4 Workout Mistakes Preventing You From Losing Weight

When seeking fat loss is a priority, having a good workout program in place is a must. The workouts you do are going to help to boost your metabolic rate, improve your lean muscle mass retention, and ensure that you are looking tone and defined as you lose the weight...not soft and flabby.

Yet, many people are still making a few critical errors as they go about their workout. It's vital that we clear them up so that you steer clear of them.

Let’s look at what you should know.

Doing Only Cardio Training

The very first error I see people making is focusing strictly on cardio training. Some people come to believe that cardio is the exercise to do for fat loss while weight lifting is the exercise to do for muscle building.

This is a gross misrepresentation of the truth and an oversimplification of what really is a result of the two types of training. In actuality, if you were to choose just one, weight lifting is the far superior form of exercise for fat loss. But as I tell all of my clients, the Cutting Edge prescription requires incorporating both.

Working Out Seven Days A Week

Another big mistake that many people make is working out seven days a week. Remember, your body does need time to rest and repair, especially if you are eating a reduced calorie diet.

When on a calorie reduced eating plan, you aren’t providing a lot of fuel for recovery purposes. So if you aren’t providing rest either, you’ll really be in for some trouble.

You should always have at least one day off each week from all exercise, if not two. For the bulk of the population looking to lose the flab, I recommend starting with 3 weight training sessions a week combined with 3 cardio sessions. Depending on one's schedule, the two forms of training can be combined into a single training session or done on separate days.

Lifting Light Weights

The next vital mistake that some people make is turning to very light weights in their weight lifting program. The thought behind this concept is that by using light weight and high reps, they’ll take their calorie burn up higher during the workout, helping move fat burning along. Another mythical thought is "if I lift heavier, I will get too big."

Sadly, this just isn’t the case. Especially for the ladies (with very few anomalies out there).

You should be focusing on heavier weight more often because it’s the heavy weight that will help you maintain your lean muscle mass, stoking your metabolic rate in the process. But don't just go and start haphazardly lifting heavier weights. Get the help of a personal trainer to learn proper form as well as design a program that fits your needs, goals, current fitness level, and capabilities.

Never Changing Things Up

Finally, the last big mistake that some people make is never changing their workout around. Remember, your body is highly adaptive and if you’re doing the same workout day in and day out, you aren’t going to be making any progress forward.

Once your body adapts and gets efficient at a given workout, it’ll just maintain the status quo.

In order to move forward and see faster progress, you need to give the body a reason to do so. Add a different exercise, change the rep range you train with, or change your training split.

Just do something to evoke change and you’ll see faster success because of it.

Conclusion: There you have the top mistakes that people should avoid in their workout program. If you are or have been a client of mine in the past, you have been well educated and I know that you are not making these mistakes. But if you are someone or know someone who does workout, you may want to help them out by sharing this post via Facebook and/or Twitter. It's probably high time they changed something around