Eight common gym mistakes

Exercise Mistake #1: Too much socializing, not enough exercising

“I see a lot of individuals talking with each other in the gym,” says Scott Lucett, director of education for the National Academy of Sports Medicine and a certified personal trainer for more than 15 years. “Next thing they know, an hour has passed and the amount of time they have actually spent exercising is relatively low.” So focus on your workout.

Exercise Mistake #2: Lack of intensity

Do you see your gym time as the perfect way to catch up on your reading? Are you leaning on the machines? Lots of people are just going through the motions, even though they may look like they’re working out. “They think that as long as they’re moving, they’re going to lose weight,” Lucett says. “But if the intensity is not at the level that it needs to be at, it’s almost a waste of time.”

Exercise Mistake #3: Always training in the 'fat burning' heart rate zone

You’ve seen those charts on the cardiovascular machines that list “zones.” But in the so-called “fat-burning zone,” your training intensity isn’t very high -- usually 65%-70% of your heart rate. Research, however, has shown that the higher the intensity, the more calories you burn -- not only while exercising, but after you leave the gym, when your body benefits from an “after-burn” mode.

Exercise Mistake #4: Overestimating caloric expenditure

Don’t let the number on the screen of your cardio machine fool you, either. “That’s a very general number and there are a lot of variables that play into that,” Lucett says. “The machine may say that you’ve expended 500 calories, but you could only be burning 250.” This can be especially true when you do things to “trick” the machine, like leaning on the bars. Unbeknownst to that computer, which relies on speed and revolutions to calculate calories, you’re offsetting your weight, which means you are significantly decreasing the amount of work you’re doing.

Exercise Mistake #5: Not progressing/changing your program

When you do the same workout over and over again, the body has no reason to change. “You’ll see an initial loss, but eventually you’ll get to a point of diminishing returns,” Lucett says. You like the feeling of aerobic exercise, so you don’t do what it takes to maintain your muscle mass, which is the body tissue that burns calories -- the furnace. Or you do only strength training, which maintains muscle mass, but you don’t lose weight. You have to have a mix.

Exercise Mistake #6: Spot reduction training

Those articles that guarantee you can lose fat from your abs or glutes? Forget ‘em, say the experts. “People need to understand that genetics is the primary factor in determining where that body fat comes from,” Lucett says. “Your body is going to take fat from anywhere it wants.” The answer? Just focus on burning calories through a well-balanced training program. You’ll eventually lose the weight from all areas of your body.

Exercise Mistake #7: Improper exercise technique

When you don’t know how to use a machine or perform an exercise properly, you can easily confuse mechanical inefficiency with caloric burn. Doing an exercise wrong can also lead to injury. The challenge, of course, is knowing when you’re doing something wrong -- especially if you’re relying on techniques from “back in the day.” Exercise science has evolved tremendously in the past few decades, and so have weight machines. So get an experienced gym employee to do the rounds with you, or consider hiring a personal trainer for a session or two.

Exercise Mistake #8: Doing too much too soon

In addition to injuring yourself, if you jump into an exercise program too soon, you can become overly sore. Being sore isn’t bad; it’s actually your body’s way of telling you that it’s building muscle. But working out too hard, especially early on, can have a detrimental effect on your motivation.