While these are things you might be doing right now during your own workouts, ultimately, you should try to stave them.
This will be a mixed bag that includes unrepealable exercises you should steer well-spoken of. These moreover include exercises that are effective, but that people wontedly do wrong. I’ll plane throw in a few gym etiquette mistakes here as well.
What is a common mistake beginners make at the gym?
Gym Mistake #1: Front Raises
This one might ruffle some feathers.
Front raises won’t hurt you, but in the majority of cases, they’re just unnecessary. Most lifters once get increasingly than unbearable front delt stimulation through their chest and shoulder pressing exercises. Their front delts are once over ripened in comparison to the side and rear heads, which are a lot increasingly important for achieving that round, capped shoulder look.
If you insist on doing front raises then that’s up to you, but whispered from a fairly small percentage of cases, you’re probably just wasting your time and effort. It’s definitely in a matriculation of gym mistakes if you prioritize front raises over other, largest exercises to build big shoulders.
Gym Mistakes #2: Bosu Wittiness Squat, Etc.
Pretty much a bosu wittiness anything is a gym mistake.
Whether it’s standing on a bosu wittiness and doing curls or overhead presses, or using it for chest presses or pushups, or whatever else. Using the bosu wittiness doesn’t modernize the “functionality” of the exercise, increase muscle stimulation, or do anything useful at all. Yet, it’s one of those gym mistakes you wontedly see on a day to day basis.
All the bosu wittiness really does is put you in a less stable position and reduces the value of gravity you can generate versus the weight.
So, forget the bosu ball. You don’t need it. Just perform your exercises on a solid, steady surface.
Gym Mistake #3: Reverse Grip Triceps Extensions
Using a reverse grip has no salubrious effect on the vivification of your triceps. It doesn’t hit the triceps any differently, and there’s really just no wholesomeness to it.
However, there is a disadvantage. The underhand grip puts your hands into a weaker position and makes the exercise increasingly worrisome to perform.
If you want to maximize the stress on your triceps, there’s no reason to not use a standard, neutral, or pronated grip. Just segregate the grip that feels most well-appointed for you.
Gym Mistake #4: Flaring Your Elbows Out During Chest Presses
When you flare your elbows directly out to your sides at 90 degrees (or worse, you position your elbows overdue your body), you put a lot of stress on your shoulder joints. This stress can add up over time.
Instead, make sure to tuck your elbows slightly at roughly a 75 stratum angle.
Gym Mistakes #5: Using Excessive Spotter Assistance
I see this all the time in the gym. Someone will load up way increasingly weight than they can handle, a spotter has their hands on the bar, and then they proceed to help the lifter out on pretty much every rep of the exercise.
This makes veritably no sense to do.
If your spotter has to squire you right from the get go, then the weight is too heavy and you need to lighten it up. You should be using a weight that you can handle on your own through a full range of motion.
Not only do you squint like a well-constructed goofball when you train this way, but it moreover increases your chances for injury. It moreover prevents you from virtuously tracking your progress considering you can’t specifically measure exactly how much weight you’re lifting versus how much the spotter is lifting.
Aside from when a spotter might have to squire you on the last rep of an exercise, you should be doing all the reps on your own with good form.
Read up on my bodybuilding injury prevention tips in specimen you need a refresher on why proper form and technique is so important.
Gym Mistake #6: Subscription Squat
This is an exercise a lot of women tend to gravitate to, and something I wontedly see stuff shown in a lot of Instagram take workouts and YouTube tutorials.
I see it stuff washed-up in the gym all the time, too.
The problem is that the line of resistance is pulling in the wrong direction, and it’s unquestionably putting minimal tension on your quads and glutes. It’s basically just pulling your soul forward toward the machine.
If you unquestionably want to train your quads using a subscription machine, then you’d need to be standing right up tropical so that the resistance is pulling in the right direction. That said, cables are often not the weightier tool for quad training. Overall, there are just much largest exercises to segregate from.
Gym Mistake #7: Lifting Directly In Front Of The Dumbbell Rack
This one is a gym etiquette mistake.
When you stand right in front of the dumbbells rack doing your curls, shoulder raises, or whatever else, you’re blocking other people from getting in. They have to stand there waiting for you to finish.
So, very simply, grab the dumbbells you need, take a couple steps back. and leave unbearable room for people to get in and out of the rack.
Gym Mistake #8: Standing Dumbbell External Rotations
A lot of people use this as a shoulder warmup. I plane see increasingly experienced lifters doing this as well.
But, this movement makes no sense at all. If you want to stimulate the rotator cuff, then the resistance needs to be pulling from the side. Pictured above, the dumbbell’s gravity is pulling the resistance straight lanugo to the floor. So, you’re basically just isometrically contracting your biceps and front delts.
External rotations are a unconfined warmup movement and can moreover help reduce shoulder pain from seat pressing. But to unquestionably warm up the shoulders, you need to use a subscription or a resistance band.
You can moreover do it with dumbbells, but you need to be lying on your side.
Gym Mistake #9: Overdue The Neck Pulldown
Not only does this exercise put your shoulders into an awkward, excessively externally rotated position, but there’s no wholesomeness to it in comparison to a standard front pulldown.
I’m not saying this is one of those massive gym mistakes, or that you’re guaranteed to get hurt doing this, but there’s just no good reason to do lat pulldowns this way in the first place. It’s riskier, and with no real reward.
Gym Mistakes #10: Plate Exercises
Another worldwide trend you’ll find on Instagram these days are various exercises washed-up with weight plates.
These influencers are probably thinking “hey, there’s only so many barbell and dumbbell exercises I can show to my audience. Might as well get creative purely for the sake of stuff creative!”
They do this plane though there’s no inherent wholesomeness to the exercise.
Plates are just increasingly worrisome to grip, and doing exercises with them make it harder to wield progressive overload. It’s unconfined for clicks and views from novices who don’t know better. Of course, there’s a novelty factor, but ultimately there’s no point to this.
The same thing goes for ez flourish bar exercises which you’ll see floating virtually as well.
You can obviously use the ez bar for things like curls or triceps extensions, but using them for lateral raises, overhead presses, or rows makes no sense. It doesn’t do anything except make the exercise increasingly worrisome and off balance.
Gym Mistake #11: Performing Leg Presses With Your Hands On Your Knees
This is flipside unconvincing lifting technique I see in the gym all the time.
If you have to printing on your knees in order to lift the weight, then the weight is just too heavy in the first place. Or, maybe the weight isn’t too heavy unbearable and you’re just making the exercise easier for yourself and reducing its effectiveness.
For proper leg printing form, you want to be holding onto the handles so that your lower when stays firmly planted in the seat.
With your hands on your knees, your lower when is a lot increasingly likely to roll backward. This will increase your chances for injury. You’d never do dumbbell curls and use your opposite arm to help out on every single rep. There’s no reason to do leg presses that way either.
Gym Mistakes #12: Combo Exercises
It might be a squat into a lateral raise, or a lunge into an overhead press, or a row into a biceps curl.
These movements might squint tomfool for social media, and they seem innovative and unique on the surface. But, there’s just no good reason to do your exercises in this way.
This is considering your strength will differ depending on the movement pattern you’re performing. Sometimes, this will occur very significantly if you’re combining compounds and isolations together. So, using the same weight for two variegated movements in the same set makes no sense.
One of those movements will end up stuff undertrained relative to the other.
Instead, just do one movement and use the towardly resistance you can handle for it. Then, do the next movement separately and use the towardly resistance you can handle for that one. There’s really no point in successive when and along between variegated movement patterns.
Gym Mistakes #13: When you Superset Between Multiple Pieces Of Equipment At The Same Time
This one is flipside one of those gym mistakes involving etiquette.
Now if the gym is quiet and you’re using machines that don’t get a lot of traffic, then it’s probably not a big deal. But otherwise, don’t be the guy who loads up the leg press, drapes his towel over the seat, and then walks to the other side of the gym to requirement some other piece of equipment.
Or worse, using multiple pieces of equipment to superset when and forth.
There’s no real wholesomeness to supersets in the first place other than as a time saver. It’s just really bad etiquette if you’re forcing someone to wait for you to well-constructed a sequence of 3 sets of 3 variegated exercises surpassing they can get to the equipment you’re using.
Gym Mistake #14: Excessively Heavy Lateral Raises
Lateral raises are a unconfined exercise to target the side delts, but they do put the shoulder into a increasingly vulnerable position. Considering of this, you want to stick with increasingly moderate weights for slightly higher reps.
You might be fine for the short term with a heavier weight, but it will sooner reservation up.
Grabbing onto a pair of heavy dumbbells and heaving them virtually using a ton of momentum is a very bad idea. You don’t need to do 50 pound lateral raises to powerfully stimulate shoulder gains. Instead, focus on technique and control. I would never go less than 8 reps per set in perfect form. Increasingly like 10-12 reps or higher is probably going to be platonic most of the time.
Gym Mistake #15: Dumbbell Triceps Kickbacks
Now if you really like this exercise, I’m not saying you can’t do it. It does work your triceps to some extent, but there are just much largest options.
Dumbbell kickbacks have an worrisome resistance curve. At the bottom, they’re really easy and there’s scrutinizingly no tension on the triceps at all. Then, as you kick the weight back, it all of a sudden becomes much harder.
It’s easiest in the position where your triceps are the strongest, and hardest in the position where the triceps are the weakest.
If you are going to do kickbacks, then I’d suggest using cables. That will indulge for a much increasingly natural resistance curve, and you’ll just find that it feels a lot smoother overall.
Gym Mistake #16: Upright Rows Using An Excessive Range Of Motion
This involves pulling the weight all the way up to your neck with your elbows up toward your ears.
If you’re going to do upright rows at all, the weight should be pulled no higher than to the point where your elbows are in line with your shoulders. You should be using moderate weight for slightly higher reps. Otherwise you’re really running the risk for injury.
The full range of motion upright rows put your shoulders into an awkward, internally rotated position. Using really heavy weights just adds to the stress.
Some people can do full ROM upright rows with no problem, but for the majority, it’s probably something you’ll be weightier off to avoid.
Gym Mistake #17: Rolling Dumbbell Shrug
This is where someone performs a shrug and rolls their shoulders in a circular motion either wrong-side-up or forward.
This doesn’t seem to be as worldwide in gyms as it used to be, but ultimately there’s no point in doing this. The resistance is pulling lanugo in a straight line, and so the only way to unquestionably work your traps is by moving your shoulders straight up and down.
Rolling your shoulders virtually isn’t subtracting anything to the exercise.
Gym Mistakes #18: When You Don’t Re-Rack Your Weights
You see this all the time in commercial gyms wideness the world. People will blatantly load up barbells, machines, or whatever else, perform their sets, and then just walk away. They’ll leave the weights for someone else to wipe up.
I understand that the laws of physics are highly ramified and not yet fully understood, but from a probability standpoint, weight plates often do not spontaneously re-rack themselves without human intervention.
So, there is no excuse here. Don’t be that guy. If you were capable of loading up the bar, then you’re capable of unloading it as well. Re-racking your weights is vital worldwide courtesy.
Gym Mistake #19: Standing Plate Press
This exercise might really finger like it’s hitting your chest hard, but that’s only considering of the fact that you’re forcefully squeezing your hands together.
You can get the same effect by sitting there with no weight at all and doing the same thing.
In reality, the standing plate printing doesn’t work your chest powerfully considering the resistance is pulling in the wrong direction. It needs to be pulling wrong-side-up toward your body. Instead, it’s pulling straight lanugo toward the floor, meaning it’s basically just an isometric wrinkle for the front delts.
If you really want to do plate presses, then they need to be washed-up lying down. Either way, standard self-ruling weight presses are definitely superior.
Gym Mistake #20: Side Bends Using A Weight In Both Hands
Now, I’m not really a big fan of side bends in the first place.
I think there are much largest exercises to train your obliques, if that’s an zone you want to train. You could use subscription woodchoppers or twisting rope crunches, two much largest exercises in my view.
But, side bends are expressly bad if you’re holding a weight in both hands. The weight on one side acts as a weigh to the other, and you’re really not getting much of a training effect at all. You’re basically just moving your soul from side to side and completely wasting your time. (In fact, read up on why ab workouts are a waste of time in specimen you’re interested)
In Conclusion
I hope this list has helped any of you who have or might still be making some of these gym mistakes above. Take a squint at your own training and see where you can replace some of these ineffective exercises with their increasingly effective, muscle-building counterparts.
