Submitted by Eric Rajchel, Fort Lauderdale Personal Trainer.

1. Nutrition– A perfectly good routine/exercise program can easily be ruined by poor dietary decisions. If your body composition is only slightly away from where you would like it to be to be, then simply introducing exercise may help you close that gap. On the other hand, if you have goals of losing a good amount of fat or packing on muscle then you most likely need to make SERIOUS changes to your diet.

2. Not Working Hard Enough– Going into the gym and doing the same thing over and over just isn’t going to cut it. Any workout or trip to the gym should present a challenge for you to outdo what you did the last time you were in there. Whether that means increasing time/intensity on the treadmill or adding weight/reps to your lifts, etc. Don’t just “go through the motions”.

3. Too Much Too Soon– After making the decision to “take working out seriously” or “start exercising”, many people jump into a very strenuous program. The vast majority of people are impatient and expect results instantly. This leads to brutal workouts day after day regardless of muscle soreness until they quit because it is too much to handle. They would be MUCH better off taking things slowly and allowing gradual progress.

4. Inadequate Sleep– Sleep is when your body repairs itself from all the damage you did during the day; including your workout. For some reason people are NOT willing to give up a couple hours of watching TV for a better nights rest. The result is usually being dead tired, relying on stimulants like coffee to get through the day, and piss poor workouts.

5. Making Excuses– Using ANY reason to justify not working out or going to the gym. This habit has a serious snowball effect. Missed workouts=missed opportunities to better yourself.

6. Overtraining– Similar to “Too Much Too Soon” for people who refuse to slow down or quit. While I admire these people’s ability to push through and keep going, they usually need to just listen to their bodies more. I would qualify those who bench and curl 3x a week and never add weight to the bar “upper body overtrainers.” Signs like no progress or backtracking are usually your bodies way of telling you to take a break or don’t do what you are doing so often.

7. Keeping a Journal– Its hard to know where you want to go if you don’t know where you’ve been. A journal can be a positive thing to look back on if you want to see how much you have progressed.

8. Neglecting Cardio OR Weight Training– Rarely will you find someone with a good balance of training. Women tend to be glued to cardio machines while weight lifters act like a treadmill is Kryptonite. It is okay to focus on one aspect of training more than the other. BUT, realize that doing cardio will help you weight training and vise-versa.

9. Lifestyle Outside the Gym– Drinking alcohol, doing drugs, and smoking cigarettes do not help you get better in the gym, simple as that.

10. Unrealistic Expectations– Wanting to look like a victoria’s secret model or professional bodybuilder will lead constantly being discouraged. Set realistic goals both short and long term. Strive to reach these goals, set different ones when you achieve them.

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I would like to thank Eric for the contribution!
 
Cheers,
Aviva