You pay for a gym membership and feel as safe as possible and when the person at the front desk asks you to If you know how to work the machines, you realize you could have used some help but you’re too shy to ask for it. Sound familiar in that case listen up doing certain exercises, wrong isn’t just useless it can injure you.
Squats
When done right, squats are a great exercise that works your entire lower body. Puts muscle on your legs and helps with posture. The most common mistakes while doing squats are rounding your back going only halfway down rising onto your toes and caving in your knees. To avoid all of these try to practice the proper form, keep your back in a neutral position with your shoulders back. Your chest up and your feet shoulder-width apart turned out at 45 degrees. As you descend, exercise your abs and glutes and keep the weight on your heels. As if you were sitting back into a chair keep your arms straight and in front of your stomach. When you’re doing it right your knees will push outward and your back will stay straight. If you want to add weights, use lighter weights first, and increase them as you gain strength.
Leg Press
The leg press seems like a rather simple machine that works out glutes and thighs. But if you’re using it wrong it won’t do. Right from the start you avoid going too low with your knees. Since this can injure your lower back. It’s important to keep your legs bent at 90 degrees and don’t lock your knees as you straighten them. Many people ignore their heel position and let it slide off the edge of the platform. Don’t make this mistake and keep them on the sled to keep your balance and avoid unnecessary pressure on your needs. Also, load just one weight to work with. You don’t benefit from flat repetitions.
Front and Lateral Shoulder Raises
The most common mistake with shoulder raises is to assume that the higher you go with the weights, the more effective the exercise will be. It’s wrong and your risk straining your muscles if you do that instead lift the weights to the height of your shoulders keeping your arms slightly forward. This way you won’t contract the shoulder blades back your pinkie finger should be a little higher than the others. During the exercise, your feet should be shoulder-width apart and your knees should be slightly bent.
Treadmill
Cardio is an important part of any exercise routine, and treadmill workouts are the perfect way to do it. When you’re on the treadmill avoid the temptation of holding onto the handrails been there done that it makes running easier and thus less effective and can mess up your posture. As you hunched over the machine if you can’t run without holding on try lowering the speed or incline level speaking of that don’t set it higher than 8% to save your back hips and ankles from a strain. They don’t deserve and never ever jump off a machine that’s still in motion. This might sound funny and obvious but it’s one of the most widespread causes of gym injuries.
Stomach Crunches
Anyone who wants a tight stomach will grind if you’re one of these people but can’t see results in your abs. You just might be doing crunches the wrong way. Don’t tuck your chin into your chest. Like many people do this. Strains the deck and stays closer to the floor about 3 inches off the mat. Should be fine take your time going slower will help you do the exercise properly and engage your core to the max. 10-reel crunches are better for your body.
Triceps Dips
Triceps dips don’t cause the shoulder injury that many people fear. If you do them correctly, keep your torso and bum close to the step or bench chair. You’re looking out on this way you won’t overextend your shoulders. It’s okay to bend your knees a bit if you can’t do it with straight legs. But don’t try to make things easier by moving further from the base. Go down bending at the elbow and move back up contracting the triceps to make them work hard.
Rower
Both rowing in the open water and on rowing, machines are great calorie burners. Affecting all the muscles in your body. The right technique is the key to success with this exercise. When you row just with your arms. You’re exposing your upper body to too much pressure and can injure your back and shoulders. Try to split your efforts in a proportion of 60% going from your legs and the remaining 40% from your core and arms. This mental splitting of the pressure on your body parts should help keep you engaged, sit tall on the rower avoid slouching, don’t go for speed over power, make long and controlled roads, don’t forget about syncing up your rhythm with your breath. It’s important for any rhythmic activity to exhale through the mouth as you go back and inhale through the nose on reset.
Push-Ups
Extend your elbows too far as you move with your hips instead of your whole body. Bending your back and neck and going only halfway down are the most common mistakes. People make while doing push-ups are you guilty of any of those, I am to avoid them in the future. Try to keep your back straight and let your arms do. All the moving work keeps your hands parallel to your chest on the floor. Your head should be a neutral position and your move should be slow and control. When your chest reaches the surface, press up until your arms stop.
Bicep Curls Dumbbell and Barbell
What’s the best way to get toned arms? Most people would say bicep curls. However, they won’t do you much good if you curl your wrists upward. Drop the weights too quickly during exercise or swing them up, touching your shoulders and back. Instead to give your biceps a proper workout imagines. There’s a string running from your shoulder to the weight you’re lifting that string should help you move the weight from your hand to your shoulder and your biceps will squeeze at the top of that movement. It’s okay to either keep your wrist straight or somewhat loose. It’s just important that you don’t work and injure the wrist joint.
Cable Triceps Extensions
You can do this with an EZ bar binding or rope, but either way, you need to press your elbows firmly against your ribs. They shouldn’t be going back and forth with the weights. Try not to stand too straight during this exercise. Instead, bend forward slightly to give your body a full range of motion and full extension.
Chin-Ups Pull-Ups
Perhaps the biggest surprise on the list pull-ups and chin-ups are the exercises. Most people do wrong just because they believe there’s no way to mess them up. In fact, rocking your body while moving up and down is not strengthening your core and legs or collapsing. In fact, you are doing it wrong, your freedom of movement is important too. So, you’ve got to make sure you go both low and high enough. A good starting position is a dead hang with fully extended arms, you can keep them at shoulder width for pull-ups and chin-ups need a narrower grip. You start with retracting the shoulder blades then you pull hard engaging your biceps, back muscles, and elbows. If you’re doing chin-ups keep your chin over the bar for pull-ups just try to make it as high as you can to become a pro at it. You can practice on a late machine at first when it’s too hard to handle. Try jumping into a chin-up or push-up and holding the position for as long as possible, then slowly descend.
So, were you doing any of these exercises wrong? Let me know down in the comments and share it with a friend.