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By Robert Michael
Have exercise misconceptions prevented you from starting an
exercise program? Clear up any confusion and let these
exercise
tips improve your workout routine. Hopefully none of these
common exercise myths, mistakes and misconceptions have
prevented you from working out.
1. Common Mistake: Failure to set goals. Do you exercise
without a clear goal in mind? Having a clear goal set is a
critical step in exercise and weight loss success. Tracking
your progress in a journal will help ensure you see your
improvements, will help motivate you and help you meet your
ultimate goal.
2. Common Misconception: No Pain, No Gain. Pain is your body’s
way of letting you know something is wrong. Do not ignore
this.
When you go beyond exercise and testing yourself, you will
encounter physical discomfort and need to overcome it. An
example of this would be training for a marathon. It is
important that you have the “base training” before getting
into
the advance training. The base training develops the body and
gets it ready for extensive training. You need to learn to
“read” your body. Is the heavy breathing because you are
pushing your body or could it be the beginning of a heart
attack. Exercise is important. Do it correctly and you can do
it for the rest of your life.
It is normal for you to hurt after you exercise, but it must
be
done gradually with a good amount of rest periods to allow
proper healing. There are two common problems here with
beginning exercisers. You can cause long lasting damage to
muscles, tendons and ligaments if you work out while you are
in
pain, without allowing enough rest time to heal. You might
find
yourself in constant and long lasting pain if you do this
which
means that you will no longer be able to exercise.
If you wake up the next morning after you exercised and can
barely drag your aching body out of bed because everything
hurts, you are going to be less motivated to exercise at all.
Constant pain is a sure way to kill your exercise program.
3. Common Mistake: Sacrificing Quality for Quantity. When you
are ready to increase the number of reps of a particular
exercise, and strengthen the corresponding muscles, instead of
forcing yourself to do a little more each time try decreasing
the number of reps in a set but increase the number of sets.
Also, back off to half your usual number of reps but add a
couple of more sets. You will feel less tired and will be able
to gain strength in your fast-twitch muscles.
4. Common Myth: Weight Training Makes Women Bulky. Weight
training for a woman will strengthen and tone muscle, burn fat
and increase metabolism, not build mass. Women do not produce
enough of testosterone to build muscle mass the way that men
do.
5. Common Mistake: Over-Emphasizing Strengths. You should
start
focusing on your points rather then what you are good at. This
will help you balance things. For example, if your lower body
is stronger than you upper body, then try to work only on this
area one day a week.
Being smart about how you exercise will take you a long way.
It
is important to have a healthy body so get out there and start
exercising today.
About The Author: Robert Michael is a writer for Walk Exercise
which is an excellent place to find exercise links, resources
and articles. For more information go to:
www.walkexercise.com
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