Yesterday, we talked about the first five of the top ten ways we sabotage ourselves and our workout. Today, we are going to talk about the last five.
6. Avoid full range of motion exercises – If you don’t use the correct form including full range of motion, you will likely hurt yourself. Different motions work out different parts of the muscle. If you limit a curl to only one half of the biceps motion, you will weaken the overall muscle when you need to build the whole muscle.
7. Minimize Repetitions to Avoid Fatigue – The point of a workout is to feel some muscle fatigue. The simple truth is, you have to burn fat, work out large and small muscle groups in order to achieve muscle fatigue. You tear down muscle so that when it is repairing, it can increase strength and tone. The stronger muscle will burn more calories and more fat. If you conserve energy, reducing repetitions and chance for muscle fatigue, you will not be building muscle tone, strength or fat burning.
8. Cardio exercise is a good time to catch up on reading – Reading is not a great thing to do when you are trying to burn cardio. Honestly, television or music is a better alternative to reading because you won’t work as hard when you are reading. Too much motion will make the words bob. Whereas while staring at a television or listening to music will not inhibit your body’s motion. Cardio workouts require that you reach a hyperthermic level (i.e. heat) and you need to work your large muscle groups harder – i.e. through running or very brisk walking – tasks you cannot do while reading.
9. Extra Exercise for Extra Calories – Working out doesn’t mean you get to eat excess desserts. You need to burn more than you take in. To burn fat or weight while working out, you should burn an extra 500 calories a day than you consume to lose about a pound a week.
10. Cardio only is better than Strength Building – You need to do cardio to help with fat burning, this is true. For weight loss, a program of cardio 5 days a week is vital. But eliminating strength building exercises is not wise. Toning muscle can give you a better looking body and also burns more calories as it speeds up the metabolism and the overall demands of your body. Muscle building also helps build stronger bones and that can help you out in the future to avoid conditions such as osteoporosis.