym who were doing the exact opposite of what these influencers were so zealously advocating.
I see lifting partners in the gym all the time where the person giving the advice looks the same or worse than the person on the receiving end. I always find this funny. I decided that I was going to follow the advice of men who actually looked the way I aspired to look. And those who had the greatest physiques this world has ever seen are men like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dorian Yates, Jay Cutler, and Ronnie Coleman. I started copying their routines, rather than incorporating the routines of those who read science journals for a living or who had advanced degrees in kinesiology, but who also looked no better than I did.
5. Neglecting Basic Compound Movements
For the longest time I neglected the bread-and-butter compound movements – barbell bench press, squat, deadlift, bent over rows, dips, barbell curls etc. They were hard. Everyone said they were unsafe and no more effective than the easier variations in the gym. So, I took the path of least resistance and my progress reflected this.
When done properly and safely, compound movements are the best exercises for muscle growth. There is a reason why every bodybuilder of any significance always incorporates these bread-and-butter movements into their bodybuilding routines. I have yet to run across any successful bodybuilders who have always focused primarily and exclusively on isolation movements or machine assisted exercises. As in most of life, the old school methods are typically the best.
6. Ab Machines
I see this almost every time I enter the gym – someone who has a body fat percentage in the 30-40% range using some kind of ab machine. They do some crunches and then they call it a day. I’m assuming they do this because they are under the fatal misapprehension that you can target fat loss. If you do enough crunches you will eventually get a six pack while the rest of your body remains relatively unchanged.
You cannot target fat loss. And you are making no significant difference to your physique by doing crunches and nothing else. This is the equivalent of trying to drain just the shallow end of the pool using a fork. Fat is distributed across the body. Genetically, we may store fat more in one place than in another, but in general if we want to see our abs we have to drain the entire pool. There is a reason why treadmills are considered better ab machines than ab machines.
7. Placing Way Too Much Importance on Supplements
I spent way too much of my time and money on researching and buying all sorts of supplements. Whey proteins, creatine, vitamin supplements etc. The truth is there is no magic pill. Unless you take steroids, time spent researching the best supplements is time wasted. To be fair, these supplements may make progress somewhat easier and marginally more pronounced, but much of what we spend our time and money on does not move the needle to any meaningful degree.
8. Never Going to Failure
As stated previously, I thought volume and volume alone was responsible for muscle growth. Consequently, I focused on the quantity of reps without paying due regard to their quality. I would do whatever number of reps I had arbitrarily predetermined to do and, as a result, I would typically never get close to failure.
I see this so often in the gym. Someone will do a set number of reps without even getting close to muscle failure. Again, muscle growth is an adaptation to novel stress and you cannot get a muscle to grow if it is not pushed to a place it has never been before. Intensity is critical for muscle growth and yet far too many think muscles grow without any strenuous effort. If we come out of the gym feeling fresh as a daisy that is failure of the wrong variety.
My goal now is to leave the gym physically unable to do another rep, gun to my head. This mindset change radically altered my physique.
9. Too Many Warm Up Sets
Obviously, warming up is essential for safety. Getting blood into the muscle and loosening the joints and ligaments is critically important for any weightlifting routine. But, I used to warm up entirely too much. I would do too many warm up sets and I would do them for every single exercise in my routine. This not only wasted time, but it wasted precious energy best spent on taking the target muscle to failure with the heaviest weight that I could safely and properly lift.
By the second or third exercise targeting the same muscle, I was already sufficiently warmed up. Aside from orienting myself to the movement, there was no need to do extensive warm up sets. Again, this was a waste of time and energy.
I see people, however, doing this all the time in the gym. They mindlessly and slavishly stick to a program and never deviate from it no matter how nonsensical. The goal is to get to your top set as quickly as possible with as much energy as possible in order to take your target muscle to proper failure. Wasting energy on endless warm up sets is not productive.
10. Do What Works for You
I used to do the exercises people said you were supposed to do, even when they did not work for me personally. I also used to foolishly adhere to the exercise programs set forth by those I used to admire. No more. I now do the exercises that I know work for me and my body type. There is no bodybuilding Bible that sets forth the weightlifting program that works for every single person.
Dorian Yates admired Tom Platz. He bought squat shoes and he performed the back barbell squat religiously. Unfortunately, his body type was such that this particular exercise caused him severe hip pain. Dorian Yates decided to ditch the back barbell squat and focus on hack squats and leg presses even though his hero at the time zealously advocated against making those movements the principal exercises in one’s leg program. Dorian Yates went on to win the Mr. Olympia six times in a row. Clearly, he had world class legs and he developed them using exercises that worked for him and his body type.
Everything I have written here is to be taken with a grain of salt. This holds true for everything you read in the realm of bodybuilding. You have to find what works for you and for your body type. Workout programs, no matter how touted or well researched, that lead to no progress are useless. Exercises that cannot be done properly or safely due to body type or genetics should be abandoned regardless of how much progress others claim the exercise brings.