10 Most Common Body Building Mistakes and Solutions

Bodybuilding requires a lot of motivation, and a lot of beginners can easily get demotivated by not seeing the realistic results they expected. Today we give you a list of top 10 common bodybuilding mistakes that can halt results and their solutions.

Mistake #1 Don't Cheat:

Cheating on your exercise (using improper form etc) causes the stress to move away from targeted muscles. By cheating you are reducing the effect of the exercise itself. However, if employed later into the set, cheating can actually help you intensify your set. 

Solution:

• Learn proper form for each exercise. Improper form not only minimizes gains but can also cause serious injuries.
• Do not lose your form until you have reached full rep failure.

Mistake#2 Going Too Low

Contrary to popular belief, a set with below 7 rep count is unhealthy. Research shows that subjects which used weights that allowed them to do 25-30 reps per set increased protein muscle synthesis by 60%. To get the best results, your set should have between 8-12 reps.

Solution:

• Restrict your reps to 8-12 per set.
• Your muscle movements should go from full stretch to full contract.

Mistake#3 Failing to Fail:

Failure is the point after which you cannot do another rep with proper form. For your body to exert itself to its maximum potential, it is necessary that your exercise till failure. However, many bodybuilders do not reach that point and drop weights too early. 

Solution:

• Keep records of your personal best rep counts and each week try to break the record. Remember, you are in competition with yourself here.
• During your failure set, don't stop the rep until it has stalled for more than three seconds. Only cheat when you need to finish your failure rep.

Mistake#4 Machine Love

A lot of people prefer working out on machines rather than free weights. Avoid filling your workout routine with machine exercises. Free weights remain the best option to exercise to date. This is because machines restrict your mechanical movements, sharing the stress that would otherwise be on your muscles.

Solution:

• Do exercises that involves free weights more frequently than machines based.
• Emphasize on compound exercises (exercises which target more than one muscle group).

Mistake#5 Insufficient Intensity

There are two kinds of people, those who simply do not go into beyond the failure point, and there are those who work progressively, going farther each time but fail to see the outcome. For those who don't go beyond, there are plenty of techniques that allow you to do that, including forced reps, cheating, partial reps etc. For the rest, hang in there! Everyone has those days.

Solution:

• Learn the methods to go beyond failure. Different techniques work with different exercises, learn about them and apply.
• For those whose intensive workout doesn't work, it may be a sign that you are over-training, which is the #6 mistake on this list. Avoid that.

Mistake#6 Insufficient Rest

There are three crucial parts to bodybuilding: Training, Eating and Resting. So if you're pushing yourself to the limit but not giving your body the time it needs to recover, you're not accomplishing anything. 

Solution:

• Give each body part at least 72 hours to recover from a workout, with possible exception of calves and abs.
• Study your compound exercises and note which exercise affects which muscles. Then use that information to effectively plan a schedule that gives rest to each muscle after heavy workout.

Mistake#7 Avoidance

A common trend seen in the gyms these days is that people tend to focus their training on body parts like chest, arms etcetra while completely ignoring others like abs, cardio, forearms. 

Solution:

• Make space for all kinds of body parts in your routine.
• Don't just throw multiple muscle groups into a single workout. Make proper routine for each of them. For example, you should have a separate routine for traps instead of just throwing them in with back.

Mistake#8 Missing The Target

Before designing your workout routine, it is essential that you are aware of the human anatomy. It is commonly known that abs, back, quads, triceps and traps are the five major body parts that need to be worked, but did you know that each of them have a variety of muscles that need to be worked? Maybe you thought you were working a particular part when in reality it wasn't really targeting it!

Solution:

• Do your homework. Nothing is more frustrating than doing everything right and still not seeing the expected results.
• Use expert opinion. Not everything needs to be learned by experience. Ask around what works and apply that, and we're here to inform you!

Mistake#9 Short and Quick

If you're not doing the exercise right, its never going to work. Too many people stay in mid range of their reps, minimizing their work and also minimizing their gains. The key is to move your muscle through full ranges of motion.

Solution:

• In order to produce effective results, go from full contraction to full expansion of your muscles. 
• Focus on the feeling of your muscle contraction during reps.

Mistake#10 Stale Workout

When you keep working out the same muscle group repeatedly using the same exercise routine, your body begins to adapt to the stress and stops responding positively to it. Meaning thereby that continuing to workout will no longer be as effective as it was in the beginning. Such a circumstance is hard to distinguish and can be a major block on the road to success.

Solution:

• Be creative with your routine. If you know all the workouts, you can experiment with them and find out what works for you best.
• Machines can be quite effective is overcoming this problem. Sometimes, anything as small as changing the placement of pulleys can do the trick and make your muscles exert differently.

Did you recognize any of these mistakes? or do you know any other mistake that people make ? Let us know in the comment section below!