Making the decision (or setting a New Year’s resolution) to pursue your fitness goals is the first step–and it’s also generally the easiest part. Putting that decision into action can be much more difficult, especially if you’re not sure where to start or what the best workout plan will be for you and your goals. As it turns out, there are several fitness mistakes frequently made by beginners that could be holding you back from your fitness goals this year.
To discover one of the biggest ones out there, we spoke to Marshall Weber, Personal Trainer and owner of Jack City Fitness. He told us that one mistake you may have fallen victim to is doing full-body workouts too often. Read on to learn how this could be slowing your progress!
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Starting with total-body workouts
If you’re trying to get your whole body into shape, you may think the best way to do that is to show up to the gym and dive straight into full-body workouts every day. However, Weber warns that this could be holding you back from your fitness goals in the long run–essentially, you’ll likely be overdoing it by exhausting yourself too quickly.
“This is a major mistake because after doing a total body workout, your entire body is sore and exhausted,” Weber explains. Ultimately, you’ll likely feel so burnt out from your intense full-body workouts that you won’t want to go to the gym consistently each day. This means it will be harder to achieve sustainable gains.
Instead, Weber says you should divide your workouts into muscle groups. “For example, on Monday you workout chest and triceps, Tuesday you workout back and biceps, and Wednesday you workout shoulders and legs,” he suggests. Breaking your week up in this way is a great strategy to ensure you’re not only working your body, but also allowing it to rest and repair when necessary. “This way you give each muscle group 3 days to heal and repair and can workout consistently each day or at least 5 days a week,” he says, noting that “this will make going to the gym more manageable and easier to maintain consistency in the long run, yielding better results and a more enjoyable experience.” Perfect!
Of course, there is a time and a place for full-body workouts, and just because you shouldn’t do them every day doesn’t mean you have to rule them out completely. If you’d prefer to make this your main mode of exercise, you should stick to 2-3 total body workouts per week in order to allow ample recovery time. But if hitting the gym every day for consistent progress is your goal, stick to Weber’s advice and work on one muscle group a day. You may be surprised by the results!
