Are You Making Mistakes in Your Fitness Program?

Greetings Fellow Athletes!

As you work on your fitness goals, it’s important to ask yourself if your doing the right things in your fitness program. Recently, a friend of a friend complained she was frustrated in her lack of progress on her fitness goals. She was trying to build muscle mass and was working out 3-4 times a week doing resistance training… but not gaining muscle. She had looked at programs online and was doing split routines and doing 4 sets of 20 reps. I’m sure you are rolling your eyes… but I just smiled. I told her what you already know. Increase the weight and drop the reps. We also discussed nutrition and her protein intake. She said she was “getting enough” but wasn’t measuring her intake so she wasn’t sure. The answer of course is to monitor your diet if you really want to see results.

What about you? Are you making mistakes in your fitness program? Are you doing the right things to ensure you stay fit, and meet your goals?

When it comes to fitness programs, here are some things you need to be thoughtful of:

Are you focusing too much on one component of your fitness program and ignoring the rest?

Regardless of you goal, a good fitness program needs to consist of some key elements. As an example, walking is considered a fitness activity and I’m sure you all have heard about the 7500 steps and how that is supposed to keep you away from the doctor. Well, that is true… sort of. What the media doesn’t tell you is that you should be doing 150 minutes of moderate exercise (walking), PLUS, 75 minutes of aerobic conditioning per week. Now let’s say that you are doing both of these. Is that enough? The good news is that you will be aerobically fit, the bad news is that your agility, strength and core muscles are being ignored and will impact your quality of life as you get older.

The take away…

You need to ensure that your fitness program addresses ALL of the following:

  1. Warm ups and Stretching (5 Days/week)
  2. Cardio/Walking – (3-5 days/week of moderate AND vigorous aerobics)
  3. Core
    • Posture and Balance
    • Back strength
  4. Resistance (Strength, Endurance, or Muscle Development)
    • Helps build strong muscles and bones
  5. Agility
    • Fall prevention
  6. Power
    • For athletes or those who need to move quickly with force

All the best!
All the time!
JT

 

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