5 Common Workout Mistakes You're Making

Not warming up or cooling down

This one seems to be really common as we don’t often realise how vital it is to our overall health and fitness. When you warm up, you’re pumping nutrient-rich, oxygenated blood to your muscles as it speeds up your heart rate and breathing, prepping you for the sweat session ahead.

After you’ve worked out to your max, it’s just as important to cool down. It’ll help prevent muscle cramps while slowing down your breathing and heart rate. 

Thinking only crunches will get you abs

Fun fact: crunches don't get you abs. The best abs are created from training your whole core.

Your abs are a group of muscles and you have to train them just like you would your arms, back and legs. If you want some definition, you have to work and build them up. If tone and lines is the name of your game, it’s important to build the abdominals so they sit on top of the tendons.

So what can you do instead of crunches? Try mountain climbers, planks, high knees and Russian twists.

Avoiding resistance training because you don’t want to look like the Hulk

There’s nothing wrong with looking like the Hulk, but I’m here to remind you that getting big is a lifestyle – and if you’re not eating kilojoules above and beyond what you’re burning, then we promise, you’re not about to Hulk out.

It takes months to build that kind of muscle with a very specific type of training. Weights and bodyweight exercises are integral to building lean muscle. You will build lean muscle which burns fat fast, as muscles are metabolic.

Please don’t be afraid to lift and use weights in your workouts, you’ll love the challenge it brings your body – and you’ll love the results.

Not including mobility or flexibility in your workouts

Don't just alternate your push-ups with an exercise like shoulder raises for a strength superset. Instead, put together a superset with mobility such as thoracic twists from hip flexor stretch, or downward dog toe taps, or cow's face hold. It’s the best of both worlds. (Take your workout anywhere with a compact travel mat!)

Cutting kilojoules alone to lose weight

Cutting kilojoules to lose weight will increase your hunger hormone ghrelin (not to be confused with gremlin). However, if you exercise and reduce kilojoules, you’ll decrease the hunger hormone ghrelin and increase the hunger-suppressing hormone Peptide YY. This means you won't be under constant snack attack pressure, craving and hungry for anything. Instead, you’ll eat clean easily and feel less hungry – it’s a double win.